Category: News

Chaos erupted this morning at the Richmond International Raceway as thousands of people stampeded through the gates in a rush to buy iBook laptop computers for $50 each.

Several people were injured as others trampled them outside a warehouse where the 4-year-old Apple laptops were being sold. None of the injuries appeared to be serious.

Thousands of Henrico County residents waited in a long line as dawn broke; many had come prepared with books, snacks, umbrellas and chairs. The first car arrived at 1:30 a.m. By 6:30 vehicles were backed up on Laburnum Avenue about a half mile to Carolina Avenue.

Even before the gates opened, the atmosphere turned surly, with people yelling at police officers who were trying to keep the crowd civil.

The gates opened at 6:54 a.m., and the stampede — literally — was on.

[Link 1] [Link 2]

A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

Christopher Offord, 30, was sentenced Wednesday by Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, who said the brutality of the crime outweighed any mental problems Offord may have had.

“The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her,” the judge said. “Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant.”

Offord pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2004 slaying of Dana Noser, 40, at his apartment.

He confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before his arrest. He told investigators that his wife had been nagging him to come back to bed.

Offord did not speak in court but said in a jailhouse interview in June: “I figured I killed her so I deserve to die.”

[via]

This is really funny, Animal experts in Croatia say a bear has learned how to trick people to let him in by knocking at the door. They believe the 35-stone brown bear probably learned the trick while nudging a door to get it to open. Experts speculate the nudging was mistaken by the owners for knocking and that the bear, pleased by the outcome, repeated the tactic. The Loknar family from Gerovo in western Croatia said the bear had knocked at their door three times and they were now refusing to answer the door. Mum Nevenka Loknar said: “We jumped out the window as he came in through the door and raided the kitchen the first time. “I opened the door and saw him standing there and I didn’t believe my eyes at first, then I ran for it as he walked in as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Bears are a common thing in the woods around here, but no one has ever heard of a bear that knocks at the door. “The bear is so intelligent it’s incredible. We’ve tried to put up lots of obstacles to stop him coming in, like a wire fence but he still gets through. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew how to use wire cutters.”

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This can’t be happening, what will happen to the Reebok Pumps?? I hope Adidias doesn’t rebrand all of Reeboks sneakers to Adidias. I really love the Pump Fury’s, would hate it if they became Adidas Pump Furys… [Link]

Wow, this was a surprise! Apple just released a 2 button mouse a minute ago, the MIGHTY MOUSE! AMAZING! [Link]

According to Naharnet, “King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has died in a Riyadh hospital, the royal court announced in the Saudi capital on Monday. The statement said Crown Prince Abdullah was immediately proclaimed the new monarch of the world’s largest oil exporting nation.”

How will this effect Kuwait?

Wow, this was unexpected. Konfabulator is a company that created widgets for Mac OS X. When apple released Tiger with its own software called dashboard which used their own set of widgets (Apple basically stole the idea from Konfabulator) it hurt Konfabulators business. They vowed to seek revenge by creating widgets for the Windows operating system. Now it seems Yahoo purchased them… good for them. [Link]

Finally the NHL lockout has ended. After having the whole NHL season canceled, things are back on track. The biggest surprise to me were some of the new rule changes. Firstly no game will end in a draw now, if there is a draw the teams will go into a shootout until one team comes out the victor. Other changes include the goalkeepers gloves and pads which will shrink in size to make it harder for them to protect the net. For more details on the new rules and salary caps, hit the link. [Link]

‘I am the scapegoat that spent 11 years and three months in a prison grave,’ said Girgis Khoury upon his release from the Defense Ministry prison in Yarze Thursday. My 3-floor underground prison cell throughout my incarceration was a grave, not only a dungeon without sunshine or fresh air.’ Khoury, 37, walked out of prison a free man at sundown Thursday at the orders of State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza. Girgis was held on charge of blowing up the Maronite church of Notre Dame de la Deliverance on March 14. 1994, in which 10 worshippers were killed.

The first thing he did was to go to the church at suburban Zouk Mekayel to pray. ‘I told the Virgin Mary that Girgis Khoury is innocent. Girgis Khoury can not possibly blow up a church or even think of harming any church,’ he said.

Khoury, an activist of Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, then was driven from Zouk Mekayel to his home in Dbayeh. His father and sister leaped to hug him and kiss him with a Geagea portrait hanging the background. Tumultuous LF well-wishers ringed the house.

“Is it true that your prison cell was a grave with lights,” one reporter asked. “In fact it was worse because I was breathing in it. I would have been much better off dead,” Khoury said.

That’s according to sources close to the company who requested anonymity. They said that Microsoft unveiled the name in Atlanta on Thursday at the company’s internal sales event, known as the Microsoft Global Sales Briefing, or MGB.

Word of Longhorn’s new name began leaking to the Web on Thursday evening. One Windows site discovered that Microsoft registered the WindowsVista.US domain name. Microsoft is expected to make the official announcement of the new name on Friday morning.

Microsoft has relied primarily on date-oriented names for many of its products, although it has shied away from those on occasion.

The last major version of Windows, code-named “Whistler,” eventually was christened Windows XP.

Microsoft officials declined to comment on the specifics of a “Longhorn-related” news announcement slated for Friday morning.

Longhorn Beta 1 is widely expected to be unveiled next week. Beta 2 is due in the first half of 2006. Microsoft officials confirmed on Thursday the final release is still on track for the latter half of 2006.

[Source]

Comments made by Rep. Tom Tancredo on Friday during an on-air interview on radio station WFLA in Orlando, Fla. Host Pat Campbell and the congressman were discussing the possibility of future terrorist attacks inside the United States.

Campbell: Worst case scenario, if they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that — what would our response be?

Tancredo: What would be the response? You know, there are things that you could threaten to do before something like that happens and then you may have to do afterwards that are quite draconian.

Campbell: Such as…

Tancredo: Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, um, you know, you could take out their holy sites . . .

Campbell: You’re talking about bombing Mecca.

Tancredo: Yeah. What if you said — what if you said that we recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States — therefore this is the ultimate threat, this is the ultimate response.

I mean, I don’t know, I’m just throwing out there some ideas because it seems to me . . . at that point in time you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine and because other than that all you could do is once again tighten up internally.

[Source]

Parliament unanimously passed Geagea’s parole bill and the Lebanese Forces leader is expected to be taken straight from jail to Beirut airport this weekend for a trip with his wife to a European capital, probably London or Paris, for extensive medical tests. Samir Geagea the Lebanese Forces leader was wrongfully imprisoned for over 11 years. He spent the 11 years locked up in a 2×1 meter cell 2 floors underground with no access to the outside world. [Link]

Pictures from LF members celebrating [Here]

Joseph Hachem won $7.5 million US Dollars at the World Series Poker Tournament which was held in Las Vegas 2 days ago. [Link]

This is really cool, to celievrate their 10 year anniversary, Amazon will thank customers with surprise special deliveries by celebrities.

“Among the celebrities scheduled to make special deliveries are actor Harrison Ford who may deliver the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” DVD, Grammy-award winning musician Moby hand-delivering his recently released CD “Hotel,” Anna Kournikova will deliver something from Adidas, and Jason Alexander with a “Seinfeld” DVD.”

[Link]

The first of Billy Corgan’s former bandmates has rejoined the fold following the surprise announcement that Corgan intends to reunite his platinum-selling alternative-rock group the Smashing Pumpkins. Jimmy Chamberlin said on Friday that he is eager to make music with Corgan again. His position is no surprise, since he drummed with Corgan in the short-lived band Zwan, as well as performing on several tracks for the Great Pumpkin’s first solo album, “The Future Embrace,” released last Tuesday.

But the status of former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky remains a mystery.

“All I can say is that the Smashing Pumpkins are Billy, James, myself and D’Arcy,” Chamberlin said. “In an ideal world, that’s what it will end up being. The hope is that everybody will come to the table, but I can only speak for myself in saying that I’m in, and I’m excited.”

Chamberlin said he has not spoken to Wretzky since she left the band in August 1999. He communicates with Iha by e-mail, and though they have not discussed the Pumpkins reunion, “I intend to reach out to him.”

The drummer said he and Corgan have been talking about reforming the band “for some time,” but he doesn’t know whether the singer and songwriter has spoken to Iha and Wretzky, or if Corgan simply “opened the door” for them to return when he placed two full-page advertisements last week in the Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.

“It’s still all very new, and I don’t know if anybody really knows what’s going on,” Chamberlin said. “We really haven’t sat down at the table and figured out the nuts and bolts.”