Britain’s Next Prime Minister?

Nick Clegg Steals The Show From Gordon Brown And David Cameron – A week ago, most people in Britain considered Nick Clegg, the “little-known leader” of the Liberal Democrats, to be, by all measures, a long shot to become Britain’s next prime minister. But that was before “Cleggmania” swept the country. [huffington]

Gambino Crime Family Raid: 14 People Arrested – Fourteen alleged members of the Gambino crime family have been indicted on charges including murder, racketeering, prostitution of minors and trying to locate and intimidate a sequestered jury, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan, New York, said Tuesday. Aah, come on, guys! Don’t be so boring! [cnn]

Vuvuzelas Cause Hearing Loss – Researchers have produced evidence, based on tests at a soccer match with blaring vuvuzelas, that the sound level inside a 2010 stadium could lead to permanent hearing damage. “The findings of this study demonstrate a real risk of noise-induced hearing loss,” they say in an article in the latest edition of the SA Medical Journal. [sport24]

Sex Cruise Ship Gets Sued – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing the longtime Albany brokerage firm McGinn, Smith & Co. of running a $136 million scheme that funneled cash from hundreds of investors into a sex-themed cruise line operation and other highly speculative businesses while funding a lavish lifestyle for company founders David Smith and Timothy McGinn. [timesunion]

Now YOU Can Help Find Aliens! – Astronomer Jill Tarter is director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute. “In the future, we hope that a global army of open-source code developers, students and other experts in digital signal processing, as well as citizen scientists willing to lend their intelligence to our exploration, will have access to the same technology and join our quest.” [cnn]

£40m Graff Jewellery Heist In Mayfair, London – My goodness, I do enjoy a good jewellery heist! A gang of nine men terrified staff at gunpoint in a meticulously planned £40 million jewellery heist, a court has heard. The robbers used professional make-up artists to disguise their appearance and shot at anybody who tried to impede their escape from Graff jewellers in New Bond Street, Mayfair, central London. Awesome! [telegraph]

Six Mind-Blowing Achievements In Propaganda – When you think “propaganda” you immediately picture a huge statue of a dictator, or banners stamped with corny slogans. You think of the kind of clumsy brainwashing that only works on uneducated peasants. But then there are acts of propaganda that have changed the world, usually because you didn’t know they were propaganda. And yes, this list does include Our Dear Leader. [cracked]

Bill Gates On The iPad: “It’s ok” – “We were in a classroom on the 3rd floor of Barker Hall. Gates had two Diet Cokes in front of him. His knee jack-hammered some and he occasionally rocked back and forth like a lot of braniac tech whizzes I know. I’m paraphrasing my questions, otherwise I might embarrass myself. But his answers are faithful transcripts.” [sfgate]

Pollution Causing Male Fish To Turn Female – More than 80% of the male bass fish in Washington’s major river are now exhibiting female traits such as egg production because of a “toxic stew” of pollutants, scientists and campaigners reported yesterday.Intersex fish probably result from drugs, such as the contraceptive pill, and other chemicals being flushed into the water. Hmm, that must be what is going on in Green Point to the humans. [guardian]

Hitler “Downfall” Parodies Removed from YouTube – The movie studio responsible for the award-winning, German-Austrian film Downfall (German: Der Untergang) has asked YouTube to take down several videos from the massively popular subtitled “Hitler finds out…” meme, and the site has complied. Oh dear – there goes all our fun! [mashable]

New Facebook Features Aim To Spread Socializing Across The Web – Facebook is spreading its wings to the broader Web with new tools that will allow users to see personalized versions of websites they visit elsewhere. The move could change the way people experience the online world, though it could come with deeper privacy implications. [huffers]

Gizmodo Paid $5,000 For That iPhone 4G – Yesterday, we reveled the the joy of Gizmodo, the tech blog that got its hands on the latest iPhone in exchange for $5,000. As of the writing of this, the post has received almost five million page views. Now, Gizmodo has posted its version of the tale of how the iPhone made its way from a bar in Redwood City, California, to the blog’s Manhattan offices. It goes like this: [vanityfair]

Heather Graham Topless Lesbian Video from Boogie Woogie – So here’s something completely and totally awesome: It’s a Heather Graham topless lesbian video from her new movie Boogie Woogie. Yes, you read that correctly, Heather Graham topless, and lesbian! Heather’s lesbian partner in the scene is Jaime Winstone who is also topless, and wearing some Janet Jackson style nipple disks. So there’s something here for everyone. NSFW. [egotastic]

[thanks melanie]