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Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 30 October, 2007 : - - Since British Airways (BA) announced a ban on surfboards on all flights (effective from 6th Nov), the surf community across the world has been reacting to the shock new position and taking decisive action to push for a reversal on the decision. In hoards, surfers from across the globe, including the World Number One, Mick Fanning, have been signing up to a global petition created by the British Surfing Association (BSA) and international governing bodies, key surf brands and thousands of individuals have been issuing statements and joining a...

IF you know what you’re looking for online, Google and other Internet search engines do a pretty good job of helping you find it. But what if you don’t know exactly what you want? Say you are a soccer fan, but you are neither in the market for new cleats nor in search of the buzz on Greg Ryan, the coach of the United States women’s team. Instead, you just want to see interesting soccer sites. Googling “interesting soccer” or “great soccer stuff” is not likely to be satisfying. A Web service called StumbleUpon has spent the last six years...

As the newest extreme sport, it is more "Titanic" than Olympic. Ice surfing gives you the chance to dice with death while enjoying the planet's ultimate chill-out. It is not the easiest of pastimes to enjoy. First you have to find a glacier about to "calve," then wait for up to two weeks for a house-sized iceberg to break off before catching the monstrous wake after it hits the water from 500 feet high. The reward: Sixty seconds of sheer exhilaration as you ride a 25-foot wall of ice-cold water filled with millions of shards of razor-sharp ice, mud, boulders...

ENCINITAS – The statue of a male surfer recently unveiled in Cardiff is having one rugged ride. First came harsh comments. Then, over the weekend, came the fashion makeover. “I think it was tacky,” Jim Clark, president of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, said of the vandalism. Someone dressed the surfer in a pleated pink skirt, bikini top and lucha libre mask. Passers-by noticed the getup Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, the statue was back to normal. The $120,000 statue, “Magic Carpet Ride,” was created to celebrate Cardiff's surfing legacy. Commissioned by the Cardiff Botanical Society, the statue stands along...

UMM NASER, Gaza Strip -- A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza's overburdened infrastructure. Rescue crews and Hamas gunmen rushed to the area to search for people feared buried under the sewage and mud. Dressed in wetsuits, they paddled boats through the layer of foam floating on the green and brown rivers of waste. Others waded up to their hips into the sewage. The noxious smell of waste and dead animals hung in...

-- More than 40 percent of teens and preteens surveyed say they've recently come across nudity and pornography on the Internet, and most say they weren't looking for it, according to a study released today. Those numbers were highest among older boys: Nearly four in 10 males aged 16-17 said they'd gone to adult sites on purpose within the past year, compared to just eight percent of girls at the same age. Still, filtering software seemed to lower the risk that kids would see something inappropriate, and only a small percentage of the children reported being disturbed by what they...

Surfing net is top pastime for elderly By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 02/02/2007 Browsing the internet has overtaken DIY and gardening to become the favourite pastime of older people, according to a survey. The internet is named as one of the favourite pastimes of retired Britons The current generation of "silver surfers" spends an average of six hours online each week, research by the insurance company AXA found. Emailing and online chatting to friends and family was the favourite internet activity of the retired people surveyed, followed by researching information, booking holidays and shopping. Alison...

Study: Surfing Safer Than Soccer, Basketball Soccer, Basketball Players Harmed More Than SurfersPOSTED: 12:55 pm EST January 2, 2007 Surfing: Is it really safer than soccer? A new study says it is. While public perception may frame surfing as a dangerous sport, the new research begs to differ. In the first study of its kind, researchers have computed the rate of injury among competitive surfers and found they are less likely to be harmed than collegiate soccer or basketball players, according to a press release. "We found that competitive surfing has a relatively low risk of injury -- 6.6 significant...

It may be illegal for school children to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, Rep. Todd Akin, R-MO, dreads. Akin fears what he calls activist judges and their ability to legislate what the American people don’t want. He spoke to the 13th Eagle Forum Collegians Annual Leadership Summit about two bills he supports designed to rein in activist judges who legislate from the bench. The Pledge Protection Act of 2005 received a 247-173 House vote in 2005, but died in the Senate. In reaction to a 2003 decision by the 9th U.S....

For some, the Internet it has become an addiction, adversely affecting their lives and their family's lives. While not yet defined as a true addiction, many people are suffering the consequences of obsession with the online world, warns Dr. Diane M. Wieland, who treats patients with computer addiction in her practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. For some people, the Internet may promote addictive behaviors and pseudo-intimate interpersonal relationships, reports Wieland in the journal, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. "Such cyberspace contacts may result in cyber disorders such as virtual relationships that evolve into online marital infidelity (cybersex) or online sexually compulsive behaviors,"...

SAN JOSE – U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought a simple message to middle school students on Thursday: Don't steal. “I'm the top cop in the U.S. and I want you to know that if you illegally download a game or music or a video it's stealing, just as if you went into a store and stole blue jeans,” Gonzales told 7th and 8th graders at Windmill Springs School in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. The lesson culminated an unusual four-day lesson on intellectual property and copyright infringement during which the nation's top law enforcement official became a classroom...

Stop Trashing Our Country ! One of the joys of being retired is having time to “surf the Web” : to travel in minutes to the most remote parts of the world, and to read what people are doing , saying, thinking. One of the sorrows of this virtual journey is to encounter fellow Americans who feel compelled to trash the reputation of their own country – usually while heaping praise on some two-bit leftist tyrant from another land. It’s one thing to do this “at home”. Some message boards are awash with such pronouncements ,but ,because of their highly...

A fully grown moose was spotted surfing down a rain-swollen river in Norway early this week, riding on a large chunk of ice. A sharp rise in temperatures, along with heavy rain, has pried loose lots of ice along local lakes and rivers in north-central Norway the past few days. It's not clear whether the moose got caught on ice that suddenly became mobile, or whether he grabbed his chance for a wild ride down the Namsen River. Whatever, Kjell Grannes happened to be watching the river and ice action from his kitchen window near Overhalla on Monday when the...

CARLSBAD – A surfer was pronounced dead after he was pulled from the water by three fellow surfers who found him floating unconscious just after noon today, state lifeguards said. State lifeguards were called for help by three males surfing near Tamarack Avenue and Carlsbad Boulevard. The group was riding 6-to-8-foot waves in heavy fog and limited visibility, said Karl Tallman, a state lifeguard supervisor. They pulled the unconscious surfer, who was face down and still leashed to his surfboard, onto their boards in attempts to pull him into safety. But they kept getting slammed by breaking waves and needed...

SAN DIEGO -- Lifeguards Tuesday prepared for waves up to 18 feet that are expected to arrive Wednesday. "We've increased our staff a little in anticipation of the high surf and we're doing a bit of predeployment in the rescue-prone areas," said San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Greg Buchanan. Eight lifeguards will be on duty at daybreak Wednesday, and a special unit will be in place at Sunset Cliffs, he said.

he sport of surfing is in turmoil after the world's largest producer of the foam blocks used to make surfboards closed down, citing over-regulation. Polyurethane foam "blanks" produced by California-based Gordon Clark are used to make many of the world's surfboards. Mr Clark, who helped invent the modern all-foam surfboard, says environmental regulations forced him out of business. Fears of a global foam shortage have led to a sharp rise in board prices as surfers snap up already depleted stock. Mr Clark, known as "Grubby" among surfers, revolutionised the sport in 1958 when he and fellow pioneer Hobie Alter coated...

Closure of Calif. surfboard foam company wipes out industry GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press (this contains excerpts) SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. - For more than 40 years, everyone from casual weekend waveriders to top competitive surfers has shared one thing: Customized boards that began as nondescript foam blocks mass-produced by one Southern California company. Clark Foam, an icon in California surf culture, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the blocks that have been shaped and hand-painted by everyone from backyard do-it-yourselfers to design shops that churn out thousands of handcrafted boards each year. That's why the company's sudden closure this week has the...

EPA and California do it again.

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. - Clark Foam, which held a virtual monopoly on the manufacture of blank forms used to create the world's surfboards, has closed its doors because it has violated pollution and safety regulations and would need millions of dollars to comply in the future, its owner said. The company, a pioneer in the design and production of polyester boards, announced Monday that it was closing immediately. That left surf shops and board manufacturers scrambling. "They've been the lifeblood of the surfboard manufacturing business for 40 years" and produced perhaps 90 percent of the polyester foam blanks, said Chris...

A free plug-in released Wednesday for Internet Explorer allows users to mouse over Web search listings for an instant view of the content rather than having to wait for the full page to download. The software, created by San Francisco-based Browster, uses patented "pre-fetching" instant page rendering that serves up a copy of the Web page in milliseconds in a new window on top of the original search page. Users can click on links and information in that new window and download data from that Web site. They can exit by moving the mouse back to the main search site...