Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt. But in the video below, we see what happens when you drive your car too close to an elephant minding its own business. The elephant usually wins!
British teacher Sarah Brooks and her fiance Jans de Klerk were celebrating their engagement with a trip to South Africa when they came across a full-grown African elephant.
The footage, taken in the famed Kruger National Park, shows the car behind the animal, tentatively nearing to pass at the side of the road.
However the elephant spots the blue Volkswagon and quickly becomes infuriated.
The car attempts to reverse and drive off but its too late to escape.
CNN is reporting that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-New York, will marry his longtime partner, designer Randy Florke, the couple announced Monday.
“After 21 years together, we are excited for the next step in our journey as a family,” they said in a statement. “For decades, we’ve fought to ensure that all families can experience the joys of loving commitment and we are proud to have our friends and family share this special moment with us in the near future.”
With their marriage, Maloney will become the second member of Congress to legally wed his same-sex partner while in office. Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, became the first to do so in 2012.
Maloney and Florke, who have three adopted children and live in Cold Spring, New York, got engaged on Christmas Day.
Bill Whittle, an apparently influential member of the Republican/Teaparty/Conservative movement and blogger, was invited to address a Republican gathering in Texas. His sick humor was enjoyed by all in attendance especially his suggestion that shooting at people in cars with California plates is fun and a necessity for all true red blooded patriotic Texans.
And get this, the Republican god Ted Cruz and wannabe Texas governor Rick Perry have benefited from Whittle’s advice on previous occasions. He’s told them about his shooting idea before.
“I’ve said this several times in Texas before and I’ve said it to Mr. Cruz as a representative of the Texas government, I’ve said it to Governor (Rick) Perry directly, and now I’m going to say it to you as individual Texas citizens.
“You will see a lot of cars coming from the west heading east on Interstate 10, and they’re going to have California license plates on them. Now, if you see these cars pull into rest areas or hotels or restaurants, that’s fine; wave goodbye, make sure they go out on the Louisiana end.”
“But if you see them pull off into residential areas,you need to open fire on these vehicles immediately. Immediately. Not with 9mm or AR rounds; you need to put mortars on those things, you cannot take any chances.”
“What is the worst that can happen to you? I mean honestly, this is Texas, right? You’ll stand in front of a Texas judge, he’ll say, ‘did you shoot up that car full of Californians?’ You’ll say, ‘yes,’ he’ll say, ‘why?’ You’ll say, ‘well, your honor, they needed killing, and he’ll say ‘okay, we’ll strike a medal in your honor’ and off you go.”
The Conservative/Republican/Teparty group’s trigger-happy fingers must have twitched with anticipation as the crowed rejoiced at the thought.
On 23 December, the AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, died at a Russian hospital after being admitted a month earlier with internal bleeding.
In a letter, published in Russia’s pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, he wrote: “My spiritual pain is unbearable.
“I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?” he asked.
“The longer I live,” he continued, “the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression”.
The letter is typed on Kalashnikov’s personal writing paper, and is signed with a wavering hand by the man who describes himself as “a slave of God, the designer Mikhail Kalashnikov”.
The Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is one of the world’s most familiar and widely used weapons.
Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.
It is thought that more than 100 million Kalashnikov rifles have been sold worldwide.
Kalashnikov refused to accept responsibility for the many people killed by his weapon, blaming the policies of other countries that acquired it.
However, pride in his invention was tempered with sadness at its use by criminals and child soldiers.
“It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon,” Kalashnikov said in 2008.
On his show Monday, Jon Stewart took on the toxic chemical spill in West Virginia and the unbelievable lack of security, and the even more unbelievable fact that a toxic chemical plant is located upstream of the drinking water. And if you think that is unbelievable, how about this… the toxic plant located upstream of a river used for human consumption was last inspected in 1991!
Now how unbelievable is that!
Why would you build your toxic chemical storage tanks, upstream… and drinking water adjacent? Although, I imagine, because it was in such a vulnerable position, it was highly regulated, this toxic chemical storage facility. As a matter of fact, from what I understand, these toxic chemical tanks have been inspected as recently as… uh…. 1991.
1991! That’s like six Batmans ago!
And the name of the company responsible for this toxic spill? FREEDOM Industries.
It seems that when Chris Christie’s mentor asked this question – “is that what you want in your president?”- he was not only talking about Christie’s possible involvement in the BridgeGate crisis. It is quite possible that he got a glimpse of this report.
Poverty in New Jersey continued to grow even as the national recession lifted, reaching a 52-year high in 2011, according to a report released today.
The annual survey by Legal Services of New Jersey found 24.7 percent of the state’s population — 2.1 million residents — was considered poor in 2011. That’s a jump of more than 80,000 people — nearly 1 percent higher than the previous year and 3.8 percent more than pre-recession levels.
“This is not just a one-year or five-year or 10-year variation,” said Melville D. Miller Jr., the president of LSNJ, which gives free legal help to low-income residents in civil cases. “This is the worst that it’s been since the 1960 Census.”
And it may get worse: The report warned Census figures for 2012 to be released this month may be higher. Those numbers are expected to show some of the impact from Hurricane Sandy, which took a bite out of the state’s economy and destroyed a large amount of affordable housing.
The numbers for New Jersey — one of the wealthiest states in the nation — mirror a national trend. In 2011, the federal poverty rate was the largest it had been in 18 years, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“The Great Recession was the worst major economic event since the early ’30s,” Miller said. “It’s taken longer for the U.S. to come out of it.”
The report — the seventh issued by Legal Services — defines being poor in New Jersey as a family of three making less than $37,060. That’s twice the federal poverty rate because New Jersey’s cost of living is among the highest in the nation.
The report found:
• A record high of more than 630,000 children — 31.2 percent — lived in a household defined as poor.
• The percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds living in poverty rose from 26.9 in 2007 to 32.8 in 2011.
• Of families headed by single mothers, 22 percent were poor compared to 3.6 percent of families headed by a married couple.
• African-Americans and Hispanics had poverty rates at least three times higher than whites.
• Boosted by the consistency of Social Security payments, the percentage of elderly who were poor dropped from 26.7 in 2007 to 26.2 in 2011.
• Six counties — Passaic, Cumberland, Hudson, Essex, Atlantic and Salem — had more than 30 percent of their population living in poverty in 2011.
• Among cities, nearly 65 percent of Camden residents lived in poverty, and 79 percent of children lived in poor households. Poverty topped 50 percent in Passaic, Lakewood, Paterson, Trenton and Newark.
Cole Sear: I see dead people republicans.
Malcolm Crowe: In your dreams?
[Cole shakes his head no]
Malcolm Crowe: While you’re awake?
[Cole nods]
Malcolm Crowe: Republicans like, in graves? In coffins?
Cole Sear: Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re… dead republicans.
HOBOKEN — In the wake of the George Washington Bridge controversy, several Democratic mayors are speaking out saying they, too, believe they were punished by the Christie administration for failing to endorse the Republican governor’s re-election in November, WNYC reports.
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said that after Hurricane Sandy, she applied to the state for a Hazard Mitigation Grant. In the spring, when Christie asked her to endorse him for re-election during a face-to-face meeting, Zimmer told the governor no.
“He was quite disappointed, but I wouldn’t say that he was angry,” she told WNYC.
When her request for grant funding came back, she said, Hoboken received $300,000 of the $100 million in grants requested — less than 1 percent.
“With 20/20 hindsight, in the context we’re in right now, we can always look back and say, ‘Okay, was it retribution?'” Zimmer told the station. “I think probably all mayors are reflecting right now and thinking about it, but I really hope that’s not the case.”
Meanwhile Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has said Christie’s office apparently canceled several meetings the day after Fulop refused to endorse the governor.
In Elizabeth, Mayor Chris Bollwage claims Christie targeted the city and shut down the Division of Motor Vehicle’s office there after its state legislators fought Christie on several pieces of legislation.
“The governor’s retribution was to close down the Division of Motor vehicles here in the city of Elizabeth, which is the fourth largest city in the state of New Jersey,” Bollwage said in the report.
While private corporations contaminated the waters of the Elk river in West Virginia, causing hundreds of thousands of people to go without usable water, the government stepped in and brought water to those affected. Now that the ban on using the water is lifting, how soon before they start hating on government again?
Prepare yourself to hear that Government is the problem in 3,2,1…
When it rains, it pours. Chris Christie, presently dealing with the bridgegate controversy, is now faced with another crisis – a federal investugation into his use of Hurricane Sandy funds.
The Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has opened a federal investigation into whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) improperly used Hurricane Sandy relief funds to produce commercials starring himself and his family ahead of his re-election campaign.
Auditors will examine how the Christie administration used $25 million set aside for “a marketing campaign to promote the Jersey Shore and encourage tourism,” focusing on the bidding process to award a $4.7 million to a politically connected firm that cast Christie and his family in the Sandy ads, while “a comparable firm proposed billing the state $2.5 million for similar work” but did not include Christie in the commercials.
The ads produced by the company, MWW, attracted significant criticism. The New Jersey Star Ledger accused Christie of siphoning off “money that was intended for victims of Sandy to promote himself in a series of TV ads,” and described the move as “offensive” and a ” new low.”
BEIJING – Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, the only foreigner with access to North Korea’s reclusive dictator Kim Jong Un, returned from Pyongyang Monday defending his controversial “basketball diplomacy” there.
Americans and North Koreans “can actually get along,” said Rodman, who apologized he “couldn’t do anything” about Kenneth Bae, a Korean American missionary imprisoned in North Korea.
Rodman will return to Pyongyang in about a month for another game of basketball, he said, following the exhibition game last Wednesday between a North Korean team and a Rodman-led team of a team of ex-NBA players and current streetballers.
The ex-Chicago Bulls forward sang ‘happy birthday’ to Kim before tip-off, and spent the second half sitting beside his “friend for life”, reported to be a Chicago Bulls fan.
Rights groups and U.S. politicians have criticized Rodman for engaging with the North’s repressive regime. While in Pyongyang, he was forced to apologize for comments last week that blamed Bae for his own incarceration.
At Beijing airport Monday, at the end of his fourth trip to Pyongyang over the past 12 months, Rodman said “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything”, when asked if had raised Bae’s case with Kim.
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