A girl was found in a box on Tuesday and was declared dead by doctors after she was taken to hospital, police said.

Police identified the victim as Airi Kinoshita, 7, a first-year elementary school student from Aki-ku, Hiroshima. A passerby found the girl in a cardboard box in an empty lot in Aki-ku at about 3 p.m. before alerting local police. Police have launched a murder investigation.

Moscow Wax Figure Exhibition Highlights Graphic Dangers of Drugs:

“I just want to get rid of it,” said musician Nikki Stone about the late serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s signed self-portrait of his terrifying alter ego, “Pogo the Clown.”

Since he plunked down $3,000 in 2001 to buy the framed oil from national murderabilia merchant Arthur Rosenblatt, Stone said his beloved dog has died and his mother found out she had cancer. When a friend offered to store the painting at his house, the friend’s neighbor was killed in a car crash. A second friend who kept the painting for Stone attempted suicide…

Theory Anesthetic, frequently mentioned here and often featured on The Apparat Programme, is doing the music thing out where people can see her:

Thursday, Dec. 8
Phyllis’s Musical Inn
1800 West Division St,Chicago, IL
8:00 PM
No Cover

If you go, say hello to Mandy for me.

Sometimes I think about creating a website called Homicide Girls, where the subscription fees go towards funding human-hunts in the lawless wilds of the Ukraine.

(Or Oakland, CA. Though I’m sure Oakland has been cleaned by Oakland PD’s introduction of a single mounted officer last year.)

Because who wouldn’t want to see tattooed girls in fetishwear hunting humans with handguns, knives and perhaps the odd javelin?

I personally think I’m on to something, but the enthusiasm always wanes when I wake up sober.

End Of An Error: including preview clips delivered via radio.blog, so enable popups.

“This is a documentation and study of the feasibility of creating a sustainable fusion reaction from an initial fission reaction on Saturn caused by a significant quantity of Plutonium-238 being inserted deep into the atmosphere. A fusion-ignited Saturn-sun would be the key to creating a human-habitable area on Titan. Turning one of our gas giants, like Saturn, into a star is the essence of The Lucifer Project.”

Two more people have died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Indonesia, raising the number of deaths there to seven…

The H5N1 virus has killed more than 60 people in South East Asia since the latest outbreak began in 2003.

On Tuesday, China confirmed its first human death from the H5N1 virus.

Bird flu could readily mutate into a pandemic form if it infects people with Aids, a flu expert has warned.

Dr Robert Webster said it was possible people with Aids, who have depressed immune systems, could harbour the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. This would potentially give it the opportunity to become better adapted – and more dangerous – to humans…

Found by Mer Yayanos:

Photos by Hep:

Scientists have discovered a gene that appears to control whether fear reactions to impending danger are appropriate or not.

Mice lacking the gene stathmin appeared fearless in conditions that should instinctively inspire fear. The gene is present in particularly high levels in a part of the brain, called the amygdala, known to be important in human fear…

“It is no use giving computers away to schools if no one is going to use them,” Ebben Haotuikulipi from SchoolNet Namibia explained… after the trainer they provided for two months left the schools and the computers in the labs remained largely untouched…

So in April, they came up with the paper-based HaiTI comic, which means Listen Up in the local language, Oshaiwambo.

“It is printed every Tuesday in the local youth newspaper, so it goes across the country. What is in the comic is also all online,” said Ms Haotuikulipi.

The colourful gang of characters explain technology and what it can be used for through stories, just like a conventional comic adventure. When they talk about e-mail or downloading, for example, information panels near the speech bubbles offer an explanation and web addresses for readers to follow. The characters are based on actual SchoolNet staff members and the comic has been such a hit that they are becoming minor celebrities…

Three dead in Honduras.

Louis Armand provides a bon mot:

…our inability to represent even human intelligence appears to pose insurmountable problems for an understanding of what a generalised intelligence could be. In terms of cybernetics or computing science, we might equally characterise this imaginary quality as a dream of code…

Suzanne G, aka
Miss Wurzel Tod
on going
home again

One fine example for (Lucerne’s) amalgamated understanding of religion and rites is the so-called “Geisslechlöfpe” – a traditional form of whipping in the open air after nightfall. On one hand, the Catholic church sees this as a way to pay tribute to Saint Nicholas of Myra – patron of pharmacists, fishermen, sailors and thieves (sic!) – and a symbolised form of Catholic self-flagellation. On the other hand, people from more Alpine and rural parts of Lucerne clearly understand the act of whipping as a way to drive away demons, ghosts, succubi & incubi and most importantly, as a preventive measure to keep the dragon that lives on Mount Pilatus from stealing their children and young cattle. The sound of the whip is also said to protect the cattle from rabies and make the milk creamier. Furthermore, whipping is obviously still used as a form of emergency communication from one Alp to another – just like fires, Alphorns and the so-called “Alpsegen”.

And for me, it’s the sound that’s as essentially connected with the coming of winter as is snow, cinnamon milk and the cracking noise of frozen twigs.

Sweeps, the Domestos
of American TV

DEFAMER says: “The ratings sweeps race is looking like a two-horse affair, with ABC and CBS battling for position ‘down the stretch.’ To further belabor the metaphor: NBC is still stuck at the gate, humping its dead steed with eyes squeezed shut, thinking of the Friends cast.”

The Apparat Programme broadcast at ninety-six kilobits per second in broadband 6: there should be explosions and crying and drunks at the end

(33.27 mins) (22.9MB) (direct download)
Pick up The Apparat Programme automatically via podcasty thing or iTunes using this address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Apparat

All music was donated directly to the Programme by the artists. The running order for Programme 6 is:

Betty Brant – “Blood Explosion” (0:58)
DAQ – “Exploding Things In My Head” (3:28)
Escape(Window) – “An Act Of Desperation” (3:11)
The Clerics – “Longterm Revenge Plans” (1:58)
The Moon Knights – “Smoking Stars” (2:48)
Farworks – “Waking Up To A Day The Color Of Slate” (1:50)
Brian Grosz – “Sick Of Your Shit” (2:22)
djk – “Wednesday” (4:06)
Os Almeida – “Viciado Em Você” (4:06)
Theory Anesthetic – “Can of Something” (4:01)
The Poxy Boggards – “Aboard the Good Ship Venus” (4:34)

Audience stats for the Apparat Programme:
1 – 3113 listeners | 2 – 2425 | 3 – 2046 | 4 – 2041 | 5 – 1813

Direct downloads of previous Programmes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Please please please: if you enjoyed the Apparat Programme, please spread the word, linking back to this post. Just one line in your blog and a link would help. Feel free to hotlink the Apparat stamp.

If you want your music to be included in an Apparat Programme, email your mp3 filess directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

Because 9000 of you couldn’t choose: Edison Hate Future t-shirts. Go and look. I guarantee the one you voted for is there.

At CBR.

In a revolting incident of superstition some villagers in Uparkhandadhar village of Sundergarh district in Orissa allegedly forced four women accused of being witches to eat human excreta under the disguise of witches. The police have arrested eight persons, including two women for this heinous action.

These four women were locked in a room for three days by six men and two women. They were allegedly forced to pay a fine of 500 rupees each and forced to consume human excreta.

“They beat us with a bible and said we were lying and that we are practicing witchcraft. They also fined us for it and forced us to consume human excreta,” said Kapri, one of the victim.

According to police, the four women were tortured as they were accused of practicing sorcery and spreading disease in the village.

The Government of Orissa has a law against aiding and abetting witchcraft. In 1999, the Government also passed an act against witchcraft, “Witch Prohibition Act-1999”, according to which six months imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 rupees can be imposed on a person found guilty of torturing innocent women…