Video: Kobe's hangin', two-handed, over-the-head scoop shot

Fist bumps and cake to Navjot Productions for splicin' together what we were all thinking: Kobe Bryant's(notes) hanging, two-handed, over-the-head scoop shot against the Pistons was so Michael Jordan-esque it hurts.

"It was a lucky shot," Bryant said afterward with a shrug of his shoulders. "I just flicked it up and it went in."

Man says 30-foot 'monster' lurking in canals of Madeira Beach

There's something strange and big swimming in the canals of Madeira Beach along the Pinellas County coast. Those who have seen it say it's no fish and think it could be a sea serpent.

Russ Sittlow, 78, has seen it. He calls the creature "Normandy Nessie" because he lives on Normandy Road.

The retired engineer said he first saw "Nessie" in April.

"His head come up out of the water, and then he rolled up in a double roll behind him and he was long he was huge," he said of that first sighting.

Sittlow said he has seen two of the creatures in the canal, one very large, and the other a bit smaller. He estimates the largest one is at least 30 feet long.

Sittlow set up a surveillance camera to record video if the creatures came back. He said his camera recorded "Nessie" three times since September, the latest Saturday.

He showed the video to a reporter. It shows a dark form swimming along the surface of the water. It appears to be about 30 feet long. Another clip shows the creature splashing in the water.

"I don't know what it is," he said.

When a reporter asked if he thought it was really a monster, he hedged.

"No, no, well, call a monster what you will, it's something different, it's something strange, it's something I've never seen in salt water," he stated.

Sittlow's account of what he saw is backed up by neighbor Maria VanAiken, 47, who said she saw the "monster" this summer while on her back porch.

"I looked up and I saw this like huge-looking creature," she said, adding that it wasn't a manatee or dolphin.

"This huge thing just came out of the water," she said.

Her husband saw the creature later.

When pressed, Sittlow backed off his sea monster theory, but not totally.

"This is a snake I guarantee you, or a serpent like thing that looks like a snake," he explained. He thinks it could be an anaconda or a python or "a mutation there of."

State wildlife officials who have seen Sittlow's video believe the creature is a manatee.

Sittlow disagrees. Whatever is in the canal is dangerous, he said, and he doesn't recommend swimming there until it's positively identified.

*sources: www2.tbo.com

Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world

KOKONOGI, Japan – A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men's livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.

"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. "When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."

This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans — has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.

The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year — sometimes multiple times — in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.

In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.

Increasingly polluted waters — off China, for example — boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.

"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.

Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of the day's catch — packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam boxes for shipment to market.

In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set in the bay.

It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.

Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.

"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try, the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."

The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on the problem.

Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.

"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."

He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.

He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.

"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."

The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.

"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then," he said.

A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.

"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said. "There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.

Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea — which by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 — declined even as temperatures have hit record highs.

"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University. "But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water temperature."

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.

*photo source & news source: news.yahoo.com

Let's all Pray for Z 'The Dream' Gorres fast Recovery

* source: Philboxing.com


Kaya mo Yan Butchoy!

2nd quake shakes Indonesia after temblor kills 467

PADANG, Indonesia – A second powerful earthquake rocked western Indonesia on Thursday as rescuers struggled to reach survivors of the previous day's temblor, which killed at least 467 people and left thousands trapped under collapsed buildings.

The death toll from Wednesday's undersea quake of 7.6 magnitude was expected to rise further after rescuers dig through the rubble in heavily populated towns of Sumatra island. The second, 6.8-magnitude quake damaged additional buildings Thursday.

"This is a high-scale disaster," Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told Metro TV.

Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 and capital of West Sumatra province, became the immediate focus of relief workers.

At least 500 buildings in Padang collapsed or were badly damaged in the Wednesday evening quake, which also set off fires, said Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono.

A total of 467 people were confirmed dead and 421 seriously injured, said Tugiyo Bisri of the Social Affairs Ministry's crisis center. He said 376 deaths occurred in Padang, with rest of the deaths in four surrounding districts.

At least 80 people were missing at the 5-story Ambacang hotel in downtown Padang, said Indra, a paramedic who uses only one name. Rescuers, working in heavy rain, found two survivors and nine bodies in the hotel's rubble.

Terrified residents who spent a restless night were jolted by the fresh tremor on Thursday morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the inland quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 hit about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Padang at a depth of just under 20 miles (24 kilometers).

The second quake reportedly damaged 30 houses in Jambi, another Sumatran town. It was not yet clear if there were injuries, said Jambi Mayor Hasfiah, who uses only one name, like many Indonesians.

Collapsed or seriously damaged buildings in Padang included hospitals, mosques, a school and a mall. TVOne network footage showed heavy equipment breaking through layers of cement in search of more than 30 students it said were missing from the school where they were taking after-school classes.

Parents of missing students stayed up all night, waiting for signs of life under the rubble.

"My daughter's face keeps appearing in my eyes ... my mind. I cannot sleep, I'm waiting here to see her again," a woman, who identified herself only as Imelda, told TVOne, tears rolling down her face. She said her 12-year-old daughter Yolanda was in school to take science lessons.

"She is a good daughter and very smart. I really love her. Please God help her. I hope rescuers, everybody... can help her out of here. Please!" she said.

An unidentified boy told TVOne that he escaped from the top floor just as the three-story school crumpled. He said he was taking math lessons while many others were taking science courses.

Wednesday's temblor severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang. Thousands fled in panic, fearing a tsunami. The shaking was so intense that people crouched or sat on the street in fear.

Children screamed as an exodus of thousands of frantic residents fled in cars and motorbikes, honking horns.

The quake was felt hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Malaysia and Singapore, causing buildings there to sway.

The extent of damage in surrounding areas was still unclear due to poor communications. Indonesia, a poor, sprawling nation with limited resources, sits on a major geological fault zone and is frequently hit by earthquakes.

More than 3,000 people were killed in the last big earthquake in 2006 that hit Yogyakarta, a major city on the main island of Java.

The latest quakes came in the wake of a killer tsunami Tuesday that hit islands in the South Pacific, killing at least 120 people. Geologists said the two events were not related.

The Padang quakes were along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

Padang's mayor appealed for assistance on Indonesian radio station el-Shinta.

"We are overwhelmed with victims and ... lack of clean water, electricity and telecommunications," Mayor Fauzi Bahar said. "We really need help. We call on people to come to Padang to evacuate bodies and help the injured."

Thousands were believed trapped throughout the province, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis center.

The shaking felled trees and crushed cars in Padang. A foot could be seen sticking out from one pile of rubble. At daybreak, residents used their bare hands to search for survivors, pulling at the wreckage and tossing it away piece by piece.

The loss of telephone service deepened the worries of those outside the stricken area.

Hospitals struggled to treat the injured as their relatives hovered nearby.

Indonesia's government announced $10 million in emergency response aid and medical teams and military planes were being dispatched to set up field hospitals and distribute tents, medicine and food rations.

Local television reported more than two dozen landslides in the province. Some blocked roads, causing miles-long traffic jams of cars and trucks.

*source: news.yahoo.com

Sticky situation turns lovers into talk of town

Two secret lovers became the talk of the town in the southern Philippines Wednesday after they were found literally stuck to each other.

Doctors were at a loss on how to separate the two lovers, who had been stuck for more than 17 hours since Tuesday night, radio dzRH reported Wednesday afternoon.

The report quoted doctors at the Isulan town hospital in Sultan Kudarat province as saying the two lovers experienced penis captivus, a condition in which the muscles in the female organ clamp down on the male organ more firmly than usual, making it impossible for the man to withdraw his organ from the woman's.

Before experiencing the condition, the two lovers had a rendezvous at a local pension house in Isulan town Tuesday night.

The man, 32, was described as married and connected with the Department of Public Works and Highways. The woman, 20, was working at a local department store.

Initial investigation showed that the two experienced penis captivus at about 10 p.m., and decided to seek medical help at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, said the report.

Draped only in a blanket, the naked couple asked a tricycle driver outside the pension house to take them to a hospital.

At the hospital, doctors used a tranquilizer on the man to make his muscles contract, but still could not immediately separate the duo.

*source: gmanews.tv

Kanye West Has Truly Lost It This Time

You know that saying, it takes a village to raise a child?

Apparently, Kanye's village has failed him. He obviously doesn't have a real friend in the world. There does not appear to be anyone who can get through to him, to make him understand that he needs to curb his obnoxious behavior.

I thought it was a joke when Kanye showed up on the MTV Video Music Awards stage next to Taylor Swift, right in the middle of her acceptance speech for Best Female Video for "You Belong With Me." It was the first Moon Man for the 19-year-old country starlet, who has become an equally huge star in the pop world.

Click here to watch Kanye's outburst.

"I always dreamed about what it would be like to win one of these one day," Taylor said with surprise. "I never thought it would happen."

As Taylor continued, Kanye interrupted, saying he thought Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video was wrongly overlooked. "Hey Taylor, I'm really happy for you, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time."

Taylor looked humiliated. I felt humiliated for her. The audience booed him, and gave her a standing ovation.

I didn't expect Taylor to win that award, and I'm not upset about Kanye's opinion. However, bum-rushing the stage wasn't the appropriate time and place to express his disagreement.

Not only was Kanye's approach disrespectful, it was especially disrespectful because it was directed towards a woman--a teenage girl, actually. Taylor won't turn 20 until December. I can only imagine how her father feels. I'm sure he would like to have a talk to Kanye. I'm not related to her, and I'd like to have a talk with him.

If Kanye wants people to win the awards he thinks they deserve, he should create his own event. He should name it after his website, KanyeUniversecity.com, and webcast it.

Kanye is a guest at the MTV Video Music Awards. He does not determine the winners. The winners are determined by popular vote. Furthermore, aside from the fact that Taylor Swift is a top-selling artist, who has revolutionized teen country pop, she did not have any competition in this category as her competitors Beyonce, Lady GaGa, Pink, and Kelly Clarkson split the pop vote. Taylor had to get 100 percent of the country vote, plus some of the pop vote as well.

It's simple math that even a "College Dropout" should be able to figure out.

Ironically, a MTV writer joked that Kanye's rant was an indication that he might be inebriated. "Kanye West ruins Taylor Swift's big moment," the MTV.com editor wrote. "Further proof that he's on the Hennessy. In my humble opinion, that is."

MTV also reported that Perez Hilton and Hayley Williams started a #TeamTaylor trend on Twitter.

Pink tweeted about her annoyance with Kanye. "Kanye West is the biggest piece of sh-t on earth. Quote me," she wrote. "My heart goes out to Taylor Swift. She is a sweet and talented girl, and deserved her moment. She should know we all love her."

Kanye has previously made award show rants about Gretchen Wilson, Justice and Simian, as well as Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, but this was the worst.

I give credit to Taylor. She handled it gracefully. The audience countered him by giving her a standing ovation, and booed Kanye throughout the night whenever his name was mentioned.

Taylor performed "You Belong With Me" live just minutes later. I watched, wondering if she would feel flustered, and if it would show in her performance. But it didn't.

I think she channeled that negative energy into a positive. Good for her.

Fortunately, Taylor got another chance to complete her acceptance speech. When Beyonce accepted the Best Video Award for "Single Ladies," she invited Taylor back on stage.

"Wow, this is amazing," Beyonce said when receiving her award. "I remember being 17-years-old and up for my first MTV award with Destiny's Child. It was one of the most exciting moments in my life. So, I'd like for Taylor to come out and have her moment."

Taylor then joined Beyonce on stage and recited her acceptance speech, only making a subtle reference to the incident. Before rattling off her special thanks, she said, "Maybe we can try this again."

After the awards, Kanye posted an apology to Taylor on his website, KanyeUniversecity.com. "I'M SOOOOO SORRY TO TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER FANS AND HER MOM," Kanye wrote on his site, AP reported. "I SPOKE TO HER MOTHER RIGHT AFTER AND SHE SAID THE SAME THING MY MOTHER WOULD'VE SAID. SHE IS VERY TALENTED!"

Still, MTV should have thrown Kanye out of the event. Had any other heckler had the audacity to interrupt the broadcast, they would have been thrown out and probably charged. He should not be treated any differently.

This dude needs help.
*source: new.music.yahoo.com