Fish dead by the millions!

LOS ANGELES —

Biologists have tentatively concluded that the fish died from oxygen deprivation after being driven by a storm into a closed-off pier area, California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan told Reuters.

"It looks like they just swam in the wrong direction and ended up in a corner of the pier that doesn't have any free-flowing oxygen in it," Hughan said.

"There's nothing that appears to be out of sorts, no oil sheen no chemicals, no sign of any kind of illegal activity," Hughan said. "As one fisherman just told me, this is natural selection."

Hughan said such incidents were rare but not unheard of.

While biologists investigated, authorities were beginning the job of removing the fish from the water, using buckets and nets.

A skip loader then carried them to big trash bins. Officials initially estimated there were millions of fish, but Fish and Game roughly estimated about a million.

City officials estimated the cleanup would cost $100,000. Fire Chief Dan Madrigal said the fish would be taken to a landfill specializing in organic materials.

On the water, nature was tackling the problem in other ways.

"The seals are gorging themselves," Hughan said.

Large groups of other fish could be seen nibbling at the floating mats of dead creatures.

"The sea's going to recycle everything. It's the whole circle-of-life thing," Hughan said.

Sardines and other small fish in the hundreds of thousands washed up dead overnight in the harbor area of Redondo Beach, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, puzzling authorities and triggering a cleanup effort. Local television news footage showed the mass of dead fish, said by a police spokesman to be about a foot deep on the surface, choking the waters in and around dozens of private boat slips in the King Harbor Marina.

Mcdonalds has been beat!

There are now more Subway restaurants in the world than McDonald's (MCD) locations.

Subway had 33,749 shops by the end of last year, The Wall Street Journal reports, while McDonald's had 32,737. That makes Subway the largest restaurant chain in the world. The sandwich giant has 600 locations in the Los Angeles area alone.

And so McDonald's loses a title it has held since the early 1970s, when extensive advertising and a massive growth spurt helped it become the largest fast-food chain. But McDonald's appears to be a gracious loser in this case. We "are committed to being better, not just bigger," a spokeswoman told the Journal.

How did Subway do it? By adopting the same strategy that propelled McDonald's decades ago. It spends heavily on advertising to stay in the American diner's consciousness. And it has expanded rapidly through the same franchisee model that McDonald's favors

Rebels advancing toward capital fight Libya forces.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan warplanes launched airstrikes and forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi engaged in fierce ground battles Sunday with a rebel force advancing west toward the capital Tripoli along the country's Mediterranean coastline.

Government forces attacked rebels in Bin Jawad, a town between rebel-held Ras Lanuf in central Libya and Sirte on the coast, rebel fighters said. The area could prove to be a decisive battleground.

Associated Press reporters witnessed airstrikes on the rebel forces and heavy fighting on the ground. One fighter, returning wounded from Bin Jawad, said the Gadhafi loyalists had attacked with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Asked what he had seen, he replied: "Death." Distraught, he would not say any more.

Ambulances rushed casualties from Bin Jawad to Ras Lanuf, an oil port 410 miles east of Tripoli. The rebels took Ras Lanuf on Friday.

Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown, is less than 60 miles west of Bin Jawad.

Earlier, thousands of Gadhafi's supporters poured into the streets of Tripoli, waving flags and firing their guns in the air in the Libyan leader's main stronghold. The city woke to the crackle of heavy machine-gun fire that rattled the capital before dawn.

Libyan authorities said the unusually heavy gunfire that began around 5:30 a.m. was celebratory, claiming that government forces had retaken the oil port of Ras Lanouf and the western city of Misrata. But residents in both cities said the opposition remained in control.

Some 2,000 people were in the streets Sunday and hundreds drove past the Bab al-Aziziya military camp where Gadhafi lives, waving flags and cheering. Armed men in plainclothes were standing at the gates, also shooting in the air. It was not known if Gadhafi was in Tripoli.

Life in meteorites??? Study stirs debate!

A field-emission scanning electron micrograph shows one of the filaments that was found in the Ivuna CI1 carbonaceous meteorite. The image includes labels for data about elemental composition. The bar at lower left shows the 1-micron scale. The filament looks similar to those seen in earthly cyanobacteria.
The new study, focuses on structures that look like the filaments that biologists typically see on micro-organisms known as cyanobacteria. Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, found the filamentary structures inside samples of meteorites that are thought to date back to the solar system's beginnings, more than 4 billion years ago.
If the structures are confirmed to be of biological but unearthly origin, that would serve as fresh evidence that life can make its way through outer space and "seed" planets, including our own.

Boys training to be suicide bombers!

KABUL, Afghanistan  — Boys almost always look up to their elder brothers and their friends, but what if your brother is a suicide bomber or one in training — do you want to train, too?

A new and disturbing video posted on YouTube that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times shows a group of Afghan or Pakistani Pashtun boys role-playing the last moments in the life of a suicide bomber. Whether it is meant as a rehearsal or as a form of propaganda for the Taliban is impossible to say, but the message is clear: This is something to aspire to.

Tiny game beats angry birds

There are no pigs to contend with here, but the dark of night is always on your heels and will bring your game to a stop if it catches you.
The game's graphics are "procedurally" generated, which means the colorful landscape changes randomly every time you play through. And the music in "Tiny Wings" is cotton-candy cute in all the right ways. All in all, the game offers that perfect blend of iDevice simplicity combined with the kind of hard-to-master skills to keep you coming back over and over again.If you don't get the appeal of "Tiny Wings" on your first play through, I recommend that you give it a few more tries. Because once you get the rhythm of the thing — learn how to really launch that bird into the sky — you will be hooked.

Police get tanks?

America's most in-demand police vehicle is a 10-officer 16,000-pound armored tank that takes bullets like Superman and drives 80 mph. The federal government buys dozens each year for local police departments. Do America's local police need tanks?
Every day, America produces a fresh batch of barricaded gunmen, some of whom want to lure police into a shootout. Roughly 50 police officers are killed every year, most in shootings, and many during arrests or ambushes.
Which is where the Lenco BearCat G3 rolls in.
"If somebody looks out and sees a Ford Crown Victoria sitting out there, they may not take you very seriously," Warren County, Va., Sheriff Daniel T. McEathron told a local newspaper in October, "but if they look out the window and see this thing sitting there, they're going to know you're serious."
The BearCat G3 claims the vast majority of armored personnel carrier sales to SWAT teams in the United States. Fashioned from a Ford F-550 commercial truck chassis, Massachusetts-based Lenco builds about 200 such vehicles in year, in grades from "VIP SUV" to combat-ready with gun turrets. The massive roller is actually a smaller version of the BEAR, or Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle, which Lenco builds for armies and law enforcement agencies around the world.
Anytime there's a public shooting or standoff in an urban area, chances are a BearCat will be on the scene. It has option controls for battering rams, winches and even surviving a chemical weapons attack. With military-grade armor and the ability to take repeated hits from bullets up to .50 caliber, it's most frequently used as a rolling shield.
Last October, a gunman outside of Tyler, Texas, shot and killed his neighbor. When police arrived at his home, he unloaded at least 35 rounds from an AK-47 into a newly bought Lenco BearCat from close range. A police sniper killed the gunman; no one else was injured, and no bullets penetrated the BearCat.
The family-owned company had its start building armored bank trucks, but switched to security in the early '90s, offering an alternative to the surplus military vehicles larger police departments had used. Early purchases by the Los Angeles Police Department, along with the swelling number of the nation's 3,000 local police forces forming their own SWAT teams, gave Lenco a booming opportunity.
 Lenco
The BearCat G3 can hold 10 police officers, weighs 16,000 pounds and can hit speeds of 80 mph. The other reason for its popularity? Thanks to the U.S. government, most police departments now get their BearCats free.
In the wake of Sept. 11, Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama dramatically boosted Homeland Security spending; the Department of Homeland Security now hands out more than $3 billion a year in grants to boost anti-terrorism tools around the country. The Lenco BearCat — which starts at about $190,000 and can top $300,000 with options — can easily qualify as a necessary tool under several different grant programs, from disaster response to crime fighting.
Advertise | AdChoicesIn just the past year, federal grants bought BearCats for police and sheriff's departments from York County, Pa., to Pasadena, Texas, to Sparks, Nev. Police departments also often use money seized in drug cases for BearCats; under federal law, such cash can't be spent on their everyday costs, such as replacing worn-out cruisers.

Source
Msn.com

Libya Rebels capture a city near the countries capital

TRIPOLI, Libya — After a battle in which at least 30 civilians were killed Friday, forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had cornered rebels and claimed to have retaken a key city near the capital.

The rebels, for their part, claimed to have taken Ras Lanouf, a key oil port, while hundreds rallied in the capital Tripoli against Gadhafi. Live ammunition and tear gas were fired to break up the protest, witnesses said.
Friday's assault on Zawiya, about 30 miles west of Tripoli, appeared to be the strongest yet by Gadhafi's forces after repeated earlier forays against it were beaten back.
An improvised force of rebels had been pushed back to the central Martyrs Square in Zawiya,  a rebel spokesman said. "Many people were killed in Harsha, which is now occupied by them," rebel spokesman Youssef Shagan told Reuters by phone, referring to a small town outside Zawiya.
"They shot at civilians. We still control (Zawiya's) central square," he added. "They are four to five kilometres away."

In the morning, troops from the elite Khamis Brigade — named after the son of Gadhafi who commands it — bombarded the city's western edges with mortars, heavy machine guns, tanks and anti-aircraft guns, several residents said.
By the evening, they had also opened a front on the eastern side. Armed Zawiya residents backed by allied army units were fighting back.

"I have been to hospital less than 15 minutes ago," a Zawiya resident identified only as Mohamed told Reuters by telephone. "Dozens were killed and more were wounded. We have counted 30 dead civilians. The hospital was full. They could not find space for the casualties."

Mohamed said the Gadhafi forces used grenade-launchers, heavy machine guns and snipers on the rooftop of a new hotel in the town to fire at protesters while they marched after Friday prayers to demand the fall of the regime.

Bed Bugs are comin to town!

Here's some news to make your skin crawl Bedbug infestations will explode this year, particularly in the summer, experts say.
The bloodsuckers are already entrenched in the city and, like cockroaches, tend to thrive in July, August and September, said Jeffrey White, a research entomologist for Bedbugcentral.com.
"I firmly believe that this year is going to be worse than last year," White said at a bedbug seminar Wednesday
"If we combine the seasonal trend, with the bugs getting more and more embedded in our community, that allows the bugs to make that resurgence all the more stronger."
Nearly 7% of adults in the city - 404,000 people - reported bedbug infestations in 2009, the Health Department said.
While cities are particularly vulnerable to bedbugs, even remote areas like Alaska have reported an 800% increase, White said.
"It's not just a New York problem," he said.
Once you've got bedbugs, it can cost $1,200 to get rid of them professionally, White said.
"The big problem is not getting bit, it's bringing them home," said Adam, president of BugZip, a $10-$20 plastic covering that shields luggage in hotel rooms.
Though a bedbug's bite is thought not to spread disease, the thought of having your blood sucked while asleep can be psychologically devastating, White said.
"I've seen people completely emotionally crumble from dealing with it," White said. "People just need to be educated. It's not going away anytime soon."
Preventing bedbug bedlam in your home

• Inspect hotel room mattresses, bedding, furniture and closet hangers for signs of infestation.
• Never put clothes in hotel drawers or on a hotel floor.
• Travel with resealable bags large enough to hold clothes.
• Use dissolvable laundry bags when travelling. The bags can go straight from your suitcase to the washing machine.
• If in doubt, don't bring belongings in the house.
• Check your laptop. The bedbugs are attracted to the heat and body oils on the computer.
• Periodically inspect cribs, mattresses, box spring, head and foot boards and under the bed for signs of bedbugs. "After they've fed at night, they go and hide in the cracks and the crevices of the headboard and wait for you to come back to bed," said Gemma a Home owner of the Nashville-based Holmes Pest Control.
• Check the alarm clock on your nightstand, along with electrical outlets. "It's a warm spot," Holmes said.

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