Monkey Walks Like A Human

Monkey Walks Like A Human – YouTube.

Kenichi Ito, ‘Monkey Man,’ Holds World Record In Four-Legged Running

Some might say Kenichi Ito has gone bananas.

The 29-year-old Tokyo man has spent the past eight and a half years developing a four-legged running style modeled after the African Patas monkey, according to Reuters. The process has involved Ito walking around his suburban neighborhood and performing household chores on all fours, and even squatting like a simian while talking to others.

This lifestyle is no monkey business, though.

In November 2008, Ito set the world record for running 100 meters on all fours. His time was 18.58 seconds, according to Guinness World Records.

In addition to his speedy gallop, Ito has developed five other distinct styles of movement on all fours, the International Business Times reported. He draws inspiration from the animal world, utilizing both the Internet and his season ticket to the zoo.

Ito has had to endure more than just curious stares for the sake of his craft. He told Reuters that while practicing in the mountains, he was almost shot by a hunter who mistook him for a wild boar.

His dedication stems from a love of monkeys that dates back to childhood, according to ITV News. Ito says he has identified with the animals from an early age, and that “somewhere inside of me I had this ambition to adopt one of their traits.” Ito found this trait when he saw a monkey running quickly. “From that point on,” he said, “I practiced running like a monkey every day.”

via Kenichi Ito, ‘Monkey Man,’ Holds World Record In Four-Legged Running.

Renee Jackson Attempts To Rob Arkansas Convenience Store With Utensil, Cops Say

He’s armed — and sort of dangerous.

An Arkansas man used a pair of hot dog tongs to threaten a convenience store employee and customer during a failed robbery attempt on Saturday, according to police.

Renee Jackson grabbed the utensil from the counter at Fort Smith’s J-Mart on Midland Avenue, 4029TV reported.

“He attempted to rob the place, but really I guess nobody took him serious enough to actually give him money because of his state of intoxication,” Cpl. Steven Dooly told KARK-4.

The suspect told authorities that he was tired of not being respected by his wife and children.

Jackson faces two counts of attempted aggravated robbery, WBTV reported.

No one was hurt and no other weapons were found.

via Hot Dog Tong Robbery: Renee Jackson Attempts To Rob Arkansas Convenience Store With Utensil, Cops Say.

Pub punters terrorised by bum-pinching ghost

Terrified regulars at the Queen’s Arms have been keeping their backs to the wall since they realised the randy ghost was stalking the bar.

And it has become so bothersome that the exasperated owners have had called in a team of ghostbusters to give the saucy spook the bum’s rush.

Staff at the Birmingham city centre boozer have nicknamed the ghost Grasper after they described feeling a “firm pinch” to the buttocks.

Assistant manager Paula Wharton, 41, initially believed the tweaks on her body were muscle spasms.

She said: “One night three of us were talking and I mentioned that I’d felt this pinch on my bum, and everyone else said that it had happened to them too.

“It can’t have been a customer as I’ve never had my bum pinched when I’ve been stood behind the bar.

“It’s happened to all of us on a few occasions, it can happen at any time, night or day.

“We’ve nicknamed the ghoul Grasper after Casper the friendly ghost but he’s a bit too friendly for our liking.”

But it’s not just staff at the pub who have felt the pinch — customers have also fallen victim to the ghoul’s roving hands.

Pretty Ashley Beland, 26, said she thought she had been groped after her encounter with the ghost.

She said: “I was stood at the bar enjoying a glass of wine when I suddenly felt a sharp pinch to my bum.

“My instant reaction was that it might have been a sleazy bloke trying his luck, but when I spun around ready to give him a piece of my mind there was no-one there.

“I was really confused until the staff explained that there was a ghost running around the place pinching people on the bottom.

“It was a little scary, but I suppose there are worse things that a ghost could do to you.”

Customers have also witnessed chairs moving on their own, heard footsteps when the pub is empty and seen plumes of smoke swirling around.

And it is even thought that several ghouls may lurk around the 170-year-old pub after last orders.

A bald-headed ghost has been spotted walking through walls to find the bar, while rumours suggest that a young girl died in the building decades ago after falling down the stairs. …

via Pub punters terrorised by bum-pinching ghost | The Sun |News.

One possible explanation:

Neolithic acoustics of Stonehenge

A team of academics have revealed the “sonic experience” that early visitors to Stonehenge would have heard.

Scholars from the Universities of Salford, Huddersfield and Bristol used an American replica of the monument to investigate its audio history.

Salford’s Dr Bruno Fazenda said they had found the site reacted to sound “in a way that would have been noticeable to the Neolithic man”.

He said the research would allow a “more holistic” view of its past.

The acoustic experiments could not be carried out at Stonehenge, as the derelict state of the site meant only a “few weak echoes and no noticeable reverberation” could be studied.

As a result, the team used a full-sized concrete reconstruction of it in Maryhill, America, which was built in 1929 as a memorial to WWI soldiers.

In February, scientist Steven Waller published a paper suggesting the design of Stonehenge could have been inspired by music.

Dr Fazenda, who has been involved with the acoustic testing of the monument for four years, said his own research had not revealed if this was the case or not.

“Stonehenge is very well known, but people are still trying to find out what it was built for,” he said.

“We thought that doing this would bring an element of archaeology that so far hasn’t been looked at.

“This type of research is important because now we can not only see ourselves surrounded by the stones using virtual reality, but we can also listen how the stone structure would have enveloped people in a sonic experience.

“It is as if we can travel back in time and experience the space in a more holistic way.”

Dr Fazenda said that the data collected did not “unequivocally reveal” if the site was designed with acoustics in mind, like a Roman amphitheatre.

But he added that it did show “the space reacted to acoustic activity in a way that would have been noticeable to the Neolithic man”. …

via BBC News – Neolithic acoustics of Stonehenge revealed by academics.

Igor Vovkovinskiy, America’s Tallest Man, Doesn’t Like Being Compared To A Fish

When you’re America’s tallest man, you get used to sticking out, but that doesn’t mean you want to be compared to a fish.

That’s what happened recently to Igor Vovkovinskiy, 29, who at 7-feet, 8.33-inches is recognized by Guinness World Records as the tallest man in the U.S.

Vovkovinskiy, who lives in Rochester, Minn., was watching the news on local CBS affiliate WCCO when they broadcast a story about a giant lake sturgeon that had been caught during by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources during its annual fishing survey.

The supersized sturgeon was 87.5 inches long and weighed more than 240 pounds, which is shocking enough, but Vovkovinskiy was even more surprised by what reporter Bill Hudson said next: “The fish is just slightly smaller than Igor Vovkovinskiy, Minnesota’s largest man.”

That made Vovkovinkskiy, frankly, mad as halibut.

“It’s demeaning being compared to a fish, especially because they used a clip from an earlier story by the station about me that was a meaningful human interest story,” Vovkovinskiy told The Huffington Post.

Being compared to a fish is bad enough, but Vovkovinskiy was also angered that the reporter referred to him as “Minnesota’s largest man.”

“I am America’s tallest man,” he said proudly. “There are people in Minnesota who are bigger — and weigh more — than me.”

Hudson said he meant no offense to Vovkovinskiy when he used his image in a story about a sturgeon, and was simply providing viewers with a visual image so they’d understand the size of the fish. …

via Igor Vovkovinskiy, America’s Tallest Man, Doesn’t Like Being Compared To A Fish (VIDEO).

Police: A Man Dressing as a Woman Who’s Impersonating a Police Officer Is Committing Robberies

Police: A Man Dressing as a Woman Who’s Impersonating a Police Officer Is Committing Robberies
DAILY INTEL | APRIL 18, 2012

Originally believed to be a thirtysomething woman of about 5 feet 5 inches and 125 pounds, the person suspected of ripping off a bank customer and tricking his way into hospital administrative offices is apparently a man, dressing as a woman, pretending to be a police officer. Police started tracking the man after a robbery on the Upper West Side on March 13, when the suspect used a police shied to lure a customer at a Chase bank to hand over a wallet. The diminutive man remains at large.

http://pulse.me/s/8lpKc

UC Davis Police Chief Resigns Over Pepper Spray Incident

UC Davis Police Chief Resigns Over Pepper Spray Incident
DAILY INTEL | APRIL 18, 2012
Wanting to allow the UC Davis police department to rid itself from the toxic stigma caused by the infamous pepper-spraying incident during an Occupy UC Davis protest on November 18, 2011, the department’s police chief Annette M. Spicuzza has announced her resignation today. And perhaps wanting to avoid getting peppered with questions about the”objectively unreasonable” use of the eye-stinging chemical, Spicuzzanotified the press of her decision in an e-mail to the Sacramento Bee.

“As the university does not want this incident to be its defining moment, nor do I wish for it to be mine,” Spicuzza wrote. “I believe in order to start the healing process, this chapter of my life must be closed.”…

http://pulse.me/s/8kRZG

New military photo scandal: Panetta apologizes

Defense SecretaryLeon Panetta apologized Wednesday for gruesome, newly revealed photographs that show U.S. soldiers posing with the bloodied remains of dead insurgents in Afghanistan. He said war can lead young troops to “foolish decisions” and expressed concern the photos could incite fresh violence against Americans.

The White House called the two-year-old photos “reprehensible,” joining Panetta and other top military officials in expressing regret for the latest in a string of embarrassing missteps by the U.S. military in a war that’s built on earning the trust and confidence of ordinary Afghans. In recent months, American troops have been caught up in controversies over burning Muslim holy books, urinating on Afghan corpses, an alleged massacre of 17 Afghan villagers and other misdeeds.

“This is war. I know that war is ugly and it’s violent, and I know that young people sometimes caught up in the moment make some very foolish decisions,” Panetta said. “I am not excusing that behavior, but neither do I want these images to bring further injury to our people or to our relationship with the Afghan people.”

“My apology is on behalf of the Department of Defense and the U.S. government,” Panetta told a news conference in Brussels following a meeting of NATO allies at which the way ahead in Afghanistan was the central topic.

The photos were published in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times. One shows members of the 82nd Airborne Divisionposing in 2010 with Afghan police holding the severed legs of a suicide bomber. The same platoon a few months later was sent to investigate the remains of three insurgents reported to have accidentally blown themselves up — and soldiers again posed and mugged for a photo with the remains, the newspaper said.

A photo from the second incident appears to show the hand of a dead insurgent resting on a U.S. soldier’s shoulder as the soldier smiles.

Panetta said he had urged the newspaper not to publish the photos, which it said it were given by a member of the 82nd Airborne.

“The reason for that is those kinds of photos are used by the enemy to incite violence, and lives have been lost by the publication of similar photos in the past,” he said in Brussels. His British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said he regretted the “besmirching of the good name” of all coalition troops who act properly.

There was no evidence of a violent Afghan backlash in the first hours following the photographs’ publication.

In fact, there was no immediate comment from the Afghan government or President Hamid Karzai‘s office, and many officials said they were not aware of the pictures, which were taken in Zabul province. The governor of the province, Ashraf Nasary, said he could not comment because he did not know about the incident or who was involved.

Mark Jacobson, an international affairs expert at the German Marshall Fund and a former deputy NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, said the picture-taking incident appeared to reflect a failure of military leadership.

“I think the challenge is that you can never completely eliminate incidents like this from happening on the battlefield,” Jacobson said. “You can only reduce the likelihood that they take place.” He said the horrors of war sometimes lead to such behavior by soldiers.

“I think it’s a way of distancing themselves from the battlefield, a way of the mind trying to dehumanize something that is as brutal as war.”

The 82nd Airborne, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., confirmed that the pictured soldiers are members of the 1st battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade. The brigade returned from a year-long deployment to Afghanistan in August 2010. The 82nd Airborne referred questions about the matter to the Pentagon.

An Army spokesman at the Pentagon, George Wright, said, “We do not condone service members engaging in such behavior or possessing related materials. This matter remains under investigation by the unit.”

The colonel who commanded the brigade in Afghanistan, Brian Drinkwine, did not respond to an email request for comment. The brigade’s Facebook page includes an account of the September 2010 ceremony at Fort Bragg in which Drinkwine relinquished command, quoting him as praising his soldiers’ efforts and professionalism.

“The Taliban feared you, the people trusted you and your Afghan partners respected you and you inspired them,” he is quoted as saying.

Gen. John Allen, top commander of U.S. and all international forces in Afghanistan, issued a statement Wednesday condemning the photos even before they were published. He said they represented a violation of a policy on the handling of enemy remains that dictates they be treated as humanely as possible.

“The incident depicted in the LA Times’ photographs represents a serious error in judgment by several soldiers who have acted out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with U.S. Army values,” Allen said, adding that commanders “will collaborate with Afghan authorities and carefully examine the facts and circumstances shown in these photos.” …

The U.S. military image in Afghanistan has taken a beating in recent months. In January, U.S. Marines were found to have made a video of themselves urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, what the military said was the accidental burning of Qurans triggered violent protests and revenge killings of six Americans. And last month, a U.S. soldier left his base and allegedly killed 17 civilians, mainly women and children.

The Times said that a soldier provided the newspaper with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses. …

In its story, the newspaper quoted editor Davan Maharaj saying: “After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops.”

Personal cameras and videos have captured misbehavior many times in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The most notorious case was Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi prison where U.S. military police photographed themselves physically and sexually abusing detainees. Photos showed them holding one prisoner on a dog leash, another with a prisoner hooded and wires attached to him in a mock electrocution, another with naked prisoners stacked in a pyramid.

Release of the photos in 2004 fostered international condemnation. It complicated international relations for the U.S. and provoked debate about whether harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Pentagon amounted to torture. In all, 11 U.S. soldiers were tried and convicted of crimes and five others were punished administratively. Punishments for the 16 included reprimands, hard labor, demotions, fines and up to 10 years in prison for one soldier.

http://pulse.me/s/8kVWA