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New Malaysia Police Car - Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution

KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Malaysian police has bought 25 high-powered Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution cars to catch criminals and speed hogs.

The cars, worth several millions of ringgit, would be fitted with safety gadgets and would sport the looks of police patrol cars.



Sources said the police had al­­ready taken possession and were testing the cars before sending them to the Road Transport Depart­ment for registration and approval.

“The cars are to be used in high-speed car chase, especially in cases of carjacking, kidnapping and hi­­jacking.

“The speed of the cars would enable the police to catch up with criminals who often used modified turbo charged cars to escape,” they said.

Several police personnel have been sent to undergo intensive driving classes to ensure they are able to handle the super charged cars, they added.

The cars, they said, would also be used by the highway patrol unit to monitor speed hogs or illegal racers.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan confirmed the purchase but declined to elaborate.





News from The Star Online

Police Use Chili Peppers to Keep Drivers from Nodding Off

Falling asleep at the wheel can, and does, happen everywhere in the world whenever drivers push themselves to do more than they should.

In Beijing, China, the police have discovered a novel solution to deal with this problem by serving drivers chili peppers at highway service stations.


The police in southwest China believe that for some reason, drivers are often sleepier in the spring than at other times of the year. China’s roads are considered the most dangerous in the world due to overloaded and speeding trucks and drivers who switch lanes without signaling and often ignore traffic lights.

In keeping with the approaching spring season and a host of expected fatalities, the police have cleverly introduced a plan they believe will help reduce some of these incidents.

Since most of the drivers targeted are from Chinese provinces where chilies are a local staple and favorite, it seemed logical to try out this novel plan on them.

It’s really good to have some hot peppers when you are tired from driving. They make you alert, said van driver, Chen Jun.

Well, the AAA might have its doubts, but whatever floats (or in this case, heats up) one’s boat and reduces road fatalities is certainly worth a sincere and very hot try.

Chili, anyone?

Bulletproof Bathroom

Next time you visit Beijing, China, don’t forget to try out this safest (probably in the world) public bathroom in Zhong Guan Village Plaza.


The bathroom is totally bullet proof, weights 15 tons, and cost $100,000.

Not even TNT explosives can tear this thing down. The bathroom is one of the anti-terrorism products appearing in China since America’s 9/11.


Unfortunately not many local Chinese people seem to use the bathroom simply because no one understands the instructions which are written in English and French.

Apparently the actions just are not as self explanatory as one would think.

Buying Votes in Bangkok… With Viagra

Politics in Thailand and buying votes are nothing new, but creative ways to garner favor among the populace is a challenge for even the most resourceful candidates.

In lieu of cash, one Bangkok candidate in a recent election allegedly handed out Viagra tablets.


The rules about handing out favors to voters have always been strict in Thailand, and they even forbid the distribution of free T-shirts and soft drinks. But a new law will make that look like a piece of cake, as now criminal charges can be brought against both the supplier and the recipient of vote-buying that can lead up to ten years in prison!

The accuser, Sayan Nopcha, a campaigner for the People’s Power Party in Bangkok, whose older brother is running for office, would not identify the candidate who allegedly handed out the pills. He told authorities that the drug, which is supposed to be used only via a doctor’s prescription, was being freely distributed to elderly male voters.

The politician is giving out Viagra to gain popularity and votes. I think this is a very bad way of vote-buying, said Sayan.

There were many candidates competing for many seats in this past election. How many of them broke the law is one question. How many of them made some senior citizens very happy, at least for a little while, is quite another!

Dog smells breast cancer!

Maureen Burns’ hero is her red collie cross dog called Max. The Mirror reported (23/02/09) the amazing story of how Max detected Maureen’s illness - and his persistence prompted her to have a health check. It was a hounding that quite simply saved her life! Woof!

The 64-year-old realised something was wrong when Max started acting strangely. Max changed from being a lively, clever canine, to being very withdrawn. More notably, he also repeatedly sniffed Maureen’s breath and nudged her right breast.

The odd behaviour of her beloved pooch prompted Maureen to check her breasts and she discovered a small lump in the right one. (The growth did not show up on a hospital mammogram.)

Additional information: Study shows that dogs do detect cancer and danger in patients' breath. Link to National Geographic News

World's Longest Car

The longest car ever built is a 30.5-m long (100-ft), 26-wheeled limousine, designed by Jay Ohrberg of Burbank, California, USA. The longest car is mainly used in films and exhibitions. The car can be drive as a rigid vehicle or can be changed to bend in the middle.

Fancy selling out £5,000 for a 400-year-old stale egg?

Its mother has long since departed the scene. As, indeed, has its entire species.
But this giant egg is a great survivor. It was laid around 400 years ago by one of the great elephant birds of Madagascar.
Before becoming extinct in the 17th century, the flightless creature was the world's largest bird, standing 10ft tall and weighing half a ton.


The egg, which is more than 3ft in circumference, was discovered by Victorian explorers and has since been held in private collections.
Its current owner is antiques dealer John Shepherd, of Ashford in Kent, who bought the egg after seeing David Attenborough discover one while filming in Madagascar.
Mr Shepherd, a trained palaeontologist, has decided to sell the egg, which is on display at the Chelsea Antiques Fair, which runs until Sunday.


It is expected to fetch at least £5,000. He said: 'The egg is a talking point. It's very eye-catching and it has a wonderful simplicity about it. It stands on its own.
'It has a great social history. The Madagascan elephant bird was the only giant bird to exist with man and man caused its extinction.
'It's nice to be able to show children today about environmental issues that have been going on for hundreds of years.'


Great elephant birds became extinct after being hunted by the natives of Madagascar.
Even though the bird weighed about half a ton, it also suffered at the hands of other predators such as pigs who ate their chicks and destroyed their eggs.

The flightless bird, the largest to have ever lived, resembled a heavily-built ostrich. It had long legs, talons and stood at more than 10ft tall.

But despite its fearsome appearance, it was a herbivore.


The bird as it would have looked 400 years ago, and right its skeleton reveals how much larger it was compared to its giant eggs

Mummified Japanese Monks Enlightened Through Punishment

More than two dozen mummified Japanese monks who were followers of an ancient sect of Buddhism known as Shugendô, have been discovered in Northern Japan.

Their beliefs were extreme and included the strict denial of any earthly comforts. The process of self-inflicted torture according to them, was the only path to enlightenment.


This practice is more than 1,000 years old and was first executed by a priest named Kuukai, who is considered to be the founder of this extreme and deadly Buddhist scion.

There were three steps in the process that eventually led to eternal mummification, each one harsher than the one before.

Evidence suggests that these priests who lived and died over one thousand years ago, tortured themselves in an attempt to mummify their own remains; a process which took up to ten years and was the result of deliberate self denial.

The first part of the process involved a change of diet; a 1000-day period in which the priest ate only nuts and seeds that could be gathered in the forest surrounding his temple. Physical hardship was deliberately imposed with the goal of reducing the body fat to nearly nothing, allowing for easy decomposition.

Believe it or not, the second 1,000-day stage was even more restrictive. Now the priest could only eat bark and roots from pine trees, a process insured to turn any human being into a walking skeleton and to decrease the amount of body fluids, making preservation even easier.


Then the priest had to ingest a poisonous tea which further reduced body fluids and killed any maggots or insects that tried to eat the priest’s remains after death, (not to mention the priest).

The final 1,000-day period the priest was entombed in a stone room just big enough for a man to sit lotus style. As long as the priest could ring a bell, a tube remained in place to supply air, but when the bell stopped, the tube was removed and the tomb was sealed.

This resulted in some mummification for which the priest was immediately ranked a Buddha, but most of the poor fellows simply rotted away without any rank at all.

Outlawed in the late 19th century, this weird practice continued into the early 20th.

Indian Elephant Bandit: Not Armed But Dangerous

The “Bandit Elephant” in northern Keonjhar district in Orissa state of India, is at it again! The wild pachyderm waylays motorists by refusing to let their vehicles pass unless they give him food.

Witnesses claim that the elephant forces motorists to roll down their windows and leave their vehicles after which it inserts its trunk (the new jimmy) into the car and scours it for food.


“If you are carrying vegetables and bananas inside your vehicle, it will gulp them and then allow you to go,” said Prabodh Mohanty, who has already had two encounters with the elephant.

If the passing motorist dares to defy orders and not roll down the window or resists opening the vehicle door, the bandit elephant pushes the vehicle and stands right in front of it until he can make his routine check for his idea of booty.

Forest officials claim that the elephant is old and looking for easy food. They warn commuters not to tease the elephant as it might retaliate if provoked.

Are there handcuffs large enough to hold this creature and what about paw prints and a jail cell big enough to hold him?

Malaysian Woman Jailed For Worshipping Tea Pot

Seriously, although the Malaysia constitution guarantees freedom of religion, a woman was recently arrested for joining a ‘Tea-Pot Worshiping’ cult.


The eccentric sect emphasizes unity between all religions and considers the teapot the symbol of purity and love “pouring from heaven.”

According to Malaysian Muslim law, born Muslims, such as Mrs. Ali who was arrested, are forbidden from converting to other religions. This lady had been arrested back in 1992 for the same reason and her case is an indication of the growing dissatisfaction of the non-Muslim Malaysians.

This narrow majority of ethnic Malays composes almost half of the total population, which is divided between Hindus of Indian origin, Christian and Buddhist ethnic Chinese. Their interests among all others are supposed to be protected by the government.

“This has to stop. They can’t be sending her again and again to prison for this. She informed the court that she is not a Muslim. She doesn’t come under Sharia court anymore,” said her lawyer, Sa’adiah Din, to the press.

The community stands behind the woman and has long standing grievances with the policies of the government concerning religious freedom. In the wake of this particular event, Christian churches made a rare political intervention, urging voters for the up and coming election to choose candidates who support freedom of worship.

Dead Sea, the World's Saltiest Lake with 35% Salinity

With 35% Salinity during dry seasons, not only is the Dead Sea the place with the world's lowest elevation, it is also the saltiest lake in the world. The lake is so concentrated with salt and other minerals that one can stay afloat without using a life jacket or any floaters.

Coprolite or Fossilized Dinosaur Dung Sold at Autcion at Almost $1000

A pile of Coprolite or fossilized dinosaur dung from the Jurassic era was sold at New York auction for almost $1,000. This dinosaur dung 130 million years old and looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside.


The buyer was Steve Tsengas of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The 71-year-old owns OurPets, a company that sells products to treat dog and cat waste. Tsengas bought the dung in hopes of motivating his employees and using it as a marketing tool by displaying it at the company's booth at trade shows, he said. "Poop," he said, "is a big business in the pet industry.

Canned Pork Brains with 3500mg Cholesterol

If you have a heart problem, this canned pork brains could be your last meal. With 3500mg cholesterol per serving, a can of this "delicious and nutritious" brain matter constitutes to up 1170% of your daily cholesterol recommended dietary allowance.

Tata Nano, World's Cheapest City Car To Date at US$2000

At approximately US$2,000 (Rs.100,000), the Tata Nano is the world's cheapest car to date. This city car is manufactured by Tata Motors of India and aimed primarily for the Indian market (too bad for the US market). It was presented on January 10, 2008, at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, India and will be available in on March 23, 2009 to the Indian consumers.

With a dimension of 122 in. X 59.1 in. X 63 in. (LxWxH), it's amazing that this car has a capacity of four passengers and have four doors.


The prefix "nano-" derives from the Greek root 'nanos', meaning dwarf. "Nano" also means "small" in Gujarati, the native language of the Tata family, founders of the Tata Group.

Snailfish, World's Deepest Living Fish

Snailfish is the world's deepest living fish. In this video, scientists were able to film several snailfish nearly five miles below the surface of Japan Trench in the Pacific ocean. This is the first time snailfishes are filmed at this depth.

This video was taken by the a UK-Japan team using a remote-operated landers designed to withstand immense pressures to comb the world's deepest depths for marine life.

North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel: Ugliest Building on Earth?

It’s a rather dubious honor to be considered the ugliest of just about anything at all, but according to many, the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea appears to be the winner of the ugly building contest.


The Ryugyong Hotel with its 3,000 rooms has been described as a hideous and distorted version of a fairy-tale castle that dominates the city’s skyline and is so ugly that it is frequently air-brushed out of publicity shots of the city.

Construction began in 1987 (although no one knows why) but stopped in 1992. It is unlikely that it will ever be finished due to the fact that North Korea ran out of money and there is no tourist industry in the region.

Pygmy Marmoset, World's Smallest Monkey

With body length ranging from 14-to-16-centimeters, the Pygmy Marmoset is the world's smallest monkey. This tiniest of all monkeys is a native of the rainforest canopies of western Brazil, southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, and eastern Peru. The males of the specie weigh around 140 grams, and females only 120 grams.


The Pygmy Marmoset has a tawny coat, and a ringed tail that can be as long as its body. In common with other Callitrichinids, it has claws instead of nails on all its digits except the big toe. They are omnivorous, feeding on fruit, leaves, insects, and sometimes even small reptiles. Their small weight allows them to reach the very highest leaves of a tree, and to exploit the otherwise little- used food sources there.

Jesse Sullivan, World's First Bionic Man

Being the first recipient of a bionic arm, Jesse Sullivan is the world's first bionic man. He lost his arm when an accident happen while working as a high-power electrical lineman. The accident caused his two arms. With a bionic arm from the innovative "Bionic" research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Jesse, is able to do things he couldn't do after the accident.


Developed within the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs (NECAL) at RIC, Todd Kuiken, MD, PhD, pioneered the muscle reinnervation procedure which takes an amputee's own nerves and connects them to a healthy muscle. In this case, four of Mr. Sullivan's nerves were dissected from the shoulder and transferred to the muscles of his chest. Doing so allows the user to move his or her prosthetic arm as if it were a real limb – by simply thinking about what they want the arm to do. The "Bionic Arm," or myoelectric arm, is driven using electrical signals from the muscles of the chest, now activated by the user's own thought-generated nerve impulses. These impulses are sensed, via surface electrodes, from the pectoral muscle and carried through to the mechanical arm, causing the arm to move.

Taiwan University Offers X Rated Courses

Appreciating and analyzing pornographic movies hardly seems like fodder for a university course, and yet Taiwan’s Mass Communication Department of Providence University is the first institute of higher learning to initiate just such a course.


In order to sign up for this course, students sign a paper agreeing that if the scenes are too explicit, they can opt to leave the classroom. The teacher, assistant professor Miss Chen Mingmei, said no students have ever left her class, but some would briefly cover their eyes during the stronger scenes.

A 15-minute presentation in which each student analyzes an audience’s psychological reaction to a porn clip from an academic perspective, is required in order to achieve a passing grade.

“If I get a very good score in this course, I don’t know how I’ll explain it to my parents.” said one worried student who wished to remain anonymous.

The course attracted more than 50 students, and most confessed that they had watched porn videos before. They listed curiosity as the main incentive for wanting to take the course and most admitted that their parents were unaware of their choice of course material.

“I am really worried my parents will see the score report when it is mailed home. I won’t know what to say if I get a high score. However if I fail the course, I can speak to my parents and suggest that maybe I should watch more porn,” said another student

Behind those ivy walls, “x” really does mark the spot!