Tom Cruise is building million dollar bunker to protect against alien attack
Hollywood star Tom Cruise is planning to build a bunker at his Colorado home to protect his family in the event of an intergalactic alien attack, according to new reports.
The Mission Impossible actor, who is a dedicated follower of Scientology, is reportedly fearful that deposed galactic ruler 'Xenu' is plotting an evil revenge attack on Earth.
Bunker down: Tom Cruise, on set of his latest movie with wife Katie and daughter Suri, is reportely fearful of an alien attack
According to American magazine Star, a source said: "Tom is planning to build a US$10 million bunker under his Telluride estate."
"It's a self-contained underground shelter with a high tech air purifying shelter."
The facility is said to have enough room for ten people - including wife Katie Holmes, 17-month-old daughter Suri and his adopted children Isabella, 14, and Connor, 12.
A spokesperson for the actor has denied the reports, saying: "This is completely untrue. He is not building on his property at all."
The 45-year-old is currently filming World War II movie Rubicon (formerly known as Valkyrie) in Germany, where he is regularly joined on set by Katie and Suri.
Tom plays German hero Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg in the wartime thriller surrounding a failed plot by high-ranking military officers to blow up Hitler and has come under attack for his decision to do so as well as his religious beliefs. (thisislondon.co.uk)
William Burroughs always said the most dangerous words in the English language were“Wouldn’t you?” Maybe it's really to protect him from the bombs he’s been making.
They must know something too
Alabama City Reopening Fallout Shelters
By JAY REEVES
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in Huntsville and the surrounding county.
Emergency planners in Huntsville — an out-of-the-way city best known as the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center — say the idea makes sense because radioactive fallout could be scattered for hundreds of miles if terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb.
"If Huntsville is in the blast zone, there's not much we can do. But if it's just fallout ... shelters would absorb 90 percent of the radiation," said longtime emergency management planner Kirk Paradise, whose Cold War expertise with fallout shelters led local leaders to renew Huntsville's program.
Huntsville's project, developed using $70,000 from a Homeland Security grant, goes against the grain because the United States essentially scrapped its national plan for fallout shelters after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Congress cut off funding and the government published its last list of approved shelters at the end of 1992.
After Sept. 11, Homeland Security created a metropolitan protection program that includes nuclear-attack preparation and mass shelters. But no other city has taken the idea as far as Huntsville has, officials said.
Many cities advise residents to stay at home and seal up a room with plastic and duct tape during a biological, chemical or nuclear attack. Huntsville does too, in certain cases.
Local officials agree the "shelter-in-place" method would be best for a "dirty bomb" that scattered nuclear contamination through conventional explosives. But they say full-fledged shelters would be needed to protect from the fallout of a nuclear bomb.
Program leaders recently briefed members of Congress, including Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who called the shelter plan an example of the "all-hazards" approach needed for emergency preparedness.
"Al-Qaida, we know, is interested in a nuclear capability. It's our nation's fear that a nuclear weapon could get into terrorists' hands," Dent said.
As fallout shelters go, the Three Caves Quarry just outside downtown offers the kind of protection that would make Dr. Strangelove proud, with space for an arena-size crowd of some 20,000 people.
Last mined in the early '50s, the limestone quarry is dug 300 yards into the side of the mountain, with ceilings as high as 60 feet and 10 acres of floor space covered with jagged rocks. Jet-black in places with a year-round temperature of about 60 degrees, it has a colony of bats living in its highest reaches and baby stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
"It would be a little trying, but it's better than the alternative," said Andy Prewett, a manager with The Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama, a nonprofit preservation group that owns the mine and is making it available for free.
In all, the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency has identified 105 places that can be used as fallout shelters for about 210,000 people. They are still looking for about 50 more shelters that would hold an additional 100,000 people.
While officials have yet to launch a campaign to inform people of the shelters, a local access TV channel showed a video about the program, which also is explained on a county Web site.
If a bomb went off tomorrow, Paradise said, officials would tell people where to find shelter through emergency alerts on TV and radio stations. "We're pretty much ready to go because we have a list of shelters," he said.
Most of the shelters would offer more comfort than the abandoned mine, such as buildings at the University of Alabama in Huntsville that would house 37,643. A single research hall could hold more than 8,100.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin said of Huntsville's wide-ranging plan: "We're not aware of any other cities that are doing that."
Plans call for staying inside for as long as two weeks after a bomb blast, though shelters might be needed for only a few hours in a less dire emergency.
Unlike the fallout shelters set up during the Cold War, the new ones will not be stocked with water, food or other supplies. For survivors of a nuclear attack, it would be strictly "BYOE" — bring your own everything. Just throw down a sleeping bag on the courthouse floor — or move some of the rocks on the mine floor — and make yourself at home.
"We do not guarantee them comfort, just protection," said Paradise, who is coordinating the shelter plans for the local emergency management agency.
Convenience store owner Tandi Prince said she cannot imagine living in the cavern after a bombing.
"That would probably not be very fun," she said.
I hear they’re dedicating one to Bear Bryant. Roll Tide!
That’s what the computer said, it must be right
Microsoft Excel fails math test
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp.'s Excel 2007 spreadsheet program is going to have to relearn part of its multiplication table.
In a blog post, Microsoft employee David Gainer said that when computer users tried to get Excel 2007 to multiply some pairs of numbers and the result was 65,535, Excel would incorrectly display 100,000 as the answer.
Gainer said Excel makes mistakes multiplying 77.1 by 850, 10.2 by 6,425 and 20.4 by 3,212.5, but the program appears to be able to handle 16,383.75 times 4.
"Further testing showed a similar phenomenon with 65,536 as well," Gainer wrote Tuesday.
He said Excel was actually performing the calculations correctly, but when it comes time to show the answer on the screen, it messes up.
Gainer said the bug is limited to six numbers from 65,534.99999999995 to 65,535, and six numbers from 65,535.99999999995 to 65,536, and that Microsoft is working hard to fix the problem.
So it’s ‘performing all the calculations correctly?’ Well, maybe it could get partial credit if it showed all its work.
No, really. Is called lightening rod.
Biker's penis struck by lightning
From News Nine in the U.K
They say the odds of being struck by lightning are one in a million, but a Croatian motorcyclist has beaten those odds — and then some.
The last thing Ante Djindjic could remember was stopping to take a quick toilet break while out on a ride.
The 29-year-old then awoke in hospital to be told that lightning had struck his penis.
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"Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis."
Despite the strike, the motorcyclist received only minor burns to his arms and chest and was assured that his penis would function normally … eventually.
I sing song now. "Born to be Yeeeow."
This just in from our “No Kidding” Department
Aggression In Adolescents Is Influenced By Siblings
Science Daily — Sibling order and gender have effects on children's and adolescents' aggression. Having a brother or highly aggressive sibling of either gender was linked to greater increases in aggression over time. Older siblings with younger brothers had fairly stable aggression levels over time.
In addition to age differences, the researchers considered parenting styles and family economics in their analysis. The research suggests that interventions related to aggression should include both siblings and parents.
Children who have older brothers become more aggressive over time, on average, than those who have older sisters. Older siblings with younger sisters become less aggressive.
Children with older sisters who are very aggressive become more aggressive and older siblings with younger brothers showed fairly stable levels of aggression over time.
In sum, the presence of both older and younger siblings influences the development of aggressive behavior in adolescence. Having a brother or a highly aggressive sibling of either gender can lead to greater increases in aggression over time.
Researchers looked at 451 sibling pairs, ages 9 through 18, and their parents. The adolescent siblings each rated their own aggressive behaviors, and parents described economic pressures on the family, such as difficulty paying bills. Trained observers assessed the hostility the parents directed toward each adolescent during family interactions. In their work, the researchers took into consideration the age difference between the siblings as well as such factors as parenting styles and family economics.
The study also found that older siblings who were aggressive tended to have younger siblings who were also aggressive, and vice versa. This association was found for sibling pairs with two boys, two girls, and one boy and one girl. Aggression in younger siblings also predicted increases in aggression in older siblings over time, and vice versa, though the extent varied according to each sibling's gender.
Parents' hostility also played a role in the development of aggression in their children. Family economic pressure predicted increased aggression indirectly, through its association with parental hostility.
"Understanding the factors associated with the development of aggression is essential to the design and implementation of effective intervention efforts aimed at decreasing aggression and its negative consequences," notes Shannon Tierney Williams, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, and the study's lead author. "These findings suggest that such interventions may benefit from including both siblings and parents in these efforts."
The study was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Mental Health.
These findings are from researchers at the University of California, Davis, and are published in the journal Child Development, Vol. 78, Issue 5, The Development of Interpersonal Aggression during Adolescence: The Importance of Parents, Siblings, and Family Economics by Williams, ST, Conger, KJ, and Blozis, SA (University of California, Davis).
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Society for Research in Child Development.
So, the behavior of the parents and the older and younger kids in a family can affect the behavior of the other kids. Wow, that’s groundbreaking stuff.
Rule number one: Until a social scientist has measured it, it hasn’t really happened.
One last thought...
How about a remake of "Gilligan's Island" with Ahmadinejad as Gilligan, Hugo Chavez as The Skipper, George Soros as Mr. Howell, Steven Hawking as The Professor, Katie Couric as Mary Anne and Christiane Amanpour as Ginger?
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