I have heard my fair share of extremely stupid lawsuits, and for the most part I was pretty shocked at the outcome of them. For instance, the woman a number of years back who successfully sued McDonald’s for their coffee being to hot after she dumped it in her lap (this would be why the cups now say the contents are hot). But now a Russian woman is suing NASA over the recent deep impact mission, which launched a probed directly into a comet. Now the woman is

seeking damages totaling $300 million,  the approximate equivalent of the mission’s cost, for her “moral sufferings.”

She claims “that the experiment would “deform her horoscope.”

You have got to be kidding me!! This had better not even make it to court.

As I have stated in previous posts, I am not overly religoius, however, I am starting to like the new Pope. It appears that the Pope has recently given a “thumbs-up” to the Stuttgart brewery “Stuttgarter Hofbreau”, a brewery in the Pope’s native homeland of Germany. According to this article, “following a label change”

The brewery sent a beer truck to Rome this past weekend to deliver 700 liters, or 185 U.S. gallons of beer to Pope Benedict XVI.

Evidently, it’s good to be the Pope.

Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, PA has recently reclaimed “its crown as the home of the world’s biggest burger” with the introduction of there new 15 pound “Beer Barrel Belly Buster” according to this article.

The burger comes with 10.5 pounds of ground beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers — and a bun.

Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub had previously held the crown of the world’s biggest burger with a 6-pound burger that had 5 pounds of toppings. However, one month after Kate Stelnick of Princeton, N.J., “a 100-pound female college student, became the first to eat the burger within the three-hour time limit”, the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, N.J. introduced a larger one.

Now, I consider myself to have a large appetite, heck I have even conquered the Gobbler at Gaylord’s Gobbler Restaurant, but I don’t think I would have been able to eat the 11 pound burger that Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub previously offered, and definitely not this 15 pound monster!

A new Pope has been elected. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, former Dean of the College of Cardinals, has been raised to the Papacy and has taken the name Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger was the heavy favorite heading into Conclave and after three rounds of voting over a two day period was elected to follow in the foot steps of Pope John Paul II as the 265th leader of the Catholic Church. Ratzinger is the first German pope since the 11th century, and has referred to himself as “a simple, humble worker.” After ascending to the balconies of St. Peter’s Basilica, the new Pope addressed the tens of thousands of people filling the square.

“Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me — a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,” he said. “I entrust myself to your prayers,” the pope said.

“The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers,” the new pope said in his first public address. “I entrust myself to your prayers.”

In addition to being the Dean of the College of Cardinals, “Ratzinger served John Paul II since 1981 as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In that position, he has disciplined church dissidents and upheld church policy against attempts by liberals for reforms.” The future will not be an easy one for the new Pope with “tendencies that he considered dangers to the faith: sects, ideologies like Marxism, liberalism, atheism, agnosticism and relativism — the ideology that there are no absolute truths,” and the actual problems the Church is dealing with; such as “fallout from priest sex-abuse scandals, chronic shortages of priests and nuns, as well as calls for sharper activism against poverty and easing the ban on condoms to help combat AIDS,” the first new Pope of the 21st century will have a lot to contend with. Not to mention that he “also must maintain the global ministry of John Paul, who took 104 international trips in his more than 26-year papacy.”

It will be interesting to see the direction the Church now heads in under the direction of this new Pope, who has been described as “the Vatican’s doctrinal hard-liner.” One thing is clear however, now that there is a new Pope, all eyes will be focused even more on the Vatican, at least for little while.

Black Smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel yesterday as the first day of Conclave ended, to announce to the world “that Cardinals had voted but not yet reached a majority needed to choose a new pope.” So the election process will continue today starting at approximately 1:30 am Eastern time (7:30 am Vatican time).

The timeline for Tuesday’s voting is:

* At 7:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. EDT), the cardinals celebrate Mass in the hotel chapel.
* At 9 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT), they will gather in the Sistine Chapel for initial two rounds of balloting.
* Noon (6 a.m. EDT) is the approximate estimated time of the first smoke signal from the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals are to break for lunch.
* At 4 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT), the cardinals will return to the Sistine Chapel for two rounds of afternoon balloting.
* 7 p.m. (1 p.m. EDT) is the approximate time of a smoke signal after afternoon voting.

Conclave is expected to follow this schedule until the next Pope is elected. “No conclave in the past century has lasted more than five days, and the election that made John Paul II pope in October 1978 took eight ballots over three days.” There are 115 voting cardinals participating in this conclave coming from six continents, all working towards the election of John Paul II successor.

MSNBC News has set up what appears to be an all things Pope related jump off page. From this page one can easily find access to an enormous amount of information; ranging from information on the Pope’s Funeral to a full text translation of the Pope’s last will and testament. Other articles, such as, this one on President Bush being the first U.S. president to attend a papal funeral can also be found. Other information includes a list of potential successors with some information on each of them, and a PDF file containing a lot of details on “Laying the Church’s leader to rest.”

That’s how many bottles of Keith’s beer were on a truck that flipped according to this article in the Halifax Daily News.

“It is sad,” said Capt. Scott Logan of the Halifax Regional Fire Service. “Chances are they won’t recover any of the beer.”
“I had a tear in my eye, actually, when I was watching it,” said Halifax Regional Police Const. Mark Hobeck. “It was full of beer. We were hoping a Hostess truck full of pretzels would come by, but no such luck.”

That is simultaneously the saddest beer news I have heard, and the greatest quote about beer to come out of a police constables mouth ever.

The BBC News has an interesting article about “a revolutionary piece of technology” that has the potential to help the blind see.

A bionic eye “designed by Professor Gislin Dagnelie at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore” was unveiled “at a Royal National Institute for the Blind conference in London on Monday.” The device is comprised of “a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual’s eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear.”

The breakthrough is likely to benefit patients with the most common cause of blindness, macular degeneration, which affects 500,000 people in the UK.

This occurs when there is damage to the macular, which is in the central part of the retina where light is focused and changed into nerve signals in the middle of the brain.

The implant bypasses the diseased cells in the retina and stimulates the remaining viable cells.

Currently the images produced by the device are far from perfect and the technology has a long way to go, but Professor Dagnelie said:

We are hoping this will be enough for the person to be able to make their way through a building, find a door or window and avoid obstacles for example.

To us, the images look very basic but for someone who was previously blind they are a massive step forward.

This is a great example of technology advancing and bettering society. As a person with bad eyes myself, I know how precious vision is. It would be great if technology were able to help let those who have gone blind see again.

Former Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, better known to the world as Pope John Paul II, has passed away. Now I am not a very religious person, I don’t attend church other than for weddings or funerals, and the only way one would know I am even Christian is from the Cross I wear or the one that hangs in my truck, but even I feel the loss. Karol Wojtyla “was elevated to the papacy on Oct. 16, 1978” thus becoming Pope John Paul II, and his reign was marked with compassion and service to the world. John Paul II has been the Pope my entire life, and though I am sure others feel this great loss more than I, yet, even I feel that something great has come to an end. This article over on MSNBC tells of the sorrowful news, and there are many others as well (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

As the days go on there will be even more news, as all eyes turn to Rome as the College of Cardinals gather to elect a new Pope. This is a process that will begin 15 to 20 days after the death of the Pope. I found this article that describes the process and those involved in the election of a new Pope. Although John Paul II was a great leader, the Catholic Church is not as strong as it could be, and as such times may be hard in the near future. With any luck the process for electing a new Pope will not be a long one. However, even in death John Paul II will have an influence as to who his successor will be, and for a number of reasons:

John Paul II, appointed all but three of the 117 voting cardinals who will gather beneath the frescoed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to choose his successor.
When they write the names of candidates by hand on rectangular cards for the balloting, it will be under rules that John Paul set nearly a decade ago.
John Paul’s influence was so strong in every corner of the church that almost everyone in the emerging set of papabili — men who could be pope — shares his basic views.

Needless to say, over the course of the next month, and until a new Pope is elected, the news will undoubtedly be focusing on the events unfolding in Rome.

Rest In Peace
Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II
May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005

Whats better than a Lion and a Tiger, a Liger! “Its pretty much my favorite animal,” and some zookeepers in Miami have managed to breed one. According to the article this thing is huge and they think its gonna get bigger. According to the article Hercules shows traits of both his parents;

Hercules sports his father’s mane and his mother’s stripes. He roars like a lion and swims like a tiger (lions loathe the water).
“He’s already bigger than his parents and he’s still growing,” Antle said. “I expect he’ll be 12-feet long and weigh 1,000 pounds when he’s fully grown.”

Although visiting the actual site for Parrot Jungle Island makes no mention that I could find of Hercules, I think it would be really cool if this story were true. Of course a quick google search for Liger does produce a number of hits, including a story from a Siberian Zoo.