Rare Giant Salamander in Kyoto
On the 4th of July a normally nocturnal dog-sized Giant Salamander decided to take a walk alongside the Kamogawa River in down-town Kyoto, Japan. People were apparently so shocked by the sight of the rare creature that the police were summoned to the scene.
There are only three species of Giant Salamander in the world: The North American Hellbender (AKA "snot otter", "devil dog", "mud-devil", "grampus", "Allegheny alligator", "mud dog", and "leverian water newt") which grow to around two feet in length; the Japanese Ōsanshōuo ("giant pepper fish" because of the peppery smell they exude) which can be five feet long; and the Chinese Giant Salamander which can reach six feet in length.
The Ōsanshōuo live in clear rivers and streams, have very poor eyesight and hunt fish, frogs and small mammals using special sensory cells which cover their skin to detect minute vibrations in the water. Once collected for food and now with their habitat under threat, the species is classified as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
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Troy, Missouri UFO Sighting
My name is James, I am currently residing in Troy, Missouri. I am writing to you to report an Unknown Aerial Phenomenon that I and a co worker witnessed last night.
Last night about 9:40 pm I was taking a break and having a cigarette while working at a local convenience store. I spotted a ball of orange light in the southwest part of the sky. I assumed it was a plane until I had watched for about half a minute. I began to suspect it wasn't a plane when I could not discern any blinking red or green lights. I watched as it traveled in a northeastern path. It appeared to be at least a couple of thousand feet up, maybe higher. After another thirty seconds or so I poked my head inside the store and said to my coworker "Hey, do you want to see a UFO?" My coworker joined me outside as there was no one in the store. We both watched as it traveled overhead. My coworker said "That does not look like any plane I have ever seen." I agreed. Even when the light passed directly overhead there was no engine noise as would be expected from an airplane or helicopter. We observed the phenomenon until it passed out of sight behind some trees to the east of the strip mall complex the store is located in. I have no idea what it was, it definitely not a plane, helicopter, hot-air balloon or a meteor.
NOTE: OK folks...any ideas what this may have been? Possibly a satellite? Just another orange orb sighting. Lon
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Chinese literally work 'themselves to death'...example:
Chinese financial regulators say one of their staff who worked himself to death by regularly staying in the office until midnight before collapsing from the stress of trying to get a report done on deadline is "an example to everyone".
Li Jianhua, 48, worked for the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission for 26 years and was found dead in front of his completed report after working through the night to meet the early morning deadline.
Now a statement by the regulatory commissions management committee has praised the dead man as an example that everybody else should follow.
China is facing an epidemic of overwork, yet far from tackling the problem, it is seemingly being actively encouraged if one looks at the statement from the dead man's employers.
They said: "We can all learn from Comrade Li Jianhua, who always had firm ideals and beliefs, who showed that he was an employee who was loyal to the cause of the Party and the people, who gave an unremitting struggle to perform his best and to sacrifice everything. It was done with the goal of enhancing the quality of our work. Comrade Li Jianhua did long overtime, night and day, and put all his energy and passion into the regulatory business."
About 600,000 Chinese a year die from working too hard, with a daily death toll of 1,600. Microblogging website Weibo is also filled with complaints about stressed-out lives and chatter about reports of others, young and old, worked to death. Asians even have a word for death-by-overtime "guolaosi" in Chinese and "karoshi" in Japanese.
An employee in Li’s department said they all regularly worked until midnight or later. He asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
Li apparently had an attack of shingles — often related to stress — in the days before he died but did not go to the doctor because "he didn’t have any time," Bloomberg says. - AustrianTimes
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Cloaked 'assassin' is stalking German town
Police in Germany are attempting to quell hysteria after reported sightings of a mysterious hooded figure near a school. An unknown individual is said to be stalking the southern German town of Rottweil, Baden-Württemberg, dressed as an 'assassin.' Dressed in the monk-like garb, the shrouded figure is causing alarm among younger residents.
Reported repeated sightings over the past ten days, including in the vicinity of a school, have earned the prowler the nickname "Kampfmönch" (warrior monk). Parents have taken a dim view of the presumed prankster after their children began complaining of nightmares. "You are spreading fear about going to school among primary school and older pupils," the publisher of the Neue Rottweiler Zeitung newspaper wrote in an open letter to the 'assassin,' urging the person to turn themselves in to the police.
"You have also alarmed a small town. You are all people talk about all day and many parents are busy at night too because their children cannot sleep." But police in the normally sleepy town of 25,000 residents were quick to dispel as fantasy claims that he or she was also carrying a blood-stained knife.
"There is no indication that this unidentified person presents any danger," stressed police chief Michael Schlüssler, adding that the fighting monk's costume was readily available on the internet. While he urged the mystery walker to desist, he said authorities could not take action against someone for simply wandering around in public in a costume. - Spiegel
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The Persecution of Witches, 21st-Century Style
Most people believe that the persecution of “witches” reached its height in the early 1690s with the trials in Salem, Mass., but it is a grim paradox of 21st-century life that violence against people accused of sorcery is very much still with us. Far from fading away, thanks to digital interconnectedness and economic development, witch hunting has become a growing, global problem.
In recent years, there has been a spate of attacks against people accused of witchcraft in Africa, the Pacific and Latin America, and even among immigrant communities in the United States and Western Europe. Researchers with United Nations refugee and human rights agencies have estimated the murders of supposed witches as numbering in the thousands each year, while beatings and banishments could run into the millions. “This is becoming an international problem — it is a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe,” Jeff Crisp, an official with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told a panel in 2009, the last year in which an international body studied the full dimensions of the problem. A report that year from the same agency and a Unicef study in 2010 both found a rise, especially in Africa, of violence and child abuse linked to witchcraft accusations. Read more at NY Times
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Mission Viejo UFO sightings
Rick Phillips continues reporting on the Mission Viejo, CA UFO sightings at Mission Viejo UFO Videos
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