Gadling

If aiming at the goal of human rights violations, the US scores once again!

Gulf News writes: "The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged."

Before you call the Gulf News biased, you should know that the story was actually reported by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service. Apparently, the government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

Federal officials portray sedation as rare and "an act of last resort." (Not the all-inclusive, family-friendly kind of resort mind you.)

Tomorrow, I leave for Russia. I have never been before and I am psyched. However, I can't believe I chose this particular week to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Of course, I picked the dates before knowing that some 50,000 English fans are expected to descend on Moscow to watch the Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea on May 21. Why the match between two British teams s happening in Moscow, I frankly don't get. I am sure they have a perfectly good reason for it. I know nothing about soccer and I wouldn't mind keeping it that way.

Stay tuned for a dispatch or two from Russia.

In case you are sick of what art museums have to offer (I am with you; there is only so much Monet one can take in a lifetime,) you should try one of the truly bizarre museum options out there.

Here are a few tips from the site Atypical Events:

• Mütter Museum aka "Random body parts", Philadelphia: museum of historical pathology containing about 20,000 fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, models, medical instruments, and memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians (the secret tumor of Grover Cleveland, the thorax of John Wilkes Booth and a really big 9-foot colon, for example)
• Museum Vrolik aka "Dead babies in a jar", Amsterdam: It contains more than 5,000 specimens of congenital anomalies, human and animal anatomy, embryology and pathology.
• Phallological Museum aka "Penisland", Húsavík, Iceland: museum completely devoted to the field of phallology, the supposed ancient study of the penis and its role in society and history. Home to 200 penises and penile parts.
• Meguro Parasitological Museum aka "Parasites, warms and leeches", Tokyo. Glass jars filled with formaldehyde preserve these pesky parasites, while terrifying photographs like that of a Japanese dude with elephantiasis of the scrotum depict the damage that they are capable of (see photo)
• Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health, Maryland. The museum walls were covered in tampon and pad advertisements, while female mannequin torsos dressed in rubberized panties and menstrual belts hung from the ceiling or sat on tables in a similar fashion.

Menstruation? Maybe Monet is not so bad, after all.

[via Eventective.com]

Run! Starting today, you can purchase tickets between New York to Toronto for as low as $1 at Trailwaysny.com or Greyhound.com. NeOn, short for New York-Ontario, has two round-trip express schedules each day between New York and Toronto.

NeOn tickets are available for purchase in advance at Trailwaysny.com, Greyhound.com or from a driver before boarding. One-way fares start at $1, plus a booking fee. The highest fare will adjust based on market demand. The earlier passengers purchase their tickets, the lower the fare they receive.

The best part? They offer free Wi-Fi, power outlets and video. Yay! I am convinced it won't be long before even riding a bus is more comfortable than flying.

I have been waiting for somebody to try this. They always tell to you to "poke a shark in the eye" if you get attacked, but it always seemed unreal to actually do it when it happens. The eye of a shark is pretty damn small, not to mention creepy.

Nonetheless, an Australian swimmer says he survived a mauling by a 16-foot shark by wrestling with the beast, finally getting free by poking it in the eye. The shark, believed to be a great white, seized Jason Cull by the left leg as he was swimming at Middleton Beach in southwestern Australia on Saturday, AP reports.

The shark was one of three that swimmers reported seeing at the beach Saturday. Officials closed the beach after the attack. From his hospital bed where he was treated for deep lacerations, Cull, 37, told reporters Sunday he saw a shadow moving in the water just before the attack and mistook it for a dolphin.

"It was much bigger than a dolphin when it came up," Cull said. "It banged straight into me. I realized what it was, it was a shark....I sort of punched it, and it grabbed me by the leg and dragged me under the water," he said. "I just remember being dragged backwards underwater. I felt along it, I found its eye and I poked it in the eye, and that's when it let go."

There you go. The eye method is obviously not just an urban legend. Now it's just a matter of being able to locate the eye of a shark (while being half-submerged in its jaws) and poking it . Got it.

[via WTOPnews.com]

What do backpackers and South Beach have in common? Easy. They both love thongs. (Not bad, considering I am only on my first cup of coffee today, eh?)

There many many places that come to mind when a visualize a "backpacker destination." South Beach, Florida would not be on that list. Apparently, I am wrong.

This AP article talks about South Beach becoming increasingly more backpacker-friendly, offering affordable hostel accommodation right in the center of it all: "Anywhere between three to 14 travelers are cramped in one room at a hostel, sleeping on bunk beds. A room with 12 beds can run for US$18 a night per person; an eight-bed room is $18; $30-$40 for smaller rooms."

That, interestingly enough, is cheaper than the last Strawberry Daiquiri I ordered in South Beach. I remember paying $16 (and that's way back when the dollar was actually worth something) and they gave it to me in a small plastic cup. Maybe that's why I could never picture South Beach as a backpacker-friendly place...

[via canoe.ca]

Sounds almost too good, doesn't it. I don't think anybody is ever going to give you a better excuse to travel around Southeast Asia.

Malaysia Airlines announced today it plans to offer one million free seats for flights within Southeast Asia as part of an aggressive campaign to boost sales and income amid high oil prices, USA Today reports. The airline hopes that the Everyday Low Fares campaign will help them fill up its planes and recover some costs as passengers will have to pay the fuel surcharge. The seats to be given away represent 30% of surplus capacity.

Under the campaign, bookings can only be made online for 24 regional routes - including selected routes from Malaysia to China - for a two-week period from May 21 for travel between July 1 and Dec. 14. Passengers will still have to pay airport tax, administration fees and the fuel surcharge. The free tickets are non-refundable and will only be offered on lean flights. Malaysia Airlines first launched the zero-fare campaign for domestic destinations earlier this month, also offering a million free seats for travels between June 10 and Dec. 14.

(*Flights attendants are especially hot in First Class, which--sadly--is not free.)

Oh, my beloved Australia scores again!

An Australian has been fined after buckling in a case of beer with a seat belt but leaving a 5-year-old child to sit on the car's floor, NY Times reports. Police said they were ''shocked and appalled'' when he pulled over the unregistered car Friday in the central Australian town of Alice Springs and saw a 30-can beer case was strapped in between two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, but on the car's floor. The driver was fined 750 Australian dollars ($710).

''This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child,'' said the police officer in charge.

I hate to break it to them, but I am quite certain this is--sadly enough--not the first nor the last time beer has taken priority over a child.

Venice has been ultra-progressive lately, especially when it comes to quality of life issues. Not only did they finally prohibit pigeon-feeding, but they have also just caught the mysterious serial female butt snapper, who has been walking behind women in Venice in a hooded shirt, taking photos through a small hole in the side of the bag.

He doesn't seem like your typical bottom snapper, mind you. This man has been doing this for two years and has accomplished to take more than 3,000 pictures of the various bottoms of female tourists in Venice.

The man was stopped after police became suspicious of a large bag he was carrying as he followed women through St Mark's Square. He has been charged with infringement of privacy, BBC reports. It is a cheeky crime, which could earn this 38-year-old Italian (married, with two kids, by the way) from six months to four years in jail.

This guy should have really gotten together with the serial bottom-pincher, who is currently on the run in the UK. What a team of superheroes those two could form!

I was surprised Parisians have accepted the new smoking ban as willingly as they have.

There is, however, one resistance movement: Hookah bars. Some of them have continued to break the law by continuing to offer customers tobacco in water pipes, IHT reports.

Hookah or shisha bars, which began springing up in France more than a decade ago, became increasingly popular across Europe, both among immigrants from Islamic countries and among the hip student crowd. France had 800 hookah bars before the smoking ban, half of them in Paris or its suburbs, but perhaps one-third have closed since the ban took effect.

So far, Sarkozy's government shows no inclination to negotiate since declaring in December that there would be no exceptions to the smoking ban. Apparently, "it's a matter of public health."

That seems harsh. These are, after all, as close to private smoking clubs as you can get.