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Giant yellow duck explodes again in Taiwan


Yahoo! News
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 07:46 UTC
Gaint Duck
© AFP Photo
This handout photograph taken and released by The Kaohsiung City Government on September 19, 2013, shows Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's rubber duck at a harbour in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung
A giant yellow duck on display in a northern Taiwan port exploded Tuesday, just hours before it was expected to attract a big crowd to count down the new year.

The 18-metre-tall (59-feet) duck on show at Keelung burst around noon and deflated into a floating yellow disc, only 11 days after it went on display.

It was the second time that a giant inflatable duck -- a bath toy replica created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman -- had burst while on show in Taiwan.

"We want to apologise to the fans of the yellow rubber duck.... the weather is fine today and we haven't found the cause of the problem. We will carefully examine the duck to determine the cause," organiser Huang Jing-tai told reporters.

Organisers had planned to stay open past midnight Tuesday in anticipation of a large new year crowd.

The Central News Agency cited an eyewitness as saying the rubber bird might have fallen victim to eagles which scratched it with their claws.

Three Taiwanese cities exhibited their versions of the yellow duck in 2013. But all were forced temporarily to suspend the exhibit due to bad weather or damage.

Comment: Though one can understand this phenomena with mundane scientific explanation, one may also wonder whether universe is telling us some thing. If so, is it 'Party is over' ?

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Cardboard Box

New York's homeless wait for Bill de Blasio to put words into action

Joanna Walters
The Guardian
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 13:16 UTC
ny homeless
© Mark Lennihan/AP
A destitute man sleeps on the sidewalk under a holiday window display, in New York.
From Harlem to the Bowery, the sentiment is the same: the man whose campaign told a tale of two cities has plenty of work to do

On a chilly Christmas Eve, it took only a minute for a group of staff and residents at a homeless shelter in Harlem to list what the city's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, needs to do when he takes office on 1 January.

"Reinstate rent-subsidy vouchers, bring back after-school programs to keep the kids away from drugs and violence, supply more affordable housing for low-income families, sort out food stamps," one woman rattled off sternly, as she dashed from the anonymous red-brick building on a quiet residential block to talk to a staff member on a cigarette break. "You want me to go on?"

The woman wasn't a user of the facility, listing demands for herself. She was a security guard, angry at the deterioration in the circumstances of the people she is employed to supervise and protect. Her colleague, shivering in the freezing temperatures, flicked his cigarette butt into the road and pointed to a building across the street - a typical example of low-income housing subsidized by the city but owned and run by a private landlord, he said.

"Housing like that is becoming less affordable. Landlords used to take families that made as little as $17,000 per household but now they demand $30,000 or sometimes $40,000, and who can afford that on minimum wage or disability payments? That keeps people in the shelters."

Comment: Perhaps Bloomberg should spend some time out on the cold streets of New York City living in the same conditions as the homeless do - just to experience, personally, how much 'better off' the poor and homeless are in New York, as opposed to elsewhere.
Don't hold your breath for that to happen.

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Bad Guys

Ariel Castro's neighbor, Elias Acevedo, pleads guilty to raping his 3 daughters, murder

Scott Kaufman
The Raw Story
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 20:15 UTC
acevedo
In Cleveland on Monday, convicted sex offender Elias Acevedo Sr. pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated murder and 295 other counts related to kidnapping and the chronic sexual abuse of his three daughters.

Acevedo was convicted, in part, on DNA evidence from rape kits that were only tested in the wake of the Ariel Castro case. On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry, Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were rescued after having been kidnapped, held captive, raped and tortured by Castro for over a decade.

When investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigations' Violent Crime Task Force first presented Acevedo with evidence that he had chronically abused his three daughters for over thirty years, he denied having done so.

The FBI then confronted him with evidence that he was involved in the 1995 disappearance of Christina Adkins. At first, Acevedo denied any involvement in Adkins's disappearance, but when the FBI offered to remove the death penalty from the table, he confessed.
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Alarm Clock

USA: 'I fell asleep here' says 84-year survivor of fascist Germany

Dave Urbanski
The Blaze
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 19:13 UTC
Image
© Chaoscontrole.com
Toward the end of his Blaze Radio show Saturday, Buck Sexton received a phone call from a nearly 84-year-old woman who he said gave "one of the most compelling calls I've ever heard on any radio show."

Irma lives in Massachusetts today, but she was born in 1930 under German fascism. She said her father battled tyranny for years, culminating with his imprisonment under the Nazis and another stint behind bars "under the worst conditions" after communism took over in then-East Germany.

"He had his ideas and he wouldn't bend to them," she told Sexton in a strong German accent, her voice breaking at times. "He did everything he could to prevent them from coming into power."

But the tone of Irma's voice shifted to nearly tearful anguish after Sexton remarked that accounts like hers demonstrate that there is such a thing as tyranny, that there is such a thing as evil, and "people need to understand that."
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Palette

Antiques Roadshow' discovers $660 painting is $661,000 van Dyck masterpiece

Scott Kaufman
Raw Story
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 17:43 UTC
Image
The BBC One program Antiques Roadshow has discovered a "lost masterpiece" by 17th Century master Anthony van Dyck.

A priest in Nottingham, Father Jaime, had purchased the painting for $660, and brought it to a filming of Antiques Roadshow to be professionally appraised. Host Fiona Bruce initially thought the painting a fake, but something about it caught her eye.

She had just "spent weeks looking at nothing but Van Dyck paintings" with art expert Philip Mould, and suspected it might be genuine, so she called him in and he believed it was worth investigating.

After months of careful restoration, the pair consulted Van Dyck expert Christopher Brown, who verified it as a genuine Van Dyck worth approximately $661,000.
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Extinguisher

​Year of major train derailments ends with massive explosion after oil train derailment in North Dakota


valleynewslive.com
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 16:13 UTC
Image
© Brandy Pyle
A train is derailed west of Casselton, North Dakota. It happened at 35th Street and 154th Avenue Southeast just before 2:20 p.m. Monday.

No injuries have been reported so far. Several area emergency teams are on scene and are setting up an incident command center. A viewer who is about a half mile from the derailment tells Valley News Live she can see large flames.

Several train cars are on fire and huge plumes of black smoke can be seen for miles. Emergency crews are urging people to stay inside and a code red alert has been sent out to residents in a two mile radius of the accident.

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Eye 2

Woman stabs fiancé for choosing wrong wedding color scheme


WBTW
Thu, 26 Dec 2013 15:53 UTC
Image
© WIS-TV
Richland County deputies say a 34-year-old woman stabbed her fiance on Christmas Day after they argued over what colors should be used in their wedding.

Krysta James, who was charged in the incident near Blythewood, has been released on bond.

Investigators say the incident began when the man was trying to leave a home on Twin Pond Road after the argument.

Then, investigators say that is when James attacked him around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Deputies say the man was stabbed in the upper body, but his injuries weren't life threatening.

James is charged with criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. She was released from the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on a $10,000 bond.
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Bad Guys

Robber dies after bullet fired by partner ricochets off victim's face


NBC Bay Area
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 15:05 UTC
Image
© NBC Bay Area
Police say 16-year-old robbery suspect Clifton Chatman was killed during an attempted robbery in the 500 block of Alemany Boulevard near southbound Interstate Highway 280 on Dec. 14, 2013.
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred during a robbery gone wrong earlier this month in San Francisco, police said Friday.

Police arrested the teenage suspect Thursday on suspicion of murder and attempted robbery for the Dec. 14 fatal shooting. The teen's name is not being released because he is a juvenile, police said.

The shooting, which killed 16-year-old Clifton Chatman, occurred at about 11 p.m. during an attempted robbery in the 500 block of Alemany Boulevard near southbound Interstate Highway 280, according to police.

The robbery victim told police he was surrounded by a group of males.

One suspect demanded the victim's cellphone and one took out a handgun while others rifled through the victim's belongings, police said.
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Monkey Wrench

Arkansas man charged in connection with power grid sabotage

Jason Woodring
CNN
Sun, 13 Oct 2013 14:03 UTC
Image

Jason Woodring
A Jacksonville, Arkansas, man has been charged in connection with attacks on the power grid in a rural area of the state, the U.S. Justice Department said Saturday.

Jason Woodring, 37, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with destruction of an energy facility, the Justice Department said.

Woodring is accused of carrying out multiple acts of sabotage, targeting high-voltage power lines and a substation over a period of months, that knocked out power to thousands, the agency said.

Woodring was arrested Saturday after authorities found evidence similar to those used at one of the sabotage sites, authorities said.

"Interviews were conducted and information from these interviews was connected to previous grid attacks resulting in the arrest of Woodring," according to a statement released by the the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Comment: Woodring has since been convicted, rather quietly at that.

Investigators expected to find someone who really knew his stuff about electrical equipment... but instead caught a meth-head.

The 'Anonymous' signature left behind at one of the scenes is curious... Woodring doesn't exactly come across as an activist with a cause, so we wonder if there's more to this story than meets the eye.

Check out the extent of planning and efforts that went into these attacks by reading this affidavit from an FBI agent involved in the investigation.

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Eye 1

Arizona mother poisons her four kids and stabs ex-husband on Christmas day

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 11:43 UTC
connie villa
Police in Arizona have accused a Casa Grande mother of stabbing her ex-husband and then force-feeding narcotics to her four children - which killed her 13-year-old daughter - on Christmas day.

According to KNXV, 33-year-old Adam Villa contacted police on Christmas night to say that he had been stabbed by his wife, 35-year-old Connie Villa, and was driving himself to the hospital.

Officers responding to the scene found Connie Villa holding a knife to her chest. She had already suffered multiple stab wounds.

Daughter Aniarael Macias, age 13, was found dead in a bathroom. And investigators were able to determine that three other children also had trace amounts of opiates in their system, according to The Arizona Republic. The surviving children were ages 3, 5 and 8.
      Read More...
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