Move over Smokey the Bear. In California, thousands of goats are helping prevent bushfires.
From hilly San Francisco to more rural settings, California landowners, business and officials have hired the voracious animals to devour the grass and brush that fuels bushfires.
Last year, more than 5,500 fires blackened 168,000 acres in the most populous U.S. state.
Goats are munching on vegetation that is thriving throughout the state after an exceptionally wet winter.
Source: www.news.com.au
ADVERTISEMENT
Moy, mat must meally murt
Seven police officers in Pakistan have been fired after media reports that they sewed shut a prisoner's lips to stop him from shouting insults at them, an official said on Saturday.
A deputy inspector-general of police, Malik Mohammed Iqbal, said he fired the officers after receiving a report about the alleged incident at a lockup in Vehari town, about 60 miles east of the city of Multan.
However, Iqbal said it was "yet to be determined who actually sewed the lips of the prisoner," whom he identified as Mohammed Hussain.
Source: Associated Press
Hang on to your pocket protectors
Tupac and Biggie, move over. A new hip-hop feud is brewing that glamorizes secure encryption algorithms.
While gangsta rap is seen as celebrating the violence and aggression that claimed two of its brightest stars, "geeksta" rap is a hip-hop genre celebrating coding skills and school grades.
ADVERTISEMENT
Also dubbed "nerdcore," this branch of hip-hop is for geeks, by geeks. Geeksta rappers adopt the same combative verbal-assault stylings of their forerunners, but bust rhymes about elite script compiling and dope machine code.
The term was first coined in 2000 by nerdy New York rapper MC Frontalot in a track of the same name. Nerdcore now refers to artists waxing lyrical about topics as disparate as engineering and "Lord of the Rings."
In recent months, the field has seen a growing number of releases from computer science labs, where egocentric grad students show off their Ph.D. credentials in tracks like "Have to Code" and "End of File."
To contact The Rail, send an e-mail to features reporter Tom Pantera at tpantera@forumcomm.com and he'll forward it to the writers.
Today's best bet
Free Friday Movies, "Bambi" will be shown and popcorn will be served, noon and 3 p.m.
Fargo Public Library
