As adorable as it is to watch a baby elephant play soccer or splash in a pool , it’s equally depressing to see one cry. An infant elephant was inconsolable this week after his own mother actually tried to stomp him to death in a Chinese zoo. According to Metro U.K., the mother gave birth to her son in August and tried to step on him soon afterward. Hoping it was an accident, veterinarians treated the calf and returned him to his parent… only for the same violent incident to take place again. Baby Elephant Cries Said a zoo employee: “The calf was very upset and he was crying for five hours before he could be consoled. He couldn’t bear to be parted from his mother and it was his mother who was trying to kill him.” Pictures of the crying elephant (named Zhuang Zhuang) have gone viral, but there does appear to be a happy ending to this story: The animal has been adopted. His tears have reportedly dried up and we can all hope he’ll be kicking and splashing around in no time.
We’ve seen some unusual animal videos in our time. Did you watch coverage of this Chinese Zoo, which tried to pass a dog off as a lion ? But the following footage ranks right up there in terms of strangeness: it’s of an owner vacuuming a duck and seemingly making the pet’s day. The video simply raises so many questions: Who has a duck for a pet? How did this individual realize that said duck enjoys being vacuumed? And why does he enjoy being vacuumed?!? Watch now and try to gain some understanding for yourself: Duck Loves to be Vaccumed
Could Sean and Naya be the next Humpback Hov and Beyawnsay ? Probably not, but they make a nice enough couple . Naya Rivera Featuring Big Sean “Sorry” Via EOnline Naya Rivera and her boyfriend Big Sean have embarked on a musical collaboration. The 26-year-old Glee starlet dropped the duo’s first single together, “Sorry,” on Los Angeles radio station Power 106 FM Friday afternoon. And it seemed like her fans couldn’t wait to hear it. Rivera and her 25-year-old rapper beau first made their relationship public in April when they stepped out arm-in-arm on the red carpet of the premiere of 42 in Hollywood. Press “play” and let us know if you hate it or love it. Image via WENN
We have news regarding Justin Bieber – and it has nothing to do with raided tour buses , peeing in mop buckets or even Selena Gomez . This update is actually focused on – gasp ! – the singer’s music for a change. While performing yesterday in New Jersey, the Biebs was presented with an award from the Recording Industry Association of America’s Gold & Platinum Program because his early hit “Baby” has gone Diamond, meaning it has sold over 12 million copies. Moreover, “Baby” is now the G&P’s top Digital Single. Of all-time. Justin Bieber – Baby (Music Video) “Amazing night and honored,” Bieber Tweeted after the show and recognition. “So much more to do. I love my #Beliebers. Thank u!!” As you might expect, the singer’s fans then mobilized on social media and started Trending the hashtag “#congratsjustin” around the world. It’s well-deserved!
While Hunger Games fans debate the hotness of Sam Claflin , we now know of one woman who is perfectly content with this actor’s looks: Laura Haddock… his new wife! The Catching Fire star exchanged vows this week with the actress (currently appearing on Da Vinci’s Demons ), as photos of the pair’s private ceremony and reception made their way around the Internet on Tuesday. Claflin and Haddock are both 27 years old and have been engaged for over 18 months. They both spoken out, in gushing terms, about their romance on multiple occasions. “How do I know she’s the one?” Claflin said in a May 2012 interview. “She’s my female counterpart is the best way to describe her. She is my mum … She reminds me of my mum so much which I think — a guy will know, right? It’s important. Your mum knows like everything.” The couple met during an audition many years ago and Claflin has said he called friends right away and say he was madly in love with Haddock. AWWW! We send these two our very best wishes!
Bigfoot is once again back in the news, thanks to two new videos from British Columbia, Canada, that allegedly capture the hairy creature in action. Bigfoot Sighting in Canada Sasquatch Sighting in Canada The first video (left) shows what certainly looks like a giant, ape-like creature ambling through a forest, just a little bit too far away to be seen clearly. The second (right) appears to show a group of Chinese tourists in Mission, B.C., taking photos of a large ape-like figure creeping through the trees. The videos, dated July 18 and 24, came to light after Canadian app Legend Tracker put out a request for videos of Bigfoot and his mythical brethren. The legend continues … though if that’s a hoax, it’s a good one. You tell us, THGers … Bigfoot: Real or fake? Real! Fake! View Poll »
More and more of these “on the job” disasters are happening in these foreign countries. So sad. 119 Killed In Poultry Plant Fire In China According to The NY Daily News Fire raged through a poultry plant in northeastern China on Monday, trapping workers inside a cluttered slaughterhouse and killing at least 119 people, reports and officials said. Several dozen people also were hurt in the blaze in Jilin province’s Mishazi township, which appeared to have been sparked by three early morning explosions, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The provincial fire department, on its microblog, attributed the blasts to a leak of ammonia, a gas that is kept pressurized as part of the cooling system in meat processing plants. State broadcaster CCTV quoted unidentified workers as saying the fire broke out during a change of shifts and may have originated in a locker room at a time when about 350 workers were at the plant, owned by Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co. It wasn’t clear how many workers had been accounted for and a provincial government media official, who refused to give his name, said he expected the death toll to rise further as more bodies were recovered from the charred building. The plant’s ‘’complicated” interior, narrow exits and a locked front gate made escape difficult, Xinhua quoted survivors as saying. Some employees raised the alarm shortly after a shift began at 6 a.m., and then the lights went out, boosting the level of panic as workers rushed to find an exit, employee Wang Fengya told Xinhua. “When I finally ran out and looked back at the plant, I saw high flames,” Wang, 44, was quoted as saying. Xinhua said she and three other workers were sent to a hospital in the nearby provincial capital of Changchun. Another worker quoted by Xinhua, 39-year-old Guo Yan, said the emergency exit at her workstation was blocked and she was knocked to the ground in the crush of workers seeking to escape through a side door. “I could only crawl desperately forward,” Guo was quoted as saying. “I worked alongside an old lady and a young girl, but I don’t know if they survived or not.” The disaster killed 119 people, and 54 people were being treated in hospitals, the provincial government said on its microblog. Calls to fire and rescue services rang unanswered and hospital administrators said they had no information about the injured. By about noon, the fire had been mostly extinguished by about 500 firefighters and bodies were being recovered from the charred buildings. CCTV footage showed dark smoke billowing up from the prefabricated cement structures topped with corrugated iron roofs. The fire highlighted the lax safety standards at many Chinese workplaces, despite efforts to compel improvements through regular inspections and fines. Jason Yan, technical director in Beijing of the U.S. Grains Council, said safety considerations usually take a backseat in China to features designed to maximize production and energy efficiency. “I’m sure they consider some aspects of safety design. However, I think safety, to me, is not the first priority in their design plan,” Yan said. What more do you think needs to be done to ensure safety for workers in America and other countries?
People may hate Anne Hathaway for being an undeserving cunt, at least when it comes to the Oscars, because let’s face it she isn’t a great actor, and all she did was shave her head in the movie that obviously paid for her award. But I think that’s a good thing, it reminds us that award shows don’t matter. Celebrating people who have already won is just nonsense….Really all we should be doing is staring at their cameltoe. I mean how can you hate a girl in leggings jacked up in her cunt….it is the gateway to her soul munching away at spandex, hungrier than my wife at a Chinese buffet, and for some reason hungry pussy makes my penis wish it was a meal…..but instead her pants are and that’s good enough for me…. To See The REst of the Pics FOLLOW THIS LINK
We are truly living in our lasts days. Two Chinese Women Arrested For Poisoning Kids According to Raw Story Chinese police have arrested the head of a kindergarten and her associate over the deaths of two children from a rival school who ate yoghurt injected with rat poison, state media said. The five- and six-year-old girls from northern Hebei province died after eating the yoghurt which they had found in a bag on the side of the road while walking to school with their grandmother. The rival kindergarten director Shi Haixia and her associate Yang Wenming “admitted that they injected the poison into the yoghurt and left it on the street”, the China Daily said. “Their intention was to damage the reputation of the rival kindergarten.” The poison contained a strong rat poison called tetramine, the China Daily said, citing a local security official. The pair were arrested on Wednesday, the same day the younger girl died after a week in hospital. The six-year-old died within hours of drinking the yoghurt on April 24. The China Daily cited a professor of primary education as saying that the murders exposed the problem of unregulated private schools that had sprung up to compensate for the lack of adequate public kindergartens. “This is an extreme case showing the lack of supervision in preschool education,” it quoted Yuan Ailing of East China Normal University as saying. Many children in the countryside are cared for by their grandparents because their parents have migrated to cities to find work. So they poisoned innocent children to damage the other school’s reputation? Some people’s elevators don’t go all the way to the top. SMH. Shutterstock Continue reading →
Iron Man 3 screened in Times Square last night, and though it’s practically impossible to talk about the Mandarin without spoilers, I’ve got to say that he is the most daring creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. As Ben Kingsley , who portrays the villain, said again and again and again in the trailers, “You will never see me coming,” and that line resonates even more now that I’ve seen the movie. Director Shane Black, who also co-wrote the movie with Drew Pearce , created a character that took me completely (and happily) by surprise. And, after all that blogosphere grousing — myself included — about casting the half-British, half-Indian Kingsley in the role of a character that, based on the Marvel comics universe, is a China-born descendant of Ghengis Khan, the Oscar-winning actor turns out be a genius bit of casting. There’s only one other actor I could imagine doing justice to the part, but I’m going to hold off on sharing his name for now for fear that his body of work would be too much of a clue. Maybe I’ll drop it in the comments section after the picture opens. The Mandarin: A True 21st Century Villain I have a feeling Black and Pearce’s construct for the Mandarin is going to piss off a lot of comic-book purists (while, at the same time, making die-hard fans of The X Files smile), but I applaud them and Marvel Studios for taking the chance. The Mandarin turns out to be a villain for the media-saturated, perception-is-reality 21st Century, and that’s a lot more memorable (and unsettling) than some dude with magic rings. I wish I could write more about this, but that’s about as far as I can go without spoiling a key chunk of the movie. What did I think of Iron Man 3 overall? I liked it, but it didn’t blow me away. In part, I wish that Marvel, Pearce and Black had taken even more chances with the movie. In addition to the Mandarin storyline, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts character gets an interesting subplot , but the movie’s ending left me with the distinct impression that Marvel is so concerned about messing with the success of the Iron Man franchise that it waffled on really exploring the possibilities. Superhero Movie Saturation Point There’s another factor, too, that is largely personal. My enjoyment of digital effects laden superhero movies is approaching its saturation point. Despite being one of those scrawny, bespectacled geeks who came of age poring over The Amazing Spider-Man and Deathlok The Demolisher , I’ve reached a point in life where movies about human struggles are vastly more engrossing than superhuman ones. Downey and the Iron Man franchise remains my favorite of the genre because the actor brings so much humanity and wit to his character, and so, besides the surprising Mandarin reveal, I was grateful for the subplot involving Tony Stark’s mostly unsentimental relationship with a wisecracking Tennessee boy named Harley (Ty Simpkins) whose aid he enlists. My favorite line from the movie, which evoked a mixture of gasps and laughs from the audience, came when Harley reveals his fatherless existence to Stark. “Dads leave,” Downey replies. No need to be a pussy about it.” I’ll remember that line long after the action sequences have faded. The Problem With Trailers And they are already fading. Let’s just say that an army of Iron Men is cool to behold, but it does not necessarily make for better action sequences. But what does? The first effects-rendered action sequence that has turned my head in a long time is the scene from the most recent Pacific Rim trailer in which a Jaeger robot uses an oil tanker as a Louisville Slugger to bash in the skull of a Kaiju. Speaking of trailers, they diminish the impact of some of the best action sequences in Iron Man 3 (and other tentpole movies) because they reveal too much play for months before a movie’s release. By the way, I think most moviegoers will disagree with my assessment of Iron Man 3 based on the reactions of the crowd that saw the movie with me. The 3D glasses that were being passed out came in a number of collector’s variants, and entering the theater, I encountered a scrum of moviegoers jostling each other to get a particular version. During the movie, the crowd’s reaction was enthusiastic and, after watching the disappointing post-credits scene with Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk ‘s alter ego Bruce Banner, I heard a middle-aged woman excitedly telling someone on the other end of her cell phone, “I can’t wait to see it again.” If you’ve seen Iron Man 3 , let me know what you think in the comments section. More on Iron Man 3 : ‘Iron Man 3’: Is The Mandarin An Extremist Fringe Republican? Marvel Studios Says Iron Man 3 Villain The Mandarin Isn’t Chinese, He’s International Iron Woman? If Pepper Potts Has A Future In Armor, She Needs To Kick Villain Ass REVIEW: ‘Iron Man 3’ Proves Its Mettle Despite Symptoms Of Franchise Fatigue Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
