Homo Erectus

Did you think Homo erectus [Latin: "upright man"] was an extinct species? Think again!

Pathology of Non-evolved Minds

France

French president Nicolas Sarkozy (R) gives flowers to British author and Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling during an award ceremony where she was named knight of the Legion of Honour, the highest civilian distinction in France, at the Elysee presidential (Benoit Tessier/AFP/Getty Images)  http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/11428/

J.K. Rowling reassured French readers of her hugely successful Harry Potter series on Tuesday that she had nothing against their country despite giving her arch-villain a French name, Voldemort. The award was  created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. (Reuters)

United Kingdom

ATHENS (Reuters) – Nine British women were facing prostitution charges after being arrested at the weekend for taking part in an oral sex competition in the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, police said on Monday. Around 15 million people — a fifth of them British — visit the eastern Mediterranean country each year.

Russia

Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday. “A pack of cement used in creating … good weather in the capital region … failed to pulverize completely at high altitude and fell on the roof of a house, making a hole about 80-100 cm (2.5-3 ft),” police in Naro-Fominsk told agency RIA-Novosti. A spokesman for the Russian Air Force refused to comment.

Norway

• A thief walked unnoticed out of a Norwegian aquarium carrying a crocodile at the weekend and now risks losing a finger or two, the head of the aquarium said.

Finland

• The mayor of Easter Island said yesterday that he wished the Finnish tourist who is accused of chipping an earlobe off an ancient Moai could have his ear clipped off as “justice” for damaging one of the famous statues.

Finland (again)

The suspect in the fatal shooting at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, Finland [Photo is a frame grab taken from footage released to media September 23, 2008.]  Had he been slightly more intelligent, pulling the trigger in the correct sequence, i.e., shooting himself in the brain first, he could earned himself a …

Canada

• A Canadian man who asked his lover to carve a heart-shaped symbol on his chest during a rough sex game almost died when she accidentally pressed too hard and punctured his heart.

Iceland

• Sigurdur Hjartarson is missing a human penis. But he’s not worried: four men have promised to donate theirs to him when they die. Hjartarson is founder and owner of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which offers visitors from around the world a close-up look at the long and the short of the male reproductive organ.

Japan

• On the seventh anniversary of a massacre at a Japanese primary school, when a knife-wielding janitor and former mental patient killed eight schoolchildren, a Tokyo man went on a stabbing rampage [June 8, 2008] in a crowded shopping street, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others. “I came to Akihabara to kill people,” the attacker told police. “I am tired of the world. Anyone was OK. I came alone.”

West Bengal, India

• The severed head and torso of a man was found in a temple in West Bengal, India. The police said it was a case of “human sacrifice.”