The tourists coped with the ordeal well. An overweight woman who got stuck in a South African cave trapped 22 fellow tourists for more than 10 hours and had to be prised free with liquid paraffin.
The woman became trapped in the Tunnel of Love obstacle in the Cango Caves in Western Cape on New Year's Day. The caves' manager said the woman had been warned she might not be suitable but she insisted on trying. "I'm not fat, I'm big-boned, can't you see, fools!?"
One of those trapped was a diabetic who had to be brought insulin. The woman and the other tourists were unhurt.
The rescue operation involved several ambulance teams and a helicopter. Hein Gerstner, manager of Cango Caves, told the BBC it was an "expensive exercise" that could cost 40,000 rand ($5,700). "We don't know yet who will foot the bill," he said.
The ordeal began when the woman became stuck just after noon on New Year's Day. Mr Gerstner said the woman was "told at the ticket office that she was too big to take part in the specific section". He said she was again warned by the guide but that it was "very difficult to discriminate".
Mr Gerstner said: "The obstacle has a narrow base. She lost her footing and went down in a splits position. There was no way she could get her body weight up."
But he said she was young and remained mentally strong throughout and the other tourists took the ordeal "exceptionally well".
The tourists, including two asthmatic children, were given blankets, water and chocolate bars as the rescue proceeded. Was any of them not sick or unhealthy? Just asking.
One rescuer was able to climb over the woman to deliver insulin to the diabetic. With combat boots.
No drilling equipment was needed and the woman was eventually freed with a pulley and paraffin used to grease the surface at about 2320. She was taken to hospital but is not injured and is expected to be released on Tuesday.
Mr Gerstner said: "We believe what goes in, must come out again. People get stuck all the time - that's one of the unfortunate things that happen, it's part of the adventure."
However, he said the caves would consider more stringent measures for those entering. "We'll grease them, that should do the trick, by Gum! Worked for that fat cow, didn't it?"
#4
The rescue operation involved several ambulance teams and a helicopter
Bet it was a helluva trick to get the helicopter down into the cave to where it could winch the lady out.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/02/2007 14:59 Comments ||
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#5
Was anyone not sick ?
Well, she was stuck doing a split on the exit opening on top of the cave. At one point she belched up above, and down below a suction picked up the children and sent them headlong into the blockage. That was when we all got sick.
#7
Was anyone not sick ?
Well, she was stuck doing a split on the exit opening on top of the cave. At one point she belched up above, and down below a suction picked up the children and sent them headlong into the blockage. That was when we all got sick.
#10
SO its a toss-up between "All together, boyz, with feeling, how fat was she?", versus "Thats too much information!?", versus "We Male Brutes don't wanna know, and more importantly we don't wanna touch!?".
#2
Sounds to me that the good Dr. Smith knew what he was talking about. Too bad he didn't get to shake hands with a great white while he was floundering in the bay.
A young Australian woman got more than she bargained for during a dinner conversation when she laughed so hard she accidentally swallowed a spoon.
The 26-year-old ingested a teaspoon when she was overcome by the giggles while eating spaghetti, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said. The 15cm spoon stuck in her throat at the top of her stomach.
Doctors at Canterbury Hospital sedated the woman and removed it "with great difficulty" during a 90-minute operation.
#2
Perhaps I'm a savage but why a teaspoon while eating spaghetti? I've seen folks use a spoon to twirl the spaghatti fork on but never eating with the spoon itself.
#3
Perhaps I'm a savage but why a teaspoon while eating spaghetti? I've seen folks use a spoon to twirl the spaghatti fork on but never eating with the spoon itself
VANDALS set fire to about 400 cars overnight and police said they arrested more than 250 people, as violence marred France's New Year celebrations. However, a police spokesman said there were fewer problems than in 2005, when youths attacked trains in the Paris region and southeast of the country.
25,000 police were on duty throughout the country during the night, including 4500 in Paris, where the authorities banned fireworks and firecrackers. Police said that they had arrested 258 people nationwide by early morning, including two children aged eight and 10 who set fire to dustbins in the eastern city of Strasbourg. Three children aged between 10 and 12 were arrested in a Paris suburb after they were caught carrying cans of petrol. In the capital itself, almost 400,000 people welcomed in the New Year on the Champs Elysees and at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where no serious incidents were reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Car BBQ R Us,
France's New Year celebrations = France's contribution to global warming.
#4
VANDALS MUSLIMS set fire to about 400 cars overnight and police said they arrested more than 250 people muslims, as violence marred France's New Year celebrations. However, a police spokesman said there were fewer problems than in 2005, when youths muslims attacked trains in the Paris region and southeast of the country.
25,000 police were on duty throughout the country during the night, including 4500 in Paris, where the authorities banned fireworks and firecrackers. Police said that they had arrested 258 people muslims nationwide by early morning, including two children young muslims aged eight and 10 who set fire to dustbins in the eastern city of Strasbourg. Three children young muslims aged between 10 and 12 were arrested in a Paris suburb after they were caught carrying cans of petrol. In the capital itself, almost 400,000 people welcomed in the New Year on the Champs Elysees and at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where no serious incidents were reported.
Fixed. Don't the French proofread anything before they publish it?
Democrat Eliot Spitzer, who built an international reputation fighting corruption on Wall Street, took office as New York's governor Monday, calling for an end to "the politics of cynicism and division" and signing a series of ethics measures.
Spitzer said frequent deadlocks between Republican Gov. George Pataki and the Legislature thwarted school improvements, ethics reforms, efforts to cut the nation's highest taxes and attempts to revive the state's economy. "New York has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by," Spitzer said in his inaugural address. "Today is the day when all of that changes when we stop standing still and start moving forward once more."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
The real truth is that democraps held back voting on bills they actually wrote so they could blame Pataki for 'the politics of cynicism and division'. Worthless balls of shit, these democraps.
New Delhi: A 45-year-old Muslim man on Monday slit his throat with a knife and sacrificed himself at the shrine of Ghazi Baba in Bahraich District in Uttar Pradesh on the occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha, police said.
A note was found in which Moharrum Ali had written, "I was sacrificing my life as I once dreamt Allah asking me to offer myself for sacrifice," Superintendent of Police (SP) Pramod Kumar told PTI.
He said a sharp-edged weapon was also recovered near his body and added that the case was being investigated.
Moharrum Ali had made an attempt to sacrifice himself at the shrine a couple of years ago, the SP said.
Prima facie, it appeared to be an act of suicide with religious fanaticism, Kumar said.
ISLAMABAD Pakistan has 12 million Internet users, but the net is slow, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
It's slow 'cause 11 million of them are downloading pr0n, a half-million are begging for money, and the rest are launching DoS attacks on LGF and Rantburg.
The number has grown significantly in the last couple of years with service providers moving beyond Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi to reach more of the country's 166 million population. According to the PTA, it is possible to connect homes with Internet at the low rate of Rs.2.50 per hour.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2007 00:41 ||
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Redacted by moderator. Comments may be redacted for trolling, violation of standards of good manners, or plain stupidity. Please correct the condition that applies and try again. Contents may be viewed in the sinktrap. Further violations may result in banning.
#5
Just how did they network all those camels and goats? Must be the new NOS USB ass to dick link up. Allah approved, Mecca tested. Keith Ellison endorsed.
Saddam Hussein asked us to create the soundtrack to his execution shindig this weekend. Thoughts?
* Dead Man Walking, Bruce Springsteen
* 25 Minutes to Go, Johnny Cash
* Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin
* Let Him Dangle, Elvis Costello
* Hang On, Teenage Fanclub
-- Rolling Stone
That's amusing enough, albiet in poor taste (in a Rantburg kind of way), but the reaction in the comment box by one of the compassionate antiwar crowd is pure comic gold:
From a journalistic stand-point, for a publication with the historical significance of RS to post something like this is really an embarrassing sign of the times . . . Essentially, you are mocking the life-works of artists like Bob Dylan and John Lennon who represent your audience.
#5
There's a TMBG song with the lyrics "twistin', twistin', in the wind". Seems perfect.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/02/2007 21:37 Comments ||
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#6
If you guys get a chance, read some of the comments from the moral equivilating lefty-droolers on the RS site - fricken' hillarious. What a bunch of lip-quivering p*ssies. It really is hard for me to stomach that some of my fellow countrymen who I defend with my life's blood on a daily basis are clearly totally f*cking stupid.
#9
I'd vote for any Yoko Ono song. To me. it's always sounded like strangling a cat, and I can't imagine Sammy was much different
/no, sorry, I am a cat guy, so STFU. I only imagined the sound....especially when mine wants me up at 4am on a Saturday
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2007 22:37 Comments ||
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#10
I came up with this list the other day:
They Might Be Giants, "Twisting in the Wind."
Led Zeppelin, "Gallows Pole"
Eddie Money, "Gimmie Some Water"*
Styx, "Hangman"
Nothingface, "Big Fun at the Gallows"
*"Slap that horse in the ass/With my last dyin' gasp/My brother could hear me say"
Posted by: Mike ||
01/02/2007 22:50 Comments ||
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Khairullah, 31, set a precedent in November by becoming the state's first elected Arab-American Muslim mayor. Now he's all about proving that, like any good politician, a Muslim can serve the public without mixing religion into it. Separate Islam from politics. Doubt that.
You'll find the Quran in his office. But it's wedged between essential reading for this job: a municipal manual and a flood insurance study. Deliver the goods to everyone, and then you can exert personal perspective. It's a strategy he imparts to other Muslims and Arabs.
"You need to be sitting at the table with the decision makers; that's how you get involved," he tells them. "But we should never forget that we are Americans before anything. We work through the larger community first."
Leaders say that more Arab-Americans are starting to get involved in politics, but the large percentage are non-Muslim. In this year's elections, 54 Arab-Americans ran nationwide, 40 won primaries and 24 won general elections. Two candidates with Arab heritage ran in New Jersey, Mayor Randy George of North Haledon, who is Christian, and Mohamed Khairullah of Prospect Park, who is Muslim. Both won.
But to get to where he is, Khairullah weathered trouble specific to being an Arab Muslim politician after 9/11. He has been called a "betrayer" and had his remarks on the Palestinian situation come back to bite him. Of late, he says, he's learned to temper public stands on hot topics, especially after seeing Sami Merhi of Clifton, a Lebanese American, dumped by Democrats as a 2006 freeholder candidate. Merhi had reportedly said at a function that he couldn't see the similarity between Palestinian suicide bombers and the 9/11 hijackers. And I can't see the difference.
"For me and for anyone else of Middle Eastern descent who wants to get into politics, it comes as a learning experience," Khairullah said. "Politicians need to watch what they say -- it's plain and simple." As mayor, though, Khairullah can't help but operate beyond faith. Besides the residents' pleas this particular day, there are checks to sign for a seniors' luncheon, and a streetscape project in danger of going over budget.
Khairullah's family came to town after living in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Queens. He was 16, and he worked hard at assimilating, always carrying an English phrasebook. After his father, a body shop owner, died of a heart attack, the family struggled. But, borrowing money from an uncle, Khairullah managed to go to William Paterson University.
By then, he already knew he was destined for politics. His epiphany had come as a highschooler when he saw a council campaign sign for Khalil Kasht. Khairullah recognized the name as Muslim and thought, "If he could do it, maybe I could."
#2
If he has indeed learnt to separate his personal faith from his job as a professional politician, then good for him. There are two experiments currently on-going to test whether Islam can play nice with the outside world, and Mayor Khairullah is part of the second one. It is here in the US that the ideal conditions exist in which to see whether Muslims in the minority will accept moving their religion from the public to the private sphere, thus changing the Muslims from ruling Master Race to participants as equals, winning or losing as individuals rather than front men for religion, tribe, clan and family.
#3
Right, so on public he is all American, eats hot dogs and keeps a quran. Basically Keith Ellison lite in drag.
In private he follows the teachings of a desert cult started by an Arab terrorist who promoted political assassination, theft, mass slaughter not to mention rape and pedophilia. The only time Muhammad had his Mooselimbs "play nice" was when they were in the minority and would have gotten their asses kicked had they tried to instill some kind of Sharia on the local humans.
Explain to me again why we should give a shit about so called moderate followers of Muhammad with his teachings of dominating every nation with Islamic law? Why should we give them a chance instead of banning this cult altogether?
The better question if why do we keep having these kind of conversations. I know the answer, it is going to take a Muslim nuke going off in this country (and it's going to happen) before the "moderate Muslim" tolerating Americans wake the hell up.
#4
It's time we viewed Islam as being as much of a political movement as a religion, and revise the religious legal protections granted it by encompassing it's political operations.
#5
Why should we give them a chance instead of banning this cult altogether?
Yes, but history has shown that you can't "ban" a cult or religion any more than you can ban thought. What you can do is make practicing it so intolerable that, to paraphrase Sherman, "generations will pass before they once again resort to it". It's not a "ban", but it'll do in a pinch.
#6
Steganography is the business of hiding things in plain sight. Through taqiyya (sp?) and kitman, islam does precisely that, and noting could be more confirming of this than these statements from the elected muslims. Were this nation and our fellow citizens less ignorant and slothful, this dangerous political movement invading the last bastion of the West would be either expelled or monitored aggressively. I think that reasoning is behind the emerging movements like 910 and CAN, and we shall see if their overt monitoring pinches....CAIR will squeal if it's working, and if it does, more of us need to put a shoulder to the wheel. If the government can't or won't monitor radical mosques and clandestine madrassahs here (Jamaat al Fuqra for example) then private citizens need to, using the legal means at their disposal.
#7
Yes, but history has shown that you can't "ban" a cult or religion any more than you can ban thought.
Thanks Geek but I have to beg to differ. Haven't seen to many Aztecs around lately. William Sleeman let loose on the Thuggees, they're history. I know that's just two examples but yes you can ban a cult.
But back to Khairullah. Why is anyone thinking we have to wait to see if he "plays good"? Ah, some Muslims good but Islam is bad so why the fuk bother even trying to deal with this death cult?
#8
There's no correct or incorrect spelling of taqiyyah, JustAboutEnough, because it's transliterated from a non-Latin alphabet. ;-)
It may well be that Muslims cannot live even here peacefully, which is about as ideal a society in terms of multiplicity of beliefs -- but all personal and private rather than the one State religion plus others more or less tolerated, the situation Muhammed set up up his followers to exploit. Separate but equal was an unthinkable concept back in those days. Muhammed's techniques were aimed at the reasonable autocrat, which just isn't the case here -- CAIR, et al don't have to pursuade just the ruling class to grant them priviledges, but also all us peepul to not only go along, but close our eyes to their be-hijabed wimminfolk shouldering my darling mother-in-law off the sidewalk in Lackawanna, about which she is not at all happy.
Bottom line, if they can't live peaceably as citizens in the US, without the excuse that the majority society discriminated -- as they do so blatantly in Europe -- they can't anywhere. Similarly, if they can't pull themselves together in Iraq to take advantage of the world's intervention to make of themselves a peaceful society living at peace with its neighbors, then it seems likely we are going to have to work on eradicating Islam altogether. Which I've no doubt has already been gamed wherever the Pentagon cogniscenti do such things, and filed alongside plans for the invasion of Canada and New Zealand.
Or so it seems to me from the wilds of the Midwestern suburbs, while the trailing daughters recover from the fatigues of homework by practicing TaeKwanDo with their father. ;-)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Stuck woman traps SA cave group 
The rescue operation involved several ambulance teams and a helicopter. Hein Gerstner, manager of Cango Caves, told the BBC it was an "expensive exercise" that could cost 40,000 rand ($5,700). "We don't know yet who will foot the bill," he said. 
New Delhi: A 45-year-old Muslim man on Monday slit his throat with a knife and sacrificed himself at the shrine of Ghazi Baba in Bahraich District in Uttar Pradesh on the occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha, police said.
ISLAMABAD Pakistan has 12 million Internet users, but the net is slow, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
Saddam Hussein asked us to create the soundtrack to his execution shindig this weekend. Thoughts?
