An anonymous reader writes "Newt Gingrich as part of his 'American Solutions for Winning the Future' program selected pinkvisual.com's Allison Vivas as entrepreneur of the year for 2009. An aide for Mr. Gingrich faxed out the invitation to the awards ceremony with a letter expressing his anticipation of meeting her 'face-to-face' and getting her ideas and opinions. Newt apparently received criticism for nominating the head of a web based porn power-house for this award from the media and political circles and he has rescinded the invitation."

A company has come up with a new dating service which allows couples to experience the ups and downs of a relationship before they are even together. Singles can go to a Staffordshire theme park and have speed dates on a rollercoaster. Morwenna Angove, sales and marketing director of the park, said, "We pride ourselves on offering our visitors the ultimate day out or short break and have an amazing combination of adrenalin-inducing rides and attractions. We're confident that combining such thrilling experiences with the added exhilaration of meeting a potential new partner will ensure the most memorable date ever."

Over the years kids have come up with some creative ways to avoid having their parents find out about their bad grades, but a 11-year-old Alabama boy has been crowned excuse champion. The boy faked his own kidnapping to avoid bringing home a bad report card. He claimed that a man in a red, beat-up car grabbed him after school and forced him into the vehicle. The boy said that he was able to escape but had to leave his book bag, which contained his report card, behind. After some police questioning about the incident he confessed to making up the whole story.

TheClockworkSoul writes "According to both the BBC and NewScientist, showering may be bad for your health. Apparently, dirty shower heads can be an ideal breeding ground for Mycobacterium avium, a bug responsible for a type of pulmonary disease more prevalent than tuberculosis in developed countries, cases of which have risen in parallel with the rise in showering. Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbor significant levels of the critter."

jerryatrix writes "Legends of the New Zealand Maori tell of giant man-eating birds. New scientific evidence proves that these birds did exist and were around the same time as humans in New Zealand. From the article, 'Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago.'"

An insurance company using a pre-existing conditions clause to deny a claim is nothing new; but classifying a victim of domestic violence as having a pre-existing condition is. Half of the largest insurance companies have used domestic violence as a factor when deciding whether to extend coverage. I look forward to a time when I can spend my days perfectly still, inside a box of packing peanuts to avoid higher insurance premiums.

Foot-in-Mouth writes "New Scientist reports that girls are more "primed" to fear spiders and snakes, compared to boys. Infant boys and girls were shown pairs of images, a fearful and a happy object (such as a spider and a flower), measuring the boys' and girls' dwell times on the images. And in another similar test, normally happy objects (such as a flower) were given a fearful face and fearful objects were given a happy face. The results of these two tests suggested to the researcher that girls are not wired to fear spiders, for example, but rather girls are wired to more quickly learn to fear dangerous animals. The researcher, David Rakison at CMU, 'attributes the difference to behavioural differences between men and women among our hunter-gatherer ancestors. An aversion to spiders may help women avoid dangerous animals, but in men evolution seems to have favoured more risk-taking behaviour for successful hunting.' This reminds one of men's obsession with video games. Will game designers use this information to tweak video games for gender, either to make the games more or less frightening?"

Proving it's never too late to quit, 102-year-old Winnie Langley has decided to quit smoking cigarettes. Winnie had her first smoke in 1914 and has gone through about five cigarettes a day since. Mrs Langley says, "Everyone used to smoke in those days, you did it to cope. We didn't know about the health problems. I just don't fancy it any more. My eyesight is failing so in a few years' time I might not be able to see the pack."

Some might call the new marketing scheme at The Attic bar in Newcastle brilliant, while others might say it is bordering on criminal negligence. At the end of the night the patron with the highest blood-alcohol level wins free entry to the next week's event. The promotion does have a responsible side. Anyone who is found to be under the legal limit after blowing into the bar's breathalyzer at last call gets their tab wiped clean.

A UK government organization, The Independent Safeguarding Authority, has started a new anti-paedophile database that takes into account lifestyles, relationships and beliefs when assessing the backgrounds of applicants, instead of just the usual criminal record check. The new guidelines allow the agency to consider unproven allegations made in newspaper reports, allegations from members of the public, as well as monitoring internet chatrooms and websites such as Facebook for evidence to use against applicants. Anyone judged to be a danger because of things like having no friends, or having a complicated private life, is banned from working with children, the homeless, or the elderly.

55-year-old engineer Sandy Sanderson has come up with a series of classic car models that are made out of old beer cans. After he was badly injured in a motorcycle accident Sandy started the empty can project. So far he has made buggies, vans, roadsters and sports cars. Mr Sanderson said, "While I was off work, after the accident, I had the time to try making a racing car from drinks cans. I have always looked at the bottoms of cans and thought 'That would make a really neat half wheel.' The plans for each car take around three or four weeks to complete and then around 80 hours to build each one depending on how detailed they are. I actually don't drink much because I spill most of it."

In an attempt to teach safe depositing practices, students at the Institute of Technology Tallaght in south Dublin were offered tickets to attend an "exotic" show for opening a new account with Ulster Bank. After parents accused the bank of "stooping to a new low" to attract young customers, and a women's group raised concerns, the bank canceled the promotion. "In line with Ulster Bank's ongoing support for student events across the country, we can confirm that as part of our student campaign in IT Tallaght we promoted a freshers' week event to be held at the Metro bar. Ulster Bank has no involvement in the organisation of this event and once the nature of the event was realised, the bank immediately withdrew any association with the event," said a spokeswoman.

Having given up on digging his way out with a spoon or launching himself with a giant catapult, Jean-Pierre Treiber, one of France's highest-profile prisoners, escaped by packing himself in a cardboard box. The box was loaded with many others on a truck for a 100 mile journey to to the Yonne region, southeast of Paris. Somewhere during the ride Treiber broke out of the box an made his escape. "We're searching the places where he used to hunt," said a policeman. "But he might well have fled further afield."

An anonymous reader writes "Roger Rude, a retired Sonoma County sheriff's lieutenant, is still fighting a speeding ticket his step-son, Shaun Malone, received in 2007. Shaun Malone was allegedly going 62 mph in a 45-mph zone, according to a Petaluma police officer. To the officer's surprise, Malone was using a GPS tracking device which reported his speed to an online database every 30 seconds. At the time of stop, the GPS reported Malone's speed at 45 mph. Rude has been helping Malone fight the speeding ticket for over two years. The Petaluma Police Department has spent $15,000 in the prosecution of this case. The case is now in the hands of the Commissioner."

AshokaTECH writes "A piece of plastic tubing is taped to an egg beater as replacement for expensive high tech equipment that is used to separate blood into different components that can be tested. From the article, 'The cheap, portable and readily-available egg beater can be used at the point of care, meaning that health workers can diagnose illness in remote areas. The technique also uses smaller volumes of blood than regular centrifuges.'"

inject_hotmail.com writes "The results are in: it's faster to send your data via an airborne carrier than it is through the pipes. As discussed Tuesday, a company in South Africa called Unlimited IT, frustrated by terribly slow Internet speeds, decided to prove their point by sending an actual homing pigeon with a "data card" strapped to its leg from one of their offices to another while at the same time uploading the same amount of data to the same destination via their ISPs data lines. The media outlet reporting this triumph said that it took the pigeon just over 1 hour to make the 80km/50mile flight, whereas it took over 2 hours to transfer just 4% of that data."

Death Metal writes "While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period."

Residents of the Ravenwood House apartments in Queens couldn't take the stench coming from one of the apartments anymore so they called the police. Officers and a New York Fire Department hazmat team went into the apartment to remove the decomposing body they expected to find, only to discover a very dirty and very angry 69-year-old Ming Li Sung. Ming was upset that the authorities had disturbed the world of rotting garbage he had been building for himself. "When they started trying to clear away some of the trash to get in, he popped up inside, yelling, 'Get out! Get out!'" said Ray West, who lives across the hall.

And they said all those years of beer drinking and sitting on the couch wouldn't lead to anything worthwhile.

definate writes "Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a stormwater drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Slashdot worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia's 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of 'Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a stormwater drain, really need help, OMG!'. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."