The New Meaning Of “Unlimited”

“An unlimited monthly MetroCard would max out at 90 trips under an MTA budget proposal — and officials may also cap the weekly cards at 21 rides, the Daily News has learned.”

I recently spent some truly fantastic time in a state park and recommend that you do the same this summer in America’s fine state and national parks systems! Enjoy them while you can. (Caveat: but don’t die out there).

A drunken Australian, having been ejected from a pub in Broome, Western Australia, for being intoxicated by even the heroic standards of Prison Island, decided to visit the local crocodile park, where he scaled the fence and attempted to ride a giant saltwater crocodile named Fatso. Fatso, however, was reluctant to be ridden, and took a chunk out of the man’s leg. Deciding on reflection that it might not be the most propitious occasion for an excursion atop a crocodile, the fellow returned to the pub from which he had been cast out, “with bits of bark hanging off him and flesh gouged out of his limbs.” He was treated for severe lacerations.

Do you remember what you were doing 25 years ago today? Maybe not, if you are young. But if you are less young, chances are you spent at least some part of the day in front of the television, watching rock stars perform in front of 72,000 people at England’s Wembley Stadium or 99,000 people at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. July 13th, 1985 was Live Aid.

The event, organized by the Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof in an effort to raise money to bring food to millions of people starving in Africa, was in some ways a huge success: over two billion people watched the worldwide broadcast, and it’s been estimated that over $280 million was raised. Unfortunately, it has also been estimated that much of this money never made it to the people for which it was intended-that it instead went into supporting military dictatorships that in fact oppressed their citizens.

And so the show stands as much as a symbol of folly as it does of goodwill: the rich and famous rock stars assuaging their guilty consciences, when really: how much fuel was burned to jet Phil Collins across the Atlantic on the Concorde, just so he could play a shitty set with a reunited Led Zeppelin? Other particularly shitty sets were performed by Duran Duran, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards and Ron Wood, and Paul McCartney, whose microphone didn’t work. But, you know, I think good intentions should be appreciated. And lots of the music was pretty great.

Here are videos, arranged in the order in which they occurred the day of show. At the very least, the footage provides for a wonderful time capsule of ridiculous fashion and amazingly bad haircuts. Madonna wanted to know if you were ready to get into the groove! And you can totally see Freddie Mercury’s penis.

Why do black people run faster than white people while white people swim faster than black people? Hahaha, are you kidding? There’s NO WAY I’m touching that question! Science, however, is less concerned with the attendant controversies: Researchers at Duke University have determined that the placement of the belly button-the body’s center of gravity-makes all the difference. Study author Andre Bejan breaks it down.

‘Individuals of West African-origin have longer legs than European-origin athletes, which means their belly-buttons are three centimeters (1.18 inches) higher than whites.’

That means the black athletes have a “hidden height” that is three percent greater than whites’, which gives them a significant speed advantage on the track.

Professor Bejan adds: ‘Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward, and mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster.’

In the pool, meanwhile, whites have the advantage because they have longer torsos, so their belly-buttons sit lower on the body.

Before you get all, I dunno, however you’re going to get, do make a note of this: The study “focused on the athletes’ geographic origins and biology, not race, which the authors of the study call a ‘social construct.’” So there you go.

[Pic via]

Casting doubt on Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman’s claim to have helped write a speech for President Obama: “Mort Zuckerman did not ‘help write; any of Barack Obama’s speeches… There are a lot of reasons why this is the case-for example Mort Zuckerman and Barack Obama do not hold, in particular, many political positions in common-but the chief reason you can tell that Mort Zuckerman has not helped write any of the President’s speeches is that the President’s speeches are really well-written, and Mort Zuckerman is not that smart

.”

“Shopping for food and keeping a good conscience is hard. To help you out, the team at the WONDER-TONIC Organic Approval Committee have released a downloadable set of 16 stickers to let you label your favorite foods, books, and appliances as organic. Just print them out, stick them on, and start feeling good about yourself!”

The Associated Press is reporting that New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has died at the age of 80 following a heart attack at his Tampa home.

You may remember the rather terrific Giant Russian Penis escapade, designed by the art agitprop outfit War, to torture the Russian Federal Security Service. Now (or as close to “now” as we can tell from the slow migration of news from Russian Livejournals), they are protesting supermarkets. The translation goes something like this: “Food in Europe became a privilege and not a right of every freeman. And we, War art-movement, are waging a war with this infernal system till the very last cog of the Capitalists machine will be torn out.” Commenters at English Russia are torn on whether the protesters are “dirty smelly hippies,” “fruits and nuts, weirdos and freakos,” “attention whores,” or just “suspiciously Jewish,” so at least we learn that the Russian Internet is just like the American one: full of anonymous people ready to denounce anyone who stands out (but especially the Jews).

Jeez. What do you get after becoming a citywide symbol of bravery and resilience by surviving a crossbow bolt through the neck? A bunch of biologists wait til you’ve molted all your flying feathers off and sneak up and throw a net on you. Part of a plot to remove some 400 geese from Prospect Park in order to protect humans flying in airplanes. As theTimes reports: “The biologists, who work with the wildlife services division of the United States Department of Agriculture, then packed the geese two or three to a crate and took them to a facility where they were gassed with lethal doses of carbon dioxide.” Regular goose feeder Anne-Katrin Titze, who had discovered “Target,” the one with an arrow through its neck, last month, was shocked to find the flock missing on Thursday. “It’s a horrible end,” she said.