On Tuesday night's "Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert had fun with Bill O'Reilly's "Inside Edition" meltdown, showing "never-before-seen" mock footage of his own past as midday anchor at WPTS in Patterson Springs, NC. Watch as Colbert freaks out over the words written on the teleprompter in true O'Reilly fashion (and throws in a Brian Williams shout-out as well): link

"As for the Frogs and their omen, Chinese scientists stated animals have much better sense than human on detecting the natural disasters like this. Animals always know first. I like frogs. I always feed them cat food when I am in Florida"

On May 5th, many Chinese locals noticed thousands of frogs on the move. They were seen traveling without fear of traffic as they crossed streets in mass floods.

Many Chinese sensed the migration as a bad omen of a coming natural disaster, but the Chinese government told them that it was just a natural migration for the purpose of propagation. This calmed the people and no one took the omen very seriously.

On Monday, 12th of May, at about 2:45pm, central China region recorded a 7.8-magnitude quake which occured near Wenchuan County, Sichuan province, that killed nearly 10,000 people.

 

 "I wonder whether there is any Olympic athlete in the world who would have voted to exclude this brave man.  I doubt it."

In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced Friday that double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius will have a chance to represent South Africa at the Beijing Olympics this summer.

CAS overturned a Jan. 14 ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations barring the 21-year-old from competing against able-bodied runners and said it goes into effect immediately.

"As you can imagine, I have been struggling to hide my smile for the last half an hour," Pistorius told reporters in Milan, Italy. "I can definitely say the truth has come out. We have the opportunity once again to chase my dream of participating in an Olympics, if not in 2008 then in 2012 [in London]."

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Today May 15, is Bike To Work Day in the San Francisco Bay Area. A persistent rumor claims that riding a bike is actually less efficient than driving a car if you account for the energy that goes into producing the food/drink that "fuels" a cyclist. The Sierra Club's "Mr. Green" calls bullshit on that. From the Sierra Club: 

My biking experience 

"I ride all over New York City. I wear my helmet  when I ride now. Avoid brain damage. I am not sure about riding to work. I do not have to commute far. If I did, I would take the subway."

Even with pricier commodities like beef, the biker rides cheaper than the driver. A pound and a half of cheap, greasy hamburger, sans bun, could power the cruise in question, at a lower cost than gasoline.

The ethanol "alternative"? Well, not really. Instead of burning ethanol in engines, from a transportation standpoint we're far better off ingesting the stuff. Driving 48 miles takes more than two gallons of ethanol, whereas only eight ounces of liquor, a mere half-pint of vodka, can fuel a cyclist for the same distance. Happy trails! link

 

Not only is stretching important for flexibility, it is CRITICAL for massive, rapid muscle growth. I stretch everyday before I hit the gym.

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not the first thing that pops into o your head. But did you know that stretching plays a critical role in building muscle?

Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough connective tissue known as fascia. Fascia is important for holding your muscles in their proper place in your body.

But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle growth. Think for a moment about your muscles. You train them and feed them properly. They want to grow and will grow but something is holding them back. They have no room to grow!

Because fascia is so tough, it doesn’t allow the muscle room to expand. It is like stuffing a large pillow into a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle won’t change regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat because the connective tissue around your muscles is constricting the muscles within.

The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg is riddled with fascia because of its tremendous weight-bearing duties in the body. It is because of this fascia that many trainers have great difficulty developing their calves.

The solution: stretching.

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Rising global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones, according to research presented today at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA). Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, particularly in warmer climates, and global warming will exacerbate this effect. As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition.

 The southern United States is considered "the stone belt" because these states have higher incidences of kidney stones. Rising global temperatures could expand this region; the fraction of the U.S. population living in high-risk stone zones is predicted to grow from 40 percent in 2000 to 50 percent by 2050. This could lead to an increase of one to two million lifetime cases of stone disease.

"A post I found describing the pain from having  kidney stones. My advice is to drink tons of water with lemon. The lemon breaks down the stone or stones, before they deveop and cause intense pain.""Friday morning I woke up with fucking unbearable pain in the lower left side of my back. I could hardly breathe because of how much it hurt.

I call someone to take me to the ER and by the time I get there praying to god for someone to just knock me the fuck out.
But I've gotta answer some questions of course before I get some sweet sweet pain medication makng me want to grab a nurse a strangle them. I know they weren't doing anything other than their job, I was just in hella fucking pain.

I finally give them all the info they need and they stick that IV in my arm and proceed to give me something for the pain. After that I had a catscan showing them that I had a 6mm (not very big) kidney stone that I'm currently trying to pass.

They send me home with some pain pills and a "good luck on passing that stone!". Really wish that would have went in and crushed that fucker while I was there dammit because I was in the exact same amount of pain this morning as I was on friday.

Seriously after being attacked with a baseball bat that required staples in my head, breaking fingers ect. a kidney stone eclipses all pain that i've endured by far. So, um anyone else ever experienced the joy of a kidney stone? if so tell me how it rated compared to other physical pains you've endured."

A New York Greenwich Village restaurant has settled a lawsuit with a lesbian who was chased out of the women’s bathroom and forced to leave by a bouncer because she looked masculine.

 

 

 

Lawsuits for everything. I know of a woman who says she was electrocuted by changing a light bulb in a hotel. She says the electricity is stuck in her hands now and has a big lawsuit over it. I bet she wins some money.

 

Here's a great dance mix version of the Bill O'Reilly freak-out video that made the rounds this week.

Language is salty. Bill  wanted to date my mom when she was single. She said he was a pain in the ass.

Canadian singer and songwriter Neil Young is rockin' in the bug world after an American biologist named a new species of trapdoor spider after his favourite musician. "I am terrified of spiders"

East Carolina University biologist Jason Bond calls the new species Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

"There are rather strict rules about how you name new species," Bond said in a statement.

"As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice."

The 62-year-old veteran rocker — whose hits include Rockin' in the Free World, Heart of Gold and Old Man — rose to fame in the 1960s with the band Buffalo Springfield and later, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

In recent years, the Toronto-born singer has become a vocal social activist and an anti-war advocate with CDs such as Living with War.

 

Bond discovered the new spider species in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007. The trapdoor spider tends to live in burrows and build trap doors to seal off their living quarters

I saw My Blueberry Nights last night at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. The movie is magnificent. It is struggling, delicate, intelligent and tender. Another masterpiece from Wong Kar Wai.

The original Angelika Film Center & Café opened in New York City's Soho district in 1989. It was the only place to see independent films in New York at that time. I have seen some of my favorite movies there. The Angelika in New York City is the flagship cinema, and in 1997 Angelika opened a theater in Houston, Texas. In 2001, an Angelika opened in the very popular Mockingbird Station in Dallas, Texas and most recently in 2004, an Angelika opened in Plano, Texas.

The Angelika New York has been a hub for independent cinema since it opened, and many filmmakers across the country hold it in high regard as one of the premier places to debut their films. The theater has six screens. The lobby area houses a fully operational cafe that neighborhood locals use as a restaurant.

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is Wai's his first English language film, starring singer Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz. The story follows Elizabeth (Jones), a young woman who travels across America to escape a recent heartbreak and encounters a series of odd jobs and off-beat characters along the way.