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The coming year of the dragon and Chinese New Year is set to be celebrated with a 137 ft ice dragon near Beijing in the Longqing Gorge Ice Lantern Festival. This year there are 300 ice works on display, including the dragon, properly named Take Off 2012, a lit city and lanterns carved from ice.

First held in 1963, this years festival began on January 5 and is set to last for an entire month, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from all parts of China. This festival celebrates some of the largest man made ice structures in the world.

The city of ice was created by stacking ice blocks to create buildings, often with lights frozen in the cubes to create the atmosphere shown here. The city created represents a typical Chinese town and the buildings found in it. Snow machines are used during construction to stop the over 10 million pounds of snow and ice from melting.

Ice sculptors use picks and chisels and say that they find it a pleasure to create such works of art and plan on doing so for as long as time will allow. The ice used in this festival is unusually clear, creating an interesting lighting effect, because of its location in the river which allows it to freeze slower than normal while the water runs underneath.

Construction of this ice festival takes months to finish, some sculptures taking up to 5 days and multiple workers to complete. After construction has ended, sub-zero temperatures must be maintained in order to keep the ice sculptures in tip top shape.

Additional sculptures include animals from other years, ice mazes and a slide. The creators of this year’s ice festival say that the theme centers around prosperity and harmony because of the financial crises running rampant in many parts of the world.

As a parent you probably worry about your child choking on or getting a hand or appendage stuck in a toy. You may worry about a sharp object or other issues with children’s toys that could cause accident harm or injury. However, I doubt you do much worrying about your children being exposed to toxic chemicals found in their toys.

According to a study done conducted by the Environmental Health Strategy Center in Maine, your children’s toys may contain the toxic chemical BPA. Thousands of toys were tested and reports indicate that literally hundreds were found to include this toxic chemical that may affect brain development, reproductive organs and behavior with long term exposure. Among the “infected” toys are 650 popular toy brands such as Playmobil, Gerber, LeapFrog, Chicco and SpyNet.

Gerber, Enfamil and Similac were also sited in the study as companies that may have included BPA in the containers that they use to distribute baby food and formula. These three companies have promised to stop using this product in the linings of their containers.

Legislation

Today, Tuesday December 13 Michigan senator Rebekah Warren plans on introducing a bill that will give Michigan families better access to information about their children’s toys.

This bill, appropriately named “The Safe Children’s Act” will require the state to compile a list of chemicals found in all types of children’s products that could be harmful to the children’s health. It would also require toy companies to complete a similar list of any toxic ingredients found in their products.

Even though companies have said they will stop the usage of these harmful chemicals, other chemicals, such as lead are found in toys and parents should always be aware of what their child may be sucking on. We encourage you to take a look at the entire report found at www.healthystuff.org

Everyone loves a great deal and when Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, dawns, the throngs of crazed couponers and deal grabbers are poised and ready. Mass mayhem almost always ensues. This year, the craziness started early. Wal-Mart locations started their deals on Thursday night at 10pm and other stores joined in. As always, the madness started when the sales began. In the past we have heard stories of hitting, screaming, throwing, and right-out meanness, but this year’s tales of woe top them all. Has the deal hunting drama perhaps crossed the line this time?

Crazed or Conniving?

Imagine standing in a crowd of people, waiting for your chance to grab a 50% off Xbox. Not a bad deal right? Now imagine reaching for the coveted game system and getting pepper sprayed by a charmer who feels that you might be trying to get the one she has already claimed. Now multiply that by 20. This is what happened at a Wal-Mart in L.A.

Witnesses say, the lady, who felt that the grip on her 50% off Xbox was being threatened pepper-sprayed about 20 people to ensure that she got the deal she was looking for and then proceeded to the check-out stand to make her purchase.

Grandpa Body Slammed By Police

Story number two, gets a little bit crazier. A grandfather and grandson, after picking up some game purchases are surrounded by a group of kids grabbing at games.

A fight breaks out and the grandfather, wanting to get his grandson out of harm’s way, tucks a game into his waistband for a minute to lift his grandson and remove him from the crowd when he is body slammed and knocked to the floor by police, shattering his face.

His grandson, left unprotected was then trampled by the crowd as police proceeded to try to handcuff the grandfather.

Deals or Disaster?

Adding to the tales of mayhem is an attempted robbery and shooting outside another southern California Wal-Mart, a passed out 61-year old man who was ignored and walked over by shoppers in a Target (he later passed away), and a “pepper spray puff” by police men trying to control a crowd in North Carolina.

This leads us to the question. Have Americans gone too far? Is that deal really worth someone’s life? Black Friday has turned dark indeed.

Now, what happens in Vegas may just hit the news. Hundreds of “love birds” are “flocking” to Las Vegas today to get married on what some believe is the luckiest day for lovers for 100 years. Owner of the Little White Wedding chapel on the downtown Vegas strips reports hundreds of these couples have been showing up for days prior to this lucky day hoping for their chance to get hitched on this “especially lucky day.” This particular location has two hundred couples on the list for the day hoping to either get hitched for the first time or renew their vows.

Rev. Charlotte Richards plans to make the most of this day and is offering these couples bridal flowers and dog tags with the date inscribed on them.

According to reports, some of these couples have had their date reserved for up to two years in advance and an extra 75 staff members were hired just to fulfill demand on this day of luck and love. Included in the extra staff are 17 additional ministers and Elvis impersonators.

The Little White Wedding Chapel isn’t the only one benefiting from this influx of happy couples. The Viva Las Vegas Wedding chapel is also hosting 190 brides and grooms.

According to the owner of this little chapel, this chapel offers fun and thrills you won’t soon forget.Here your wedding can be officiated by anyone from Marilyn Monroe to The Blues Brothers. You can also choose from a number of themed weddings and if pink Cadillacs are your kind of thing, you can be driven right down the isle in style. Couples at this fun chapel of love range from the very young to the very old wanting to renew their vows. Recently deployed military men and women wanting to get hitched before they go away also dot the list.

So, anyone to have a walk-in get hitched quick wedding may just have to wait for their lucky day next year. Perhaps 12-12-12?

A Boeing plant, claiming to only make military helicopters like the H-47 Chinook and the V-22 Osprey, has been secretly and illegally making much more than that. Federal agents and the Drug Enforcement Administration raided the Philadelphia plant early Thursday, September 29, 2011, and charged more than 30 people with distributing prescription drugs, including potent painkillers.

Authorities have claimed the drugs don’t seem to be part of an organized drug ring, but was instead performed by individuals. However, according to DEA agent Vito S. Guarino, “These sales placed the individual abusers, as well as society at large, at risk.”

Although no accidents are known to have happened with aircrafts manufactured in the plant, officials are still taking caution about the manufactured aircraft.

23 people have been charged with an illegal distribution of a prescription drug, according to federal prosecutors. 14 other people have been charged with attempted possession of the many different drugs, which include fentanyl, oxycodone, and many others.

36, out of the 37 charged were current or past employees of the plant.

In a statement made by Boeing spokesman Damien Mills, “Boeing commends the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and other federal law enforcement agencies for their rigorous and thorough investigation, throughout which we took appropriate steps to ensure safety of our employees and the absolute integrity and quality of the products we produce for our customers.”

The raid came about after Boeing informed the proper authorities of their suspicions of drug activity after performing an internal investigation, says the statement by Mills.

The statement goes on to claim employees are tested for being under the influence of drugs or alcohol if there’s any suspicious behavior.

Although there was an error at the plant back in 2008 where Boeing shut down two production lines after finding a plastic cup in a fuel line of an in-production Osprey. After the incident, Boeing started corrective action and commenced production. Prosecutors don’t think the incident was related to drug use.

It’s no longer just a small world after all! Not with new theme parks popping up with themes based on games. Dangerous, violent games.

Okay, so you popped some birds at a pig—how dangerous is that really?

Well, we’re going to find out. Yes, there is a theme park which has just opened up based on the Angry Birds app. In China’s Hunan province—Changsha to be exact— you can experience the game in real life.

Visitors of the new Window of the World theme park will get the opportunity to hurl angry, life size, plush birds at green, sinister, balloon pigs.

The theme park was actually created without the permission of Rovio Mobile, the creator of Angry Birds. But according to Daisy Yang, the company spokeswoman for their Chinese licensing partner, they’re just fine with the theme park opening.

About the theme park opening she said, “We’re continually on the lookout for new ways to surprise and delight our fans. So while we can’t get into details, we can say that we’re looking at a lot of great new ideas in a variety of sectors.”

Does this mean an Angry Birds theme park opening elsewhere? Like, say, California perhaps? Let’s hope.

With the new Harry Potter theme park opened and doing well, this new theme park has the right idea of taking a beloved story/game and creating a real life version of it. And they’re not the first ones to do so, either.

There was once a Pac-Man Land, but let’s hope the new Window of the World theme park does better than Pac-Man did. It only lasted for two years inside the Six Flags in Arlington, TX.

But as Gamespot senior editor, Giancarlo Varanini says, “As video game brands continue to grow in popularity, there will undoubtedly be more attempts at using their built-in audience to lure more people into parks that would otherwise not care.” Well let’s hope.

What a great way to get out, have some fun, and get some of your aggression out of your system!