A PATIENT DOGGIE








LOTSA NEWS TODAY

Fake holidays: "In A discreet office on the top floor of a Moscow apartment block, Dmitry Popov is selling a slice of the new Russian dream. For a fraction of the real cost, he offers aspiring Muscovite yuppies a range of exotic holidays that are sure to impress friends and colleagues — and maybe even the boss. They can climb the Great Wall of China, join the Rio Carnival, or spend new year in Lapland. The only catch is that they never leave home. “It’s virtual tourism,” says Mr Popov, the 26-year-old head of Perseus Tours. “We sell the dream — and with that comes the social status.” This is what it takes to keep up with the neighbours in Europe’s biggest and brashest city, awash with oil money and home to more billionaires than London"

New security camera has insect-like eye: "Security cameras fitted with artificial compound eyes based on those of flies have been developed by scientists to improve surveillance. The synthetic eyes will enable CCTV cameras to give an unprecedented panoramic view of an area and detect movement with unprecedented speed, say researchers. According to a study published in the US journal Science today by Luke Lee and his team at the University of California, Berkeley, the eyes are likely to find their first use in surveillance cameras, but Professor Lee says that the lenses might also be used in mobile phones."


Argentina: Parrot held in prison: "A parrot has spent five days under police 'interrogation' in prison in Argentina. A judge ordered Pepo to be held in custody until he told police who was his real owner, reports UOL. Two neighbours, Jorge Machado and R Vega, were disputing ownership of the bird. Judge Osvaldo Carlos decided the parrot should be sent to prison until he said the name of his owner. After five days, Pepo said Jorge's name and also sung the anthem of his favourite football team San Lorenzo. Mr Machado said: 'I knew he wasn't going to let me down, he is a real friend and we support the same football team.'"


Male contraception trial proves successful: "A Sydney scientist working on male contraceptives has found further evidence a hormone based treatment can switch on and switch off sperm production. Doctor Peter Lui conducted a trial of the treatment three years ago in Sydney and has now collated the results of trials from the United Kingdom, United States, China, Indonesia and Melbourne. He has found a 100 per cent success rate with the injections and pills of male hormones, which prevent sperm production. Doctor Lui says all the studies showed male sperm production returned to normal three to four months after the treatment. "The main thing that we worry about long term is the reversibility - so that's no longer an issue," he said. "In terms of acute side effects, there are very few regardless of the formulations. "Now what is unanswered are the long term side effects." Doctor Lui says he hopes the contraceptive will be on the market in five to 10 years."


Stars say you're gullible: "In a finding astrologers should have seen coming, researchers have turned up no evidence to support a link between personality, intelligence and birth dates. The study of more than 15,000 people found "in no cases did date of birth relate to individual differences in personality or intelligence". The authors, from universities in Germany and Denmark, wanted to further examine a link between date of birth and popular signs in astrology, but found "no support". In the May issue of "Personality and Individual Differences", the authors write: "We conclude that the present large-scale study provides no evidence for the existence of relevant relationships between date of birth and individual differences in personality and general intelligence. "The present large-scale study certainly found no independent effects of sun signs, elements, or gender, and thus yields no support for the common claims of astrology."



Latest theory: Disagree and stay married: "Next time you and your partner cannot agree, agree to disagree and move on. Research shows that couples who compromise the least usually stay together the longest. Research shows that couples who compromise the least usually stay together the longest. In the US, marriage counsellors are being retrained in the way they counsel couples. "A lot of therapies focus on empathy and the idea that if your partner has done something you should be empathetic," Sydney University mathematician Clio Cresswell said. "Mathematics is showing in fact that the people that stand their ground in conversations ... that stick to their guns or high standards are actually fighting for a better outcome."




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 4:17 PM

 


MISSING THE POINT







IF DOGS COULD SPEAK












THE NEWS

Beerbelly a big success: "The Beerbelly -- a secret strap-on beer holder that disguises itself as a bulging beer belly -- is being marketed in the US. It was the brainchild of three middle-aged men who wanted a way of sneaking beer into movies and baseball games. Within just five days of launching their www.thebeerbelly.com website, they had an incredible two million hits and calls for it to be sold worldwide."




Moron snake man: "A Blue Mountains man is in intensive care after being bitten by his own death adder overnight. The 53-year-old from Hazelbrook "was bitten twice on the hand by the death adder when he opened a cage at his home to inspect the snake," an NRMA CareFlight spokesman said. "Australia has some of the deadliest snakes in the world and it's one of them," the spokesman said. The man was initially treated at Liverpool Hospital with two doses of death adder anti-venom before he was airlifted to Nepean Hospital. The NRMA CareFlight spokesman said he understood it was not the first time the man had been treated at Nepean Hospital for snake-bite related injuries. The man remains in intensive care in an induced coma but is expected to make a full recovery."


Fat behinds sink ships: "The Coast Guard recommended Wednesday that operators of small boats raise weight estimates for passengers to reflect that Americans have gotten fatter since the first standards in 1942. The recommendation arises from an investigation of an accident in which an overloaded water taxi capsized and killed five people in Baltimore in 2004. The operator assumed that the average passenger weighed 140 pounds, based on the Coast Guard's standards for a mix of men, women and children in calm inland waters. For passengers in boats on the ocean, the standard was 160 pounds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the average American gained more than 24 pounds between the 1960s and 2002, for an average weight of 177.7 pounds without clothing. The Coast Guard settled on a single standard of 185 pounds and made it voluntary until new rules are established, spokeswoman Angela McArdle said."


Croc's chainsaw massacre: "A crocodile agitated by a chainsaw's noise has chased the man operating it and snatched the machinery from him. Freddy Buckland was at a Northern Territory roadhouse today cutting a dead tree that had fallen against a saltwater crocodile pen during Cyclone Monica when the 4.4-metre reptile struck. "As he was trimming up the tree on the outside the croc jumped out of the water and sped along the tree about 18, 20 feet and actually grabbed the chainsaw out of his hands," said Peter Shappert, the owner of the Corroboree Park Tavern, 80km east of Darwin. "It must have been the noise ... I don't think he was actually trying to grab Freddy, but I'm not sure. He had a fair go at him ... I think he just grabbed the first thing he could and it happened to be the chainsaw." Mr Buckland was not injured, nor was the crocodile, named Brutus."




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 3:36 PM

 


Taken from papers written by a class of 8-year-olds

Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no little children of her own. They like other people's.

A grandfather is a man grandmother.

Grandparents don't have to do anything except be there when we come to see them. They are so old they shouldn't play hard or run.

When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars.

They don't say, "Hurry up."

Usually grandmothers are fat, but not too fat to tie your shoes.

They wear glasses and funny underwear.

They can take their teeth and gums out.

Grandparents don't have to be smart.

When they read to us, they don't skip. They don't mind if we ask for the same story over again.

Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don't have television, because they are the only grown ups who like to spend time with us.

A 6 YEAR OLD WAS ASKED WHERE HIS GRANDMA LIVED ''OH,'' HE SAID, ''SHE LIVES AT THE AIRPORT, AND WHEN WE WANT HER WE JUST GO GET HER. THEN WHEN WE'RE DONE HAVING HER VISIT, WE TAKE HER BACK TO THE AIRPORT.''










THE NEWS

Chinese army bans snoring: "China is looking to impose a soft-snore policy on its military officers with new recruits being judged on how heavily they breath and wheeze while sleeping, state press have said. The snoring criteria is part of new regulations for military school recruits that also aimed to eliminate applicants with tattoos and those who took drugs, the Beijing Morning Post reported. "As the nasal sound of chronic snorers disturbs collective life, a new benchmark has been approved setting out standards for chronic snorers," the paper said. Those who snored loudly would be banned, it said, although it was unclear how the standards would be set. Potential recruits would for the first time undergo urine tests for illegal drugs, while applicants with tattoos would be eliminated, it said. Other entrance requirements, including eyesight, height, weight and general fitness remained in force, it said"



Bacteria secret to gas-free beans: "Two strains of bacteria are the key to making beans flatulence-free, Venezuelan researchers reported today. They identified two bacteria, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, which can be added to beans so they cause minimal distress to those who eat them, and to those around the bean-lovers, Marisela Granito of Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela and colleagues reported. Flatulence is gas released by bacteria that live in the large intestine when they break down food. Fermenting makes food more digestible earlier on. Writing in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, Ms Granito and colleagues found that adding the two gut bacteria to beans before cooking them made them even less likely to cause flatulence."



This is great news for the food freaks who use potassium salt instead of ordinary table salt: "A new study has found that high potassium levels are causing nerve damage in people with kidney disease. Doctors at the University of New South Wales and the Prince of Wales Hospital tested patients with kidney problems who suffered loss of feeling in their body. After dialysis, in which excess potassium was removed, doctors found the patient's nerve function improved. Associate Professor Matthew Kiernan says patients were told to avoid eating potassium-rich foods such as bananas, peanuts, soy, dried fruit and soft drink. "Nerve dysfunction and nerve failure is very prevalent in patients who have kidney disease," he said. "It's about 70 and 100 per cent of patients who require dialysis have evidence of neuropathy. "This is a significant advance because it shows that if you can try and control the amount of potassium, you can preserve nerve function."


Horse and cart driver flees cops: "A man suspected of a serious assault used a horse and cart to lead police on a low-speed chase through the English city of Leeds - and escaped. Witnesses described "a bizarre procession" as the horse and the fugitive led four police motorbikes, a patrol car, van and the force helicopter along a road leading out of the city. The cart's weaving frustrated its pursuers and the man eventually leapt off and fled".




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 6:43 PM

 



More news you might have missed

Hairpin Bend At Bernie's

State police in Baja, CA reported that a motorcyclist was riding through the center of Tijuana, Mexico, with a helmet-wearing corpse strapped to the back of his bike when he lost control while rounding a curve and crashed. He fled on foot, leaving the body. "When the police arrived, they took the helmet off the corpse, believing at first that he had died in the crash," police official Francisco Castro said. "But he had adhesive tape stuck to his face, a knife wound to his forehead and showed signs of strangulation." Castro added that the man's killing was probably drug-related and that the motorcyclist was likely taking the body to a remote location to dispose of it.


Abduction Stopped By Self Defense

Police investigators in Vienna, VA reported that a man broke into a home, entered the bedroom of 10-year-old twin girls and tried to abduct them. According to police Captain Mike Miller, the two girls fought off their attacker by screaming and kicking, using moves that their martial arts instructor had taught them. The attacker, who wore a ski mask, turned out to be 42-year-old Andrew M. Jacobs, the girls' martial arts instructor.


Man As His Own Country

Federal authorities charged postal worker Gregory I. Armstrong, 42, with falsely claiming that he was a self-ruling sovereign nation and therefore entitled to collect $1 million against his boss for using his name, which he had copyrighted. Armstrong initiated involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against Odell Johnson, his supervisor at a U.S. Postal Service center in Capitol Heights, MD after Johnson had admonished, then suspended him for repeated absences from work. "It was sort of nightmarish," Johnson said. "They were threatening to foreclose my home." The bankruptcy proceedings ended after it became clear that Armstrong is not his own country and, according to the federal indictment, "not a member of the United Nations."


Thieves Steal Light Poles

Baltimore authorities reported that thieves stole at least 130 light poles last fall. The culprits sometimes dressed as utility crews, even placing orange traffic cones around the 30-foot-tall poles to avoid suspicion, according to city officials, who said that the thieves could be selling the 250-pound aluminum poles, which cost the city $750 each, for scrap. "They steal everything here in Baltimore," said Lynn Smith, manager of Modern Junk and Salvage Co. "Nothing's too kooky to me anymore."


Raising Minimum Wages

H. Lee Scott, Jr., the president and CEO of WalMart, urged Congress to raise the minimum wage so people can afford to shop at the retail chain's stores. "Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between paychecks," he said. Despite criticism that WalMart itself pays poverty-level wages that are 20 percent lower per hour than the retail-industry average, Scott said that the nation's largest employer is unlikely to increase pay for its workers. "Even slight overall adjustments to wages, "he explained, "eliminate our thin profit margin," which last year amounted to $10 billion.


Man Shoots Himself After Losing Contest

After dropping out of a contest at a Nissan dealership in Longview, Texas, to see who could stand with his or her hands on a truck the longest, Ricky Vega walked across the street and smashed a window at a Kmart. Police officers who responded to the incident found the 24-year-old walking from the back of the store with a stolen gun in his hands. He then pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger.


Man Allegedly Killed Roommate Over Toilet Paper

A man accused of fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet paper in their home has been arrested. Franklin Paul Crow, 56, was charged Monday with homicide in the death of Kenneth Matthews, 58, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office. Capt. Thomas Bibb said Crow initially denied his involvement, but confessed during questioning. Crow told investigators that the men were fighting about the toilet paper over the weekend when Matthews pulled out a rifle. Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit. Matthews was beaten so badly he had to be identified through his fingerprints, detectives said. Crow was being held at the Marion County jail without bond. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney.


The Happiest Place On Earth

Newspaper accounts of Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong Disneyland on its opening day in September acknowledged that they "brought good business" to the park but called their behavior "disgraceful." The Ming Pao Daily reported that some of the visitors from mainland China disregarded the theme park's rules and smoked cigarettes in restaurants and other nonsmoking areas. Several others went barefoot and even let their children urinate in public.








MORE RECENT NEWS

Romania's registers first witch: "A Romanian woman has become the country's first legally registered witch. Gabriela Ciucur, 31, from Targu Jiu, persuaded authorities to accept witchcraft as a profession after months of negotiations. She told local media: 'The authorities sent me home and told me it was ridiculous at first. But we finally reached a deal and registered my company as dealing with astrology and connections to the spirit world.' ... Witchcraft is extremely popular in Romania where many people in rural areas still believe in vampires. National football chiefs in the country once even considered bringing in a witch to put a spell on an opposing team."


Nude man stuck in chimney: "A nude American spent five hours stuck in a chimney before he was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs. Police said Michael Urbano, 23, locked himself out of his stepmother's home in Hayward, California, and decided to try to get in using a cable TV wire to help him abseil down the inside of the chimney. But first he took his clothes off, believing that would help his progress. When the wire broke Urbano fell, to become wedged about three quarters of the way down, according to police. He was only set free when a firefighter pushed him to safety. Authorities were called in by a neighbour who heard "faint, distressing" calls. "We get him up, and he's naked as a jaybird," Hayward Police Lieutenant Gary Branson said".



Don't mess with magicians: "Illusionist David Copperfield has magically escaped getting robbed. fter his show at a West Palm Beach, Florida, performing arts centre on Sunday Copperfield was walking with two female assistants back to their tour bus when four armed teenagers pulled up in a black car and demanded the group's belongings, according to police. An assistant handed over $US400 from her pockets while the other gave up her purse with euro200, $US100, her passport, plane tickets and a mobile phone. Copperfield said he turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing in them, even though he was carrying his passport, wallet and mobile phone. "Call it reverse pick-pocketing," Copperfield told The Palm Beach Post. When the robbers left in the car Copperfield read the licence plate number to an assistant while she called emergency number 911. Four teenagers were arrested shortly after and the assistants' property recovered. The assailants were charged with armed robbery and held without bond."


Rocky start for women-only carriages in Brazil: "A law reserving some railway carriages exclusively for women during the rush hour on Rio's Metro and suburban train routes has had a rocky start. Approved on March 8, on International Women's Day, in a bid to curb sexual harassment, the law was only partially observed when it was taken for a test drive yesterday. Many men boarded the reserved cars - identified by a pink sticker - either by accident, to escape more crowded carriages or simply to break the rules, the MetroRio transport company said. Each time a man entered the reserved cars, the women would rail against the intrusion. But some, undeterred, held their ground, despite shouts and boos from other passengers. "If they don't respect women, how can you expect them to respect the laws?" 22-year-old student Debora Bianco told the O Globo newspaper. "It's quite simply discrimination," a male nurse fumed on television, after a security guard asked him to leave a women-only carriage on a Metro route. The man claimed to have been "forcibly removed" from the carriage".




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 4:32 PM

 


News You might have missed

Surgery Under The Influence

The chief of neurosurgery at Oakland, California's Highland Hospital was wrestled to an operating room floor by deputies and arrested after allegedly throwing a drunken fit when a nurse refused to let him operate! Federico Castro-Moure, 45, was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol and interfering with the duty of officers. Castro-Moure became belligerent after insisting on operating on a man who broke his ankles and fractured his spine in a two-story fall, according to the sheriff's department. He "threw a fit" and began yelling and cursing at staff when they told him equipment for the procedure needed to be transferred from another hospital, according to the report.




Rat-Tailed Maggots Pop Up in Town's Water Supply

Rat-tailed maggots, every bit as ugly as they sound, have been popping out of basins, toilets and taps across Cape Town, sparking a citywide panic that health officials tried Wednesday to calm. Ivan Toms, director of health for the South African tourist mecca, said the risk the water supply was infested was slim. "The water is chlorinated and filtered and comes from dams in the mountains where it is extremely unlikely that this maggot would be found," he said in a statement. The body of the aquatic brownish larva can grow up to 2.5 centimeters, or an inch, long, with a rat-like tail that can be twice that length and in fact serves as a breathing tube. It later metamorphosises into the brightly colored drone fly, which looks like a honey bee and feeds on pollen. The maggots are usually found in stagnant water and the drone fly -- possibly on the increase in the city -- may have laid its eggs inside hand-basin pipes, Toms said. If swallowed, the cylindrical, crush-resistant grub-like body was unlikely to cause major health problems, he said. "Since the rat tailed maggot is quite large and clearly visible to the naked eye, it is highly unlikely that it would be ingested in the first place," he added.





The Honeymoon Is Over

Los Angeles County authorities accused Brandon Jason Manai, 23, of throwing his bride of two weeks off a 200-foot cliff. Investigators believe that Julia Cuevas Rosas, 24, approached Manai about a divorce or an annulment after complaining to friends and co-workers about her new husband's possessiveness. After the couple wed, they maintained separate residences, Rosas living with her family and Manai with his mother. "It seems from the investigation that what keeps coming up is the spur-of-the-moment marriage," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Robert Taylor said. "She was now questioning that, and it caused enough rage [for Manai] to throw her off the cliff.




Coincidences

The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn't one to be had. Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. That in itself would have been coincidence enough but in fact it was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one - containing his own annotations - to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. 'Is this the one?' he asked, 'with the notes scribbled in the margins?' It was the same book.








MORE RECENT NEWS

Indian whisky: "Scotland's whisky industry toasted a landmark legal victory yesterday after a court blocked an Indian company from claiming that its whisky was Scots-made. The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said that its members would be protected from unfair competition by the decision of a court in Delhi to stop Golden Bottling, a company based near Jaipur, from using the name "Red Scot" on one of its brands. The ruling could have major ramifications for attempts by Scotland's whisky producers to increase their share of the spirits market in a country with more whisky drinkers than anywhere else in the world. Some 600 million litres of whisky are consumed in India each year... The ruling in Delhi brings to an end a legal battle, begun in April 2004, when the SWA sued Golden Bottling under Indian legislation designed to bring the country into line with global trade standards on misleading product descriptions. Judge Madan Lokur of Delhi High Court said that the words "Red Scot" suggested that the whisky was produced in Scotland and that no Indian company could use the word "Scot" or "Scotch" to promote their product".




Another bright idea destined for oblivion: "A tiny ecological car that can nip through peak-hour gridlock was launched in Britain today after three years of research financed by the EU. The three-wheeled, 1m-wide vehicle runs on natural gas and consumes 2.5 litres of fuel per 100km. Known as the Clever - Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport - the streamlined car is easy to park and can transport a driver and one passenger, seated in the back. Researchers from Bath University, western England, have been testing a prototype of the car, which is the product of a jointly-run project by engineers from Britain, France, Germany and Austria in collaboration with BMW. The Bath team developed a unique tilting suspension on the vehicle. The car's chassis tilts automatically, like a motorbike, as it turns corners, helping it remain stable."


Chinese women busting out: "Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records. "It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub. "You...never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic." The report, seen on the daily's website on today, said that the Hong Kong-based lingerie firm Embry Group no longer produces A-cups for larger chest circumferences and has increased production of C-, D- and E-cup bras to meet pressing demand. The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying the average chest circumference of Chinese women has risen by nearly 1cm (0.4 inch) to 83.53 cm (32.89 inches) since the early 1990s, the daily said. This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport".




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 12:54 PM

 


SOME APT ANAGRAMS

An anagram rearranges the letters of a word or phrase to make a new one

Arnold Schwarzenegger: He's grown large n' crazed

Justin Timberlake: I'm a jerk, but listen

David Letterman: Nerd amid late TV

Jennifer Aniston: Fine in torn jeans

Saddam Hussein: UN's said he's mad

Marilyn Monroe: I marry loon men

Howard Stern: Wonder trash

Frodo Baggins: Bad ring's goof

Babe Ruth: He rub bat

Stevie Wonder: Er, doesn't view

Elvis Costello: Voice sells lot

Madonna Louise Ciccone: Occasional nude income

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Oh sweet DVD wins new fans' heart

How the West Was Won: What we shot we owns

Kevin Costner: Sickener on TV

Richard Milhouse Nixon: His climax ruined honor

Agatha Christie: Rich hag is at tea

Humphrey Bogart: Grumpy hero bath

Thomas Alva Edison: Aha ions made volts

William Shake-speare: I'll make a wise phrase

Declaration of Independence: No finer deed, an ideal concept

Napoleon Bonaparte: No, a trap open on Elba

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Pithy female braves fury


and finally, the almost too-good-to-be-true classic:

President Clinton of the USA: He finds interns to copulate






NAUGHTY NUNS

Three Italian nuns die and go to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, they are met by St. Peter. He says, "Sisters, you all led such exemplary lives that the Lord is granting you six months to go back to earth and be anyone you wish to be."

The first nun says, "I want to be Sophia Loren;" and *poof* she's gone.

The second says, "I want to be Madonna;" and *poof* she's gone.

The third says, "I want to be Sara Pipalini."

St. Peter looks perplexed. "Who?" he asks.

"Sara Pipalini;" replies the nun.

St. Peter shakes his head and says, "I'm sorry, but that name just doesn't ring a bell."

The nun then takes a newspaper out of her habit and hands it to St. Peter.

He reads the paper and starts laughing. He hands it back to her and says...... "No sister, the paper says it was the 'Sahara Pipeline' that was laid by 1,400 men in 6 months."









THE NEWS

Electrify your brain: "A growing body of evidence suggests that passing a small electric current through your head can have a profound effect on the way your brain works. Called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the technique has already been shown to boost verbal and motor skills and to improve learning and memory in healthy people - making fully-functioning brains work even better. It is also showing promise as a therapy to cure migraine and speed recovery after a stroke, and may extract more from the withering brains of people with dementia. Some researchers think the technique will eventually yield a commercial device that healthy people could use to boost their brain function at the flick of a switch."


Chocolate for your heart: "Heart patients at a leading London hospital will be treated with chocolate if a revolutionary experiment is approved. Roger Corder, a professor of experimental therapeutics, is so convinced of the possible benefits of eating dark chocolate that he has asked for permission to test the theory as part of the treatment for 40 cardiovascular patients. While the idea that chocolate can be good for you is not new, this will be the first time it has been used on heart patients. The key, scientists argue, is in its molecules, or polyphenols - especially the largest group, flavonoids. Flavonoids have an anti-oxidant effect that acts on the body's LDL-cholesterol - the so-called "bad cholesterol" found in the blood, which hardens arteries and causes blockages and eventual strokes and heart attacks. To this extent, flavonoids found in chocolate are said to act like aspirin in the way they prevent clotting. At least one recent US study found that eating 25 grams of dark chocolate a day resulted in lower platelet activity, the particles of blood which stick together to form clots."


Bad headache: "A 33-year-old Oregon man on methamphetamine and suffering from mental health problems fired 12 nails from a nail gun into his head and survived. The man, who has not been identified by medical officials for privacy reasons, went to an Oregon hospital last year complaining of a headache. Doctors were surprised when they took X-rays and found the nails - six clustered between his right eye and ear, two below his right ear and four on the left side of his head. No one before is known to have survived having intentionally fired so many foreign objects into the head, according to the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery, where the case is detailed.... The man at first told doctors he had had a "nail gun accident." It wasn't until later that the patient admitted he'd used meth and the injury was a suicide attempt. The patient was in remarkably good condition when he got to OHSU, according to the study. While even one nail to the head can be fatal, these nails came close to major blood vessels and the brain stem but did not pierce either.... Surgeons were able to remove the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill because the nail heads did not penetrate the skull.... He told doctors that he later attempted suicide again but has been drug-free for six months and has been able to recover."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 1:51 PM

 


SOME HOLLYWOOD WISDOM

These emptyheads make their living by saying other people's words. You can see the strain when they have to think of some words of their own. They actually seem to think that hackneyed Leftism is original and insightful!

Harry Belafonte: “ I not only think that they [U.S. leaders] are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil."

Sandra Bernhard: "The infrastructure of America and the world is caving in, and George Bush is a figurehead of that."

George Clooney: I believe he(Bush) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can't beat anyone anymore."

Sheryl Crow: “I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."

Janeane Garofalo: “This will potentially be one of the worst chapters in American history that will go on for twenty or thirty years, until democracy, in some fashion, is re-established.”


Larry Hagman: "[Bush is a] sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism."

Jessica Lange: “I hate Bush; I despise him and his entire administration, everything he represents and everything he has tried to do, not only internationally, which is horrific, but domestically as well.”

Rosie O’Donnell: “You know [President Bush] invaded a sovereign nation [Iraq] in defiance of the U.N. He is basically a war criminal! He should be tried in the Hague!

Gwyneth Paltrow: "I think George Bush is such an embarrassment to America in the way that he doesn't take the rest of the world into consideration. And it all seems to be for him and his friends to keep getting richer at the expense of a nation, at the expense of the environment. It's like a full scale assault on the environment."

Sean Penn: “We now have a president who thinks in terms of good and evil, and that comes from watching too many Hollywood movies.”

Tim Robbins: “ In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom. Let us find a way to resist fundamentalism that leads to violence--fundamentalism of all kinds, in al Qaeda and within our own government. What is our fundamentalism? Cloaked in patriotism and our doctrine of spreading democracy throughout the world, our fundamentalism is business, the unfettered spread of our economic interests throughout the globe.”

Julia Roberts: "He's embarrassing. He's not my president. He will never be my president."

Susan Sarandon: "In the name of fear and fighting terror we are giving the reigns of power to oil men more interested in a financial bottom line than a moral bottom line. Oil men ready to expand their influence with new contracts on the soil our bombers have plowed…”


Martin Sheen: "Every time I cross the Canadian border I feel like I've left the land of lunatics. You are not armed and dangerous. You do not shoot each other. I always feel a bit more human when I come here."

Patti Smith: “The world right now is being run by a**holes like George Bush and pharmaceutical companies, these greedy people who don’t care about the environment, who don’t really understand the poor, who don’t understand other cultures.”

Oliver Stone: "Bin Laden was completely protected by the oil companies in this country who told [President] Bush not to go after him because it would piss off the Saudis."

Robin Williams: "We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

Gore Vidal: We're not a democracy, and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements. God knows, the mention of justice is like a clove of garlic to Count Dracula."

(Above list taken from a much more serious article)







HOW SAD IT IS











THE NEWS

Sex is good for you: "It does not take a degree in medicine to work out that sex is good for you. Anything that is free, feels fabulous and leaves you glowing is plainly a good idea. But scientists are now beginning to understand that the perceived feel-good effects of sexual intercourse are merely the tip of the iceberg. Sex, they are discovering, can offer protection from depression, colds, heart disease and even cancer. The latest addition to the body of evidence came last month when Professor Stuart Brody of the University of Paisley published a study showing sex can lower blood pressure. "We're not just talking about the immediate effects of having had nice sex. The beneficial effects could last at least a week," says Professor Brody. One theory is that intercourse stimulates a variety of nerves, most notably the "vagas" nerve, which is directly involved in soothing and calming. But you have to go the whole heterosexual hog. According to Professor Brody, studies show "penile-vaginal intercourse is the only sexual behaviour consistently associated with better psychological and physiological health". [Now, whom would that leave out?]


Kosher cellphone! "It sounds like the setup for a punch line: What do you get when you cross an ultra-Orthodox rabbi with a mobile phone? But the "kosher phone" is real and its developers are serious about looking beyond the religious enclaves of Israel. Some Arab companies even have inquired about the phone's main feature: keeping out sex lines and other worldly temptations. "There's interest out there in a conservative phone," said Abrasha Burstyn, the chief executive officer at Mirs Communications Ltd., an Israeli subsidiary of Motorola Inc. and pioneer of the kosher mobile that debuted last year. The phones - carrying the seal of approval from Israel's rabbinical authorities - have been one of the most successful mergers of technology and centuries-old tradition in the ultra-Orthodox community, which is most widely recognized by the men's black garb based on the dress of 19th century European Jews. The kosher phone is stripped down to its original function: making and receiving calls. There's no text messaging, no Internet access, no video options, no camera. More than 10,000 numbers for phone sex, dating services and other offerings are blocked. A team of rabbinical overseers makes sure the list is up to date."


Lucky Jap: "A Japanese man wept for joy this week when he recovered 5 million yen ($42,210) in cash his wife had mistakenly thrown out with the household rubbish. The 35-year-old man had withdrawn the money from a bank account but, fearing it would be stolen, he hid it inside a refuse bag which he placed in a rubbish bin, Japanese media said. His wife unknowingly threw out the bag, which was found last month at a refuse collection point outside an apartment building in Saitama, north of Tokyo. Local police returned the money after the man was able to give details of the exact amount and where he had withdrawn it. Many Japanese keep large quantities of money hidden in their homes and cash is often used for business transactions."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 1:32 PM

 


Top 25 Strangest Deaths

This is a list of crazy, weird and even funny deaths of prominent people in the last 100 years:

Too much VIAGRA killed the dictator

Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, died at his residence in Abuja of a heart attack, rumored to have been caused by the ingestion of large quantities of the drug VIAGRA as a prelude to an orgy. (1998)


The Jockey died but the Horse kept going... and WON!

Frank Hayes, jockey, suffered a heart attack during a horse race. The horse, Sweet Kiss, went on to finish first, making Hayes the only deceased jockey to win a race. (1953)


Teenager killed by a MiG-23 fighter jet

A Belgian teenager was killed by a crashing soviet MiG-23 fighter jet, which escaped from Poland on autopilot after the crew ejected over a false engine failure alarm. (1989)


Killed and eaten by a classmate

A 25-year-old Dutch woman studying in Paris, Ren,e Hartevelt, was killed and eaten by a classmate, Issei Sagawa, when he invited her to dinner for a literary conversation. The killer was declared unfit to stand trial and extradited back to Japan, where he was released from custody within fifteen months. (1981)


Prince of Nepal didn't like his Royal Family

On June 1, Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal, enraged from a dispute over his marriage arrangements (and possibly intoxicated), reportedly went on a rampage at dinner and massacred nearly the entire Royal Family, including his father the king. But in accordance with custom and tradition, Dipendra, then in a coma due to wounds sustained either from palace guards or a botched suicide attempt, became king for three days before dying on June 4. He was succeeded by his uncle, whose son mysteriously survived the massacre unscathed. (2001)


Too gay to live

Kenneth Pinyan an Enumclaw, Seattle WA. man, died of acute peritonitis after submitting to anal intercourse with a stallion. The man had done this before, though apparently this time his partner was a little too keen, and delayed several hours to visit hospital wishing to avoid official cognisance. The case may lead to the criminalization of bestiality in Washington. (2005)


Decapitated by a helicopter blade

Vic Morrow, actor, was decapitated by helicopter blade during filming of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" and was killed instantly, along with two child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen. (1982)


Distracted by his wife, in the middle of World War I

Francois Faber, Luxembourgean Tour de France winner, died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper (1915).


The politician shot himself during a TV conference

R. Budd Dwyer, a Republican politician, committed suicide during a televised press conference. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the head with a revolver. (1987)


Assassinated with an Umbrella

Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was assassinated by poisoning in London by an unknown assailant who shot him in the leg with a specially modified umbrella that fired a metal pellet with a small cavity full of ricin poison. (1978)


Brandon Lee and the magic bullet

Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by a prop .44 Magnum while filming the movie The Crow. The scene involved the firing of a full-powder blank (full charge of gunpowder, but no bullet) at Brandon's character. However, unknown to the film crew/firearms technician, a bullet was already lodged in the barrel. (1993)


He swallowed a toothpick on a party

Sherwood Anderson, writer, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis. (1941)


A foil pierced his eyeball and entered his brain

Vladimir Smirnov, an Olympic champion fencer, died of brain damage nine days after his opponent's foil snapped during a match, pierced his eyeball and entered his brain. (1982)


Jack Daniel's much needed Anger Management

Jack Daniel, founder of the famous Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning due to a toe injury he received after kicking his safe in anger when he could not remember its combination code. (1911)


Decaptitated by his car's drive chain, but it was worth it!

J.G. Parry-Thomas, a British racing driver, was decaptitated by his car's drive chain which, under duress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own Land speed record which he had set the previous year. Incredibly enough, despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171mph. (1927)


A homeless man killed to collect his life insurance

Michael Malloy, a homeless man, was murdered by gassing after surviving multiple poisonings, intentional exposure, and being struck by a car. Malloy was murdered by five men in a plot to collect on life insurance policies they'd purchased. (1933)


4 Weeks without water on the Libyan Desert

Lady be Good, a USAAF B-24 bomber lost its way and crash landed in the Libyan Desert. The Mummified remains of its crew, who struggled for a week without water, were not found until 1960. (1943)


The right song for his last performance

Famed baritone Leonard Warren collapsed on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera of a massive stroke during a performance of "La forza del destino" (The force of destiny). (1960)


Apollo 1's deadly training exercise

A flash fire began in the pure oxygen atmosphere inside the unlaunched Apollo 1 spacecraft, killing its crew during a training exercise. (1967)


The Prime Minister can't swim

Harold Holt, the serving Prime Minister of Australia, vanished while swimming on a beach near Melbourne. His body was never found. (1967)


"Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?"

Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show. When he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?". The show was never broadcast. (1971)


And this is Live News...

Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter committed suicide during a live broadcast on July 15th. At 9:38 AM, 8 minutes into her talk show, on WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, she drew out a revolver and shot herself in the head. (1974)


Not a good entrance for this WWF Wrestler

Owen Hart, WWF (now WWE) wrestler, died when he fell 78 feet while being lowered into the ring by a cable from the stadium rafters before an upcoming match. He had been scheduled to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship that night. (1999)


Wasn't that just part of the act?

Tommy Cooper, British magician, died on stage at Her Majesty's Theatre during a live television routine. Most of the audience and viewers believed it was part of his act. (1984)


As you said: "Too bad you can only live so long"

Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack onstage at the New York Metropolitan Opera after delivering the line "Too bad you can only live so long" during a performance of The Makropulos Case. (1996)


Nasty weather for this environmentalist

American environmentalist Timothy Treadwell, self-proclaimed "eco-warrior" that had lived in the wilderness among bears for thirteen summers in a remote portion of Alaska, was killed and partially consumed along with his girlfriend Amie Huguenard after they had been slated to leave due to the impending harsh fall/winter in Alaska. The critically-acclaimed documentary film Grizzly Man, directed by Werner Herzog, was released in 2005. (2003)









THE NEWS

Man accused of changing traffic lights: "A man who said he bought a device that let him change traffic lights from red to green has received a $50 ticket on suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal. Jason Niccum of Longmont told the Daily Times-Call that the device, which he bought on eBay for $100, helped him cut his time driving to work. 'I guess in the two years I had it, that thing paid for itself,' he told the newspaper Wednesday. Niccum was cited March 29 after police said they found him using a strobe-like device to change traffic signals. 'I'm always running late,' police quoted Niccum as saying in an incident report. The device, called an Opticon, is similar to what firefighters use to change lights when they respond to emergencies. It emits an infrared pulse that receivers on the traffic lights pick up. Niccum was cited after city traffic engineers who noticed repeated traffic-light disruptions on certain intersections spotted a white Ford pickup passing by whenever the light patterns were disrupted."


A dubious story: ""NASA researchers are working on a design for a new spaceship for the Mars mission which will be powered by anti-matter, RAW STORY has found. If successful, 'perhaps the first humans to reach Mars will arrive in spaceships powered by the same source that fired starships across the universes of our science fiction dreams,' writes Bill Steigerwald of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. ... Excerpts from an article at the NASA website: 'Most self-respecting starships in science fiction stories use antimatter as fuel for a good reason -- it's the most potent fuel known. While tons of chemical fuel are needed to propel a human mission to Mars, just tens of milligrams of antimatter will do.


French touch on a tactic for tips: "Visitors to French cafes should know that if the waitress lets her hand linger on your arm, she is not encouraging your interest, only a tip. Researchers have found that a server who touches a customer's forearm when asking for his or her order is twice as likely to receive a tip as when she keeps her hands off. The experiment, on 143 customers at a bistro in Vannes, Brittany, suggested that American-style techniques of engaging the customer were highly effective in France, despite the country's greater formality. The value of tips, which were optional and low in the French service compris (service included) tradition, were also higher with the touch technique, a study by the University of South Brittany indicated. Thanks to such research, French waiting staff, shop assistants and businesspeople are being trained to forgo Gallic codes that regulate contact and practise up-close body language to win customers.



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 6:03 PM

 


ALONE IN LAS VEGAS

I was in Las Vegas on a business trip, had checked into a hotel, and was a bit lonely, So I thought I'd get me one of those girls you see advertised in phone booths when you're calling for a cab.

I grabbed a card on my way in. It was an ad for a girl calling herself Erogonique, a lovely girl, bending over in the photo. She had all the right curves in all the right places, beautiful long wavy hair, Long graceful legs all the way up to her butt, you know the kind.

So I'm in my room and figure, what the hell, I'll give her a call. "Hello?" the woman says. God she sounded sexy.

"Hi, I hear you give a great massage and I'd like you to come to my room and give me one. No, wait, I should be straight with you.! I'm in town all alone and what I really want is s-e-x. I want it hard, I want it hot, and I want it now. I'm talking kinky the whole night long. You name it, we'll do it. Bring implements, toys, everything you've got in your bag of tricks. We'll go hot and heavy all night; Tie me up, wear a strap on, Cover me in chocolate syrup and whip cream, anything you want baby. Now, how does that sound?"

She says, "That sounds fantastic sir, but for an outside line you need to press 9."









THE NEWS



Mediterranean diet gets another plug: "A "Mediterranean" diet was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease among Americans participating in a new study, researchers reported. A Mediterranean diet is one with plenty of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals, some fish and alcohol, and little dairy and meat. Previous studies have also linked the diet with longer lives, and other health benefits. In the new research, Nikolaos Scarmeas of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and colleagues studied 2,258 older New Yorkers for a period of four years. During that time, 262 were diagnosed with Alzheimer's-a devastating, progressive degeneration of the brain, estimated to affect 4 million Americans. But "higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease," the researchers reported. The findings appear in the April issue of the research journal Annals of Neurology. [Funny that Mediterraneans don't live any longer than anyone else, though!]


Nutty Brits ban ducks: "Ducks are to be banned from a village pond. The mallards have been branded a menace by officials because they are eating the frogspawn. The community council in Creigiau, near Cardiff, has ordered the birds to be relocated to another pond. According to the Daily Express council secretary Alec Davies said: 'There are almost no frogs, newts and stickleback in the pond this year. The ducks are destroying the habitat and we have made a decision to relocate them.' ... A RSPB spokesman said: 'There are lots of other reasons why frogspawn has been delayed this year, including the fact that it has been particularly cold. The main problem with ducks is that if you relocate them there is nothing to stop them from flying back.'"


Banknotes flushed down toilet: "A German pensioner flushed bundles of old banknotes worth a small fortune down the toilet because he thought they were now worthless, police in the northern city of Kiel said today. "He flushed the cash down the loo because he didn't think it was worth anything," said police spokesman Uwe Voigt. Police said he dumped some 60,000 deutschemarks - which the euro replaced in 2002 - into the bowl, unaware they could still be exchanged for about 30,000 euros ($49,833). Sewage workers recovered about half the sodden currency from the 64-year-old's plumbing. The remaining notes created a bottleneck in local sewers, where most were fished out. "There may have been more cash that got away," said Mr Voigt. Police said the man lived in "spartan" circumstances and had dried out the notes and taken them to a bank. It was unclear if he had laundered the money first."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 2:09 PM

 


Answers Given On A Bible Knowledge Test

Noah's wife was Joan of Ark.

Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night.

Moses went to the top of Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments.

The seventh commandment is "thou shalt not admit adultery."

Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

The people who followed Jesus were called Decibels.

The espistles were the wives of the apostles.

One of the opossums was St. Matthew.

Salome danced in seven veils in front of King Herrod.

Paul preached acrimony, which is another name for marriage.

David fought the Finkelsteins, which a race of people who lived in Bible times.

The Jews had trouble throughout their history with unsympathic Genitals.

A Christian should have only one wife, this is called monotony.






STUPID GREEKS










THE NEWS



Big discovery! Sexy women distract men!: "Catching sight of a pretty woman really is enough to throw a man's decision-making skills into disarray, a study suggests. The more testosterone he has, the stronger the effect, according to work by Belgian researchers. Men about to play a financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie. The Proceedings of the Royal Society B study found they were more likely to accept unfair offers than men not been exposed to the alluring images. The suggestion is that the sexual cues distract the men's thoughts, preventing them from focusing on their task - particularly among those with high natural testosterone levels."




Silent Swede challenges U.S.: "A Swedish submarine that has been playing cat and mouse with the US Navy could extend its deployment in joint naval exercises by another year, a military spokesman said. The silent-running Gotland, had been due to return home in June, having being chased by US warships in exercises off the west coast of America for a year. The 200ft (60m) submarine is one of the world's quietest and can stay under water for weeks at a time.




U.K.: Sat-nav not so wise: "There is a lucrative new sport in the Wiltshire village of Luckington: fishing stranded motorists out of a ford at 25 pounds a time. Since a road closure, dozens of drivers have blithely followed directions from their satellite navigation systems, not realising that the recommended route goes through the ford. Normally the water - the start of the River Avon - is about 2ft deep but it can swiftly double in depth after heavy rain. Every day since the main B4040 was closed after a wall collapsed on April 8 one or two motorists have been towed out, having either failed to notice or ignored warning signs. Some farmers have been charging 25 pounds to give a tow with tractors. The ford, known as The Splash, is in Brook End on the edge of Luckington, which is near Malmesbury. Lesley Bennett, 59, a Luckington parish councillor who lives by the ford, said: "When the car conks out the driver looks stunned. When you ask what happened, they say, `My sat-nav told me it was this way'."




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:13 PM

 


JUST LOTSA NEWS TODAY:

Nasty Frogs: "Cutting off pedestrians in crosswalks. Chatting on mobile phones behind the wheel. Racing down highways at breakneck speeds. These hallmarks of France's motorways are the targets of a media campaign launched by the country's Ministry of Transport aimed at persuading France's harried motorists to slow down and be nice. Billboards, TV commercials and radio spots admonish drivers to "stay Zen at the wheel" and respect the 90-kph speed limit on many French highways. "Driving transforms many of us who in other walks of life are respectable people into barbarians," said Josselin Edouard, president of an association that promotes good driving habits. "For a culture that values good manners, we French are shockingly impolite behind the wheel," said Edouard, whose group helped organise the two-pronged campaign. Recent efforts to crack down on traffic offenders - like the installation of radar guns - have almost halved the country's traffic deaths over the past four years, he said. But with nearly 5,000 traffic fatalities in 2005, France still has among Europe's deadliest roadways. Not surprising, observers say. In a 2003 Gallup poll, the French rated themselves as Europe's most aggressive drivers, with about 60 per cent of French motorists surveyed confessing to being discourteous drivers."


Top British school teaches laughter: "It's students are, in the words of the late Dame Muriel Spark, the creme de la creme, with lucrative careers as power brokers and opinion formers looming ahead of them. Yet the head teacher of what is one of the country's top schools believes that his pupils need more mirth and merriment in their lives. So from this September, pupils at Wellington College are to be given timetabled lessons in positive psychology and the science of wellbeing as part of a pioneering educational experiment to make their lives happier. Anthony Seldon, the college master, is collaborating with Cambridge University in the pilot project, which he believes could redress the "national obsession" with league tables and examinations and allow pupils to live flourishing lives".


NYPD likes horses: "The New York police department calls them the "10ft cops" and says that they can do the work of ten patrolmen. In an age of increasingly high-tech policing, the trusty police horse is making a comeback in New York City. Even as the NYPD deploys 500 state-of-the-art surveillance cameras across the city, the police commissioner has ordered that the number of four-legged officers on the force must be almost doubled. The Mounted Unit, which has 85 horses, will be expanded to 160 animals over the next three years to help to keep the crime rate in New York at its four-decade low. "There's a reason we call them the 10ft cop," Ray Kelly, the police commissioner, told The New York Times. "You can see them from blocks away, they're great at crowd control and they're probably the most photographed piece of equipment we have. I'm a huge fan."


Herbs have a win: "Herbal remedies are effective in treating lower-back pain and in some cases work just as well as pharmaceutical drugs. A review of 10 different studies conducted around the world in recent years has found three herbs - Devil's Claw, White Willow Bark and Cayenne - all reduced back pain significantly more than a placebo, or dummy pill. And two of the herbs, Devil's Claw, also known as harpagoside, and White Willow Bark, also known as salicin, were just as effective as Vioxx - a member of the newest class of anti-inflammatory painkilling drugs, collectively known as Cox-2 inhibitors. The findings on the three herbs were released yesterday by the Cochrane Library, an international collaboration that seeks to iron out contradictions in medical evidence by examining a large number of studies looking at the same topic. The Cochrane reviewers found 10 previous studies involving 1567 patients aged 18 or over with chronic or acute lower-back pain".


"Men only" cooking classes okayed: "Blokes-only cooking classes have won an exemption from the equal opportunity laws in Victoria, after men complained women should be banned because males were intimidated by their better culinary skills. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard evidence that men were reluctant to attend mixed cooking classes when they had little or no cooking experience, lacked confidence or believed women were better cooks. The tribunal granted an application by Melbourne man Brian Laker to conduct men-only cooking classes in Rowville. Ben Dalton, who runs men-only cooking classes in Sydney and Melbourne, said yesterday men were often intimidated by women in the kitchen. "Blokes tend to be fairly defensive when they are doing something new," he said. "When they're not confident with what they are doing, they tend to be a bit insecure. "When it's all of them in the same boat together, there are still elements of defensiveness and insecurity, but it seems to be something they cope with far better when it's just guys. They're not feeling like an idiot in front of a woman.""


Doggy golfer: "A golf club in south Wales has awarded lifetime membership to a mongrel dog because of his uncanny knack of finding lost balls from wayward shots. But friendly white terrier cross Deuce is having to take the rough with the smooth, because he cannot fully enjoy membership of Pontnewydd Golf Club - dogs are banned from the clubhouse. Since his owner and club member Jim Phillis began taking him for daily walks from his house bordering the course near Cwmbran in Monmouthshire, Deuce has returned more than 3000 balls sliced or shanked into the long grass. "I've been playing with the same ball for two years. I can't get rid of it," club secretary Carl Phillips said. To mark his abilities, Deuce has been made a member of the veterans' section although at age six he is considerably younger than the 50 years needed to qualify as a senior player. Phillis said his pet comes into his own in the summer months when ferns around the course can grow to more one metre high.


Valuable coffee cup: "A feud over a discarded coffee cup worth thousands of dollars in a fastfood chain contest has been settled in favour of a 10-year old girl, ending weeks of national debate in Canada over who should claim the prize. "We have awarded an SUV to the parent of one of the little girls in Quebec (who contested ownership of the cup)," Jodi Bond, a spokeswoman for the Tim Hortons coffee chain, said today. Last month, the 10-year-old girl found the prize-winning coffee cup in the garbage at her Montreal area school, but was unable to "rrroll up the rim" to determine if it was a winner, so she asked an older girl for help. The annual promotion urges coffee drinkers to check under the rim to look for millions of dollars in prizes, including a brand new Toyota sport utility vehicle worth $C28,000 ($US24,000). The two girls took the cup to a teacher, who called their parents. After initially agreeing to share the prize, the parents were soon at odds over how to split it. Later, a school employee came forward saying he bought the cup, and should be awarded the prize despite disposing of the cup. He hired a lawyer, who told local media he was considering demanding a DNA test to prove his client's case".


New antibiotic: "Wallabies could hold the key to developing the next generation of super-drugs to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria. An Australian team of scientists have found that the milk of the female tammar wallabies contains a molecule that is 100 times more effective against bacteria such a E.coli than the most potent form of penicillin. In recent years scientists have been concerned that over-prescribing penicillin has increasingly made bacteria resistant to the drug and this was potentially leading to the creation of "super-bugs". The findings, in the latest issue of New Scientist, were presented at the US Biotechnology Industry Organisation 2006 meeting in Chicago last week. But the research director in animal genetics and genomics for the Victoria Department of Primary Industries in Melbourne, Dr Ben Cocks, said the molecule in the wallaby milk, called AGG01, is effective against a range of bacteria and one type of fungus".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 12:16 PM

 


Ramblings of a Retired Mind

I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can't afford one. So, I'm wearing my garage door opener.

You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people didn't like me anyway.

I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans!

I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is 'when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.'

I thought about making a fitness movie, for folks my age, and call it "Pumping Rust."

I have gotten that dreaded furniture disease. That's when your chest is falling into your drawers!

I know, when people see a cat's litter box, they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat?" Just once I want to say, "No, it's for company!"

Employment application blanks always ask 'who is to be notified in case of an emergency.' I think you should write, "A Good Doctor!"

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do -- write to these men? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen could look for them while they deliver the mail? Or better yet, arrest them while they are taking their pictures!

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older. Then, it dawned on me, they were cramming for their finals.









THE NEWS

Sequel to "The Graduate": "So what did happen to Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross when they boarded that bus and travelled into the sunset of 1967 at the end of The Graduate? The outcome was left to the cinemagoer's imagination - but there is nothing imaginary about the fate of the real-life couple on whom Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson were based. They are stony broke and facing eviction from their flat in Hove, East Sussex. Charles Webb, the novelist who based the couple on himself and his long-term female partner, Fred, wrote the basis for a hugely successful film but made one serious tactical error. He accepted a 14,000 pound one-off payment for his work, and then watched the film take 60 million at the box office. The wise generally go for the percentage"




Generation Ouch: "For America's baby boomers, a generation weaned on Jack LaLanne, shaped by Jane Fonda videos and sculpted in the modern-day gym, too much of a good thing has consequences. Encouraged by doctors to continue to exercise three to five times a week for their health, a legion of running, swimming and biking boomers are flouting the conventional limits of the middle-aged body's abilities, and filling the nation's operating rooms and orthopedists' offices in the process. They need knee and hip replacements, surgery for cartilage and ligament damage, and treatment for tendinitis, arthritis, bursitis and stress fractures. The phenomenon even has a name in medical circles: boomeritis. "Boomers are the first generation that grew up exercising, and the first that expects, indeed demands, that they be able to exercise into their 70's," said Dr. Nicholas A. DiNubile, a Philadelphia-area orthopedic surgeon, who coined and trademarked the term boomeritis. "But evolution doesn't work that quickly. Physically, you can't necessarily do at 50 what you did at 25. We've worn out the warranty on some body parts. That's why so many boomers are breaking down. It ought to be called Generation Ouch."


Dull chat sparks alert: "A boring phone conversation prompted an emergency alert when a German man nodded off while talking to his girlfriend, authorities said today. The 42-year-old man in the southern city of Nuremberg was on the phone to his partner on Sunday when he fell into a doze. The woman became alarmed when he stopped speaking and called him back several times, only to get a busy signal. Then she called the police. Fearing the worst, the emergency services dispatched a police car to the man's house, followed by the fire brigade and an ambulance. "When the whole crew pulled up in full force, sirens blaring, the man opened the door in a daze," a police spokesman said. The man explained the silence at his end of the line to officers at the scene: a cat-nap during a lull in the conversation".




Cheeky British paper annoys the Germans. Punny text follows:: "German leader Angela Merkel has pulled up her country's economy - and now she's pulling up her pants. The cheeky Chancellor was snapped after a dip while on holiday with hubby Joachim Sauer in southern Italy. As she began her well-earned break figures revealed Germany's fortunes are no longer sagging - with a much improved bottom line. The Iron Frau - pictured right at Germany's Bundestag parliament - has done more than cover up the cracks since taking over last year. Strikes are down and economic growth is rising. Mrs Merkel, 51, has plenty to celebrate. Bottoms up!" [German reaction summarized here]




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 2:27 PM

 
FOR BEER DRINKERS









THINK AGAIN, BUDDY




(If either of the above pictures fails to come down, you can find both here)






THE NEWS

Cat in Germany saves baby's life: "A cat saved the life of a newborn baby abandoned in the middle of the night on the doorstep of a house in the German city of Cologne by meowing loudly until someone woke up, police said. "The cat is a hero," Cologne police spokesman Uwe Beier said. "Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia. "The homeowner opened door to see why the cat was making so much noise and discovered the newborn." Beier said the baby boy was taken to hospital at 5am on Thursday, when overnight temperatures fell towards zero, and had suffered only mild hypothermia. He said there was no indication of what happened to the boy's mother".




Iguana invasion: "As residents of an upmarket community in Florida, they are perhaps more at home clutching cocktails than airguns. But after their island was overrun by 10,000 ill-tempered reptiles, the people of Boca Grande took up arms. Outnumbered ten to one by spiny black-tailed iguanas - a non-native species with a big appetite and a bad attitude - citizens of the formerly serene town on Gasparilla Island are engaged in a furious turf battle to try to reclaim their homes, gardens and beaches from the prehistoric-looking interlopers.... In their heyday the iguanas - which are believed to have arrived on the island as pets several decades ago - could even depend on restaurateurs to feed them and on residents to cultivate juicy hibiscus plants, their favourite food, just for them. But the iguanas have fallen from grace after breeding out of control, tearing up the landscape and invading homes. Some estate agents, while showing around clients, have found the three-foot beasts lounging defiantly on sofas."




Beijing sandstorms: "The residents of Beijing were reminded yesterday that the desert was continuing to encroach on the Chinese capital. They awoke to find a layer of sand everywhere, after a night of high winds. Officials advised residents to stay indoors or to wear masks if they had to go outside. Customers at a car dealership, above, were undaunted, even though the skies were a murky yellow. A glut of construction sites and poor plant cover around Beijing have contributed to the problem".




Fishy spa: "Visitors to a Japanese spa are being invited to take a bath with more than 1,000 fish, which are said to cure skin ailments. The West Asian Garra rufas - nicknamed Doctor Fish - feed on dead skin. The bath has been opened in the hot spring resort of Hakone Kowakien, west of Tokyo."




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:06 PM

 


THIS GUY KNOWS HIS MATHEMATICS

He writes:

I was riding to work yesterday when I observed a female driver, who cut right in front of a pickup truck, causing the driver to drive onto the shoulder to avoid hitting her. This evidently angered the driver enough that he hung his arm out his window and gave the woman the finger. "Man, that guy is stupid," I thought to myself. I ALWAYS smile nicely and wave in a sheepish manner whenever a female does anything to me in traffic, and here's why:

I drive 48 miles each way every day to work. That's 96 miles each day. Of these, 16 miles each way is bumper-to-bumper. Most of the bumper-to-bumper is on an 8 lane highway. There are 7 cars every 40 feet for 32 miles. That works out to 982 cars every mile, or 31,424 cars. Even though the rest of the 32 miles is not bumper-to-bumper, I figure I pass at least another 4000 cars. That brings the number to something like 36,000 cars that I pass every day.

Statistically, females drive half of these. That's 18,000 women drivers!

In any given group of females, 1 in 28 has PMS. That's 642.

According to Cosmopolitan, 70% describe their love life as dissatisfying or unrewarding. That's 449.

According to the National Institute of Health, 22% of all females have seriously considered suicide or homicide. That's 98. And 34% describe men as their biggest problem. That's 33.

According to the National Rifle Association, 5% of all females carry weapons and this number is increasing.

That means that EVERY SINGLE DAY, I drive past at least one female that has a lousy love life, thinks men are her biggest problem, has seriously considered suicide or homicide, has PMS, and is armed. Give her the finger? I don't think so !!








THE NEWS

Elvis cutback: "For nearly 30 years since the death of Elvis Presley, his impersonators have suffered for their art. They struggle to achieve the perfect quiff. They sweat profusely in white sequined jump suits. Some, whose bellies are bigger than their sideburns, have been floored by gyration-induced hernias. Now, however, America’s estimated 30,000 Elvis impressionists are really shook up. They fear that they are about to be put out of business. In a move that has made the ranks of the lookalikes queasier than the thought of a deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich — the King’s favourite snack in the bloated autumn of his life — a New York businessman has bought the rights to Elvis’s name and likeness and has threatened to ban “unauthorised” Elvis clones".

German sues Easter Bunny: "A German man has taken legal action against the Easter Bunny for grievous bodily harm. Karl-Friedrich Lentze, from Berlin, has filed a complaint with prosecutors, accusing it of causing addiction to chocolate which leads to heart attacks, obesity and strokes. Lentze said: "The Easter Bunny is a sadistic and unscrupulous offender who preys on people's sweet tooth. "Find this evil bunny, handcuff his paws and remove him from shops in time for Easter." Public prosecutor spokesman Christian Avenarius said: "We will act upon the complaint with speed and diligence."


Don't die in Moscow: "Irina Laikova had long believed that it was too expensive to live in Moscow. Then she discovered that it was too expensive to die here, too. When her father passed away in March she called an undertaker to find out how much it would cost for a simple grave in the local cemetery. The answer shocked her. A plot near the entrance of the Mytino cemetery, on the outskirts of Moscow, would cost 300,000 roubles (6,200 pounds), she was told. The only alternative was one in a ditch on the edge of the cemetery, 1.6km (a mile) from the entrance, for 66,000 roubles — about the same as in London. Moscow’s new rich might not bat an eye at such prices but for Mrs Laikova, 50, an exhibition organiser, even the cheaper option amounted to her life savings. “I was astonished,” she told The Times. “I thought I could turn up with my father’s death certificate and get a grave. But they told me they could only do a ‘commercial’ burial.”"



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 11:51 AM

 


ASSUMPTIONS, ASSUMPTIONS

A travel agent looked up from his desk to see an older lady and an older gentleman peering in the shop window at the posters showing the glamorous destinations around the world. The agent had had a good week and the dejected couple looking in the window gave him a rare feeling of generosity.

He called them into his shop and said, "I know that on your pension you could never hope to have a holiday, so I am sending you off to a fabulous resort at my expense, and I won't take no for an answer."

He took them inside and asked his secretary to write two flight tickets and book a room in a five star hotel. They, as can be expected, gladly accepted, and were on their way.

About a month later the little lady came in to his shop. "And how did you like your holiday?" he asked eagerly. "The flight was exciting and the room was lovely," she said. "I've come to thank you. But, one thing puzzled me. Who was that old guy I had to share the room with?"






A REAL DOGHOUSE











THE NEWS

Romania: Pensioner used TV karate on burglar: "A 75-year-old Romanian woman laid out a burglar with karate moves she had learned from television. Anica D, from Popeni village in Vaslui county, told police she was sleeping when the man broke into her house and attacked her. She said she cried for help but nobody came so she tried some karate she had picked up from a self-defence TV show. Anica managed to 'immobilize' her attacker and then called police who arrested the man, reports the Ziarul newspaper. The 30-year-old has been charged with burglary and attempted rape."


Men don't find out if vasectomy worked: "Many men who undergo vasectomy fail to get the follow-up test that shows whether the procedure worked, a new study suggests. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation found that of 436 vasectomy patients they followed, one-quarter never returned a semen sample to confirm that they were indeed sterile. And half didn't get a second semen analysis, as their surgeon had advised. In all, only one-fifth of patients followed the full instructions to have two consecutive sperm-free semen samples in the months following surgery, according to findings published in the journal BJU International."


French feminists wake up: "Monsieur, madame ou mademoiselle? This is the first question on all official forms in France, but it has been denounced by leading feminists in the country as a flagrant example of sex discrimination. They are calling on the French Government to remove the title Mademoiselle (Miss) from administrative documents because it forces women to divulge their marital status where men have only to reveal their gender. Les Chiennes de Garde (The Guard Dogs), the biggest feminist group in France, have launched a petition demanding the withdrawl of a word that they say "perpetuates the submission to macho values". They do not want an equivalent of the English Ms, but a straight choice between Monsieur and Madame".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 12:48 PM

 


Romantic Weekend

This husband and wife are staying in a hotel, and after a romantic evening wining and dining they go off to bed. However, as soon as they settled down, the man (not quite ready for slumber) leans over and whispers softly, "Hey snuggle boopy boops, your lickle hubby wubby isn't quite ready for bye-byes yet."

The wife takes the hint and says, "OK, but I have to use the bathroom first." So off she goes but on her way back she trips over a piece of carpet and lands flat on her face.

Her husband jumps up and exclaims in a concerned tone "Oh my little honey bunny, is your nosey-wosey all right?"

No harm is done, so she jumps into bed and they have mad passionate sex for three hours. Afterwards, the wife goes off to the bathroom again, but on her way she trips over the same piece of carpet and again lands flat on her face on the floor.

Her husband looks over and grunts "Clumsy bitch."





AMBITION










THE NEWS

Rush to judgment: "Hey baby, what's your favourite pizza topping? Surprising though it may seem, that question could hold the key to dating success. Forget carefully crafted compliments and witty jokes, because an inquiry about the merits of pepperoni versus anchovy is more likely to get you that coveted telephone number, according to a study of speed dating. And men need to get their champion chat-up lines in quickly, because women are even quicker to judge than they are. Almost half (45 per cent) of the women in a mass speed-dating experiment gave prospective partners the mental thumbs down in less than 30 seconds. The men took a minute and a half."


China: Villagers put on banquet for cats : "A Chinese village splashed out on a fish banquet for more than 200 cats to thank them for their hard work. Residents of Sanjiang, in Guangdong province, wanted to thank the cats for eradicating rats from their farms. China Daily reports the village committee spent about 860 pounds to purchase the cats which they released in about 250 acres of land to control the rats. The move was a success and villagers decided to reward the cats for the good harvest they expect this year as a result. The village suffered a rat infestation after snakes were caught and slaughtered by local residents in previous years."




Bikini turns 60, barely enough for a brief history: "It was launched by a French automotive engineer, it took its name from the site of a nuclear test and it was an instant failure. But 60 years on, France is set to celebrate the anniversary of the bikini, with due reverence for a garment that changed the fashion world like no other. Parisian store Les Galeries Lafayette is laying on an exhibition in homage to the two-piece swimsuit. Publisher Assouline has brought out a 396-page guide to its history. And designers have been asked to produce examples of their work. France, after ignoring the 50th birthday of one of the great Gallic inventions, is determined not to miss out again. "Le Bikini a 60 ans" (The bikini is 60 years old), said Le Figaro newspaper yesterday in a banner headline above photographs of Ursula Andress, Bo Derek, Melanie Griffith and Elle MacPherson - all demonstrating how the French creation has conquered the globe. The beginnings, however, were inauspicious. In 1946, Louis Reard, a car engineer who had taken over his mother's lingerie boutique in Paris, met with disbelief when he brought out a range of two-piece swimsuits made from just 70cm of cloth".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:29 PM

 


Glut of hookers at hand

This report, including the heading above, is verbatim from an Australian newspaper. There is a photo of one of the hookers concerned below

"In contrast to their capital city cousins the Broncos, the Cowboys have a glut of quality hookers at their disposal for Sunday's showdown with Newcastle, with first-choice No. 9 Aaron Payne set to return from injury. Payne opened the season in spectacular fashion against the Broncos but has not played since injuring his neck and shoulder against Manly at Dairy Farmers Stadium in round 2.

North Queensland coach Graham Murray said there was still some doubt whether Payne would play against the Knights, with a decision on his fitness to be made by tomorrow..."









ERR .... YES










THE NEWS

Better booze coming: "It could be the perfect tipple: a drink that makes you merry without turning you into a slurring, stumbling liability on course for the mother of all hangovers. If drinks containing PAs, or partial agonists, become a hit it could save many lives, as well as countless scenes of drunken embarrassment, according to the scientist who devised them. PAs mimic the popular effects of alcohol, but not the least popular. Although at the proposal stage, drinks using PAs could be produced with existing technology. A professor of psychopharmacology at Bristol University in England, David Nutt, said although alcohol made people feel sociable, it had the all-too-familiar side-effects of impairing senses, ruining co-ordination, making us aggressive, and harming our livers, hearts and brains. Advances in pharmacology mean that scientists are able to unravel the complex neurological responses to alcohol and find which reactions lead to positive, enjoyable effects. According to New Scientist magazine, PAs produce only the desirable effects of alcohol".


Pill-loving burglar dies: "An intruder has been found dead and naked in the house he broke into after apparently overdosing on prescription drugs he had found inside. The 60-year-old resident of an Adelaide property found the body yesterday after being away for two days. Police said the dead man appeared to have taken the resident's diabetes tablets, vomited in the toilet and then used the shower before collapsing. Detective Senior Sergeant Brian Kimber, of Elizabeth, said the intruder, aged in his 20s, had been known to police. "It appears he climbed in through the roof. There were tiles smashed and broken and he has got in through the kitchen ceiling," he said. "I can't speculate how long the man had been in the house but it appears he has been dead between 12 and 24 hours."


Windy beans no myth: "It's a "factual reality" that beans make you break wind, South Africa's advertising watchdog has revealed. A TV advertisement for sweet onions showed a rugby player eating beans that made him smell "stinky." The ad claims that "with sweet onions there are no tears, no burn and definitely no stink". The country's Dry Bean Producers Organisation complained about the ad on the basis that the "stinky" charge was untrue, but the Advertising Standards Authority threw out the charge and said it was widely known that beans produce gas. "It plays on an objectively determinable factual reality which cannot be denied," the ASA said on its website."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 4:49 PM

 


A GREAT SPEECH

Reality is sometimes funnier than a joke

The Washington Post's Al Kamen quotes from a speech by the Senate minority leader during the immigration debate last week (last item, ellipsis in original):

"Mr. President, no matter how many times I call this lectern a car, it does not matter, this is not a car," Reid said. "This is a lectern, used here in the Senate for us to put our papers on and deliver a speech. This is not a car. If I come to the Senate floor and, day after day, hour after hour, call this a car, it is not a car. It is a lectern. If I come to this Senate floor day after day and say what the Democrats have done is unusual, unwarranted, unbelievable, it is wrong, it is as wrong as this lectern being called a car.

" . . . The leader and I have gone back and forth so many times today that we are beating paths to our offices. There is no need that we--I apologize to the chair and to Senator Byrd. I hope he's not watching. My BlackBerry. It went off a couple times, and I lost my concentration. I hope this legislation will move forward tomorrow. I know people feel that this lectern is a chair, but it is not. This is the Senate."

(Via Taranto)






DREAMLAND!









THE NEWS

Long-lost bike returns: "Authorities recovered a motorcycle that was stolen in 1971 and plan to return it to its original owner this week. The 1970 Yamaha was about to be shipped overseas to a Finnish man who bought it for $1,725 on eBay in September, authorities said Monday. During the shipping process, the vehicle identification number turned up in the database of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Long Beach police still had the theft report and tracked down the original owner, Phillip McKeen, who lives in New England. Police officials plan to return the 360cc bike to McKeen on Wednesday. "Incredible," said McKeen, an American Airlines pilot. "It's as if a friend you hadn't seen for 30 years walked back into your life but hadn't aged a day." The 35-year-old bike has just 9,380 miles on the odometer. Neither the Finnish buyer nor the seller, a Visalia resident, were suspected of wrongdoing, authorities said. A similar case unfolded in January when a Corvette that had been stolen in 1969 was recovered as it was about to be shipped to Sweden through the Port of Los Angeles, said Mike Fleming of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection".


Indian Court lifts ban on dancing: "A ban on dancing in Bombay's famous dance bars has been lifted by the High Court. Dancing in the bars - a longtime feature of the city's nightlife - was banned in August by the state government of Maharashtra, of which Bombay is the capital. However, the court ruled that it amounted to discrimination against the dancers. The state government has eight weeks in which it can appeal to the Supreme Court, India's highest court. More than 75,000 dancers were thrown out of jobs after the ban was announced. Bar owners in about 700 establishments in Bombay, and another 650 in the rest of Maharashtra state, reported a substantial drop in takings after dancing was outlawed. Before the ban in Bombay, the country's entertainment capital, thousands of men nursed their drinks at bars where girls and women in revealing clothes danced to popular Bollywood songs".


Aggression meets aggression: "Proof, a member of the rap group D12 and a close friend of Eminem, was killed in a shooting along Eight Mile Road. The death of Proof - whose real name is Deshaun Holton - was confirmed by Dennis Dennehy, the publicist for D12's label, Interscope Records. "Memorial service arrangements are still being made, and his friends and family would appreciate privacy during this difficult time," Dennehy said in a statement. Proof was the best man at Eminem's wedding in January and often appeared alongside the superstar rapper at concerts and public appearances. Proof also appeared in the film 8 Mile. Detroit police would not confirm that Proof was killed, but did say that two people were shot in the head - one fatally - at a nightclub on Eight Mile".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 3:04 PM

 


Government Contracting Dictionary

CONTRACTOR -- A gambler who never gets to shuffle, cut or deal.

BID OPENING -- A poker game in which the losing hand wins.

BID -- A wild guess carried out to two decimal places.

LOW BIDDER -- A contractor who is wondering what he left out of his bid.

ENGINEER'S ESTIMATE -- The cost of construction in heaven.

PROJECT MANAGER -- The conductor of an orchestra in which every musician is in a different union.

CRITICAL PATH METHOD - A management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control.

OSHA -- A protective coating made by half-baking a mixture of fine print, red tape, split hairs and baloney -- usually applied at random with a shotgun.

STRIKE -- An effort to increase egg production by strangling the chicken.

DELAYED PAYMENT -- A tourniquet applied at the pockets.

COMPLETION DATE -- The point at which liquidated damages begin.

LIQUIDATED DAMAGES -- A penalty for failing to achieve the impossible.

AUDITOR -- People who go in after the war is lost and bayonet the wounded.

LAWYER -- People who go in after the auditors and strip the bodies.






Celebrity Wisdumb:

"It was God who made me so beautiful. If I weren't, then I'd be a teacher." - Linda Evangelista, 1997

"People think modeling's mindless, that you just stand there and pose, but it doesn't have to be that way. I like to have a lot of input, I know how to wear a dress, whether it should be shot with me standing up or sitting down. And I'm not scared to say what I think." - Linda Evangelista

"I'm the Connie Francis of rock 'n' roll." - Elton John

"I admit I do have a very nice butt. Some say my career was built on it!" - Jean-Claude Van Damme

"I may not be a great actress but I've become the greatest at screen orgasms. Ten seconds of heavy breathing, roll your head from side to side, simulate a slight asthma attack and die a little." - Candice Bergen, 1984








THE NEWS

Now beer is good for you: "Researchers in Austria and the Czech Republic -- two nations that drink more than their fair share of suds -- have just released studies that suggest that beer is an anti-inflammatory and can slow the aging process. In a study published in the March issue of International Immunopharmacology, scientists at Austria's Innsbruck Medical University found that hops, a key ingredient in beer, affect the production of neopterin, a telltale sign of inflammation, and levels of the amino acid tryptophan (low levels are associated with more inflammation.) Like red wine and green tea, whose health benefits have been widely reported, beer was found to reduce neopterin production and suppress degradation of tryptophan, according to the study".




Bare buttocks welcome: "Bare buttocks plastered on billboards in Nicosia are the talk of the town in the Cypriot capital, but officials see no need to cover them up. Complaints have poured in to local councils over the advert for a clothes chain showing a close-up of a woman's bottom, bare except for a tan-coloured thong. One member of parliament, Maria Kyriakou, from the opposition Democratic Rally party, told Reuters it could even be a "potential distraction for drivers." But local authorities say they have no say on the content of adverts, police say they've seen worse, and the media watchdog says billboards are beyond its standard remit".


No sex for cricketers: "An English cricket club has had to cancel a sponsorship deal with a sex shop after it was threatened with expulsion by its local league. Southport Trinity Cricket Club, in Lancashire, north-west England, had already produced shirts for its players displaying the logo of Nice'n'Naughty - a chain of adult shops selling pornographic videos and sex toys - in time for the start of their season this Saturday. However, the amateur team was forced to ditch the shirts and refund Nice'n'Naughty's sponsorship money after being threatened with expulsion from the Liverpool and District Competition of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Premier League. Southport chairman Colin Maxwell said: "Obviously, we knew that Nice'n'Naughty is not to everybody's taste, but we didn't realise it would cause this much of a problem. It is a legitimate high street company. The Southport branch is right opposite the train station".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 4:38 PM

 


Real Man Quiz

This is a test for men only and all "real men" will answer "C" to all of these questions. However, women will also benefit by reviewing them, so that they get to understand men and thereby enrich their own lives. Yeah right!

1. Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth, and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of curing all disease, providing an infinite supply of clean energy, wiping out hunger and poverty, and permanently eliminating oppression and violence all over the entire earth. You decide to:

A. Present it to the President of the United States.
B. Present it to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
C. Take it apart.


2. As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life do you miss the most?

A. Innocence
B. Idealism
C. Cherry bombs.


3. When is it okay to kiss another male?

A. When you wish to display simple and pure affection without regard for narrow-minded social conventions.
B. When he is the Pope (but not on the lips)!
C. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this is the only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business reasons, you have to have him killed.


4. In your opinion, the ideal pet is:

A. A cat.
B. A dog.
C. A dog that eats cats.


5 You have been seeing a woman for several years. She's attractive and intelligent, and you always enjoy being with her. One leisurely Sunday afternoon the two of you are taking it easy. You're watching a football game; she's reading the papers when she suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, tells you that she thinks she really loves you, but, she can no longer bear the uncertainty of not knowing where your relationship is going. She says she's not asking whether you want to get married; only whether you believe that you have some kind of future together. What do you say?

A. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future, but you don't want to rush it.
B. That although you also have strong feelings for her, you cannot honestly say that you'll be ready anytime soon to make a lasting commitment, and you don't want to hurt her by holding out false hope.
C. That you cannot believe the Broncos called a draw play on third and seventeen.



6. Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you want to spend the rest of your life with her, sharing the joys and the sorrows the world has to offer, come what may. How do you tell her?


A. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner.
B. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her name, and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing through her hair and the stars in her eyes, you tell her.
C. Tell her what?


7. One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks you to get your three children ready for school. Your first question to her is:

A. "Do they need to eat or anything?"
B. "They're in school already?"
C. "Refu7 wea;999 ioequ zzzzzzzzzzzzz!


8. When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear?

A. When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new holes so large that you're not sure which ones were originally intended for your legs.
B. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules and has to be handled with tweezers.
C. Underware?


9. What is the human race's single greatest achievement?

A. Democracy.
B. Religion.
C. Remote control.


10. What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land?

A. He was being tested.
B. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when they finally got there.
C. Ya know I hate soaps.








THE NEWS

Shocked burglar runs into 20 sumos: "A Japanese burglar who thought he was lucky to find an unlocked door was shocked to be arrested by 20 massive sumo wrestlers who were staying at the building. Konoshin Kawabata, 48, was rummaging inside a room in Osaka in the early hours when he was suddenly confronted by wrestler Dewanosato, who stands 180 centimetres and weighs 131 kilograms. "Without thinking, my body moved," Dewanosato, whose real name is Hideyuki Kawahara, said. "I caught the guy and bear-hugged him." It was a citizen's arrest, said a police spokesman. "Mr Dewanosato immediately shouted out 'Hey!' and 'Burglar!' as he arrested the man. Then the other wrestlers woke up and came out to check things out," the spokesman said. The burglar, who was unemployed, admitted he was baffled to find himself among sumo wrestlers. "First I was caught by a massive man. When the lights turned on, I was surrounded by more than a dozen sumo wrestlers. I was surprised," Kawabata told police, as quoted by Jiji Press. The sumo stable were staying and training at the building, which lies on the premises of the Shounji temple in the western metropolis."


"Farting" chair claim lost: "A deputy headteacher who claimed constructive dismissal because her school failed to replace a chair which made "farting'' noises has lost her 1 pound million claim. Sue Storer, 48, claimed it was a "regular joke'' that her chair made embarrassing sounds every time she moved, and frequently had to apologise to parents, colleagues and pupils. The final straw came when the two other deputy heads, both of them male, got brand new executive seats in their offices and she was overlooked. The former art teacher claimed the chair issue was part of a catalogue of sexist behaviour at Bedminster Down Secondary School in Bristol, and quit her 48,000 pound-a-year post in September 2005. But yesterday it emerged that she had lost her claim for constructive dismissal and sex discrimination against the school's headteacher Marius Frank and Bristol City Council. An employment tribunal ruled she was neither unfairly dismissed nor discriminated against, and blamed her for failing to buy herself a new - and less embarrassing - chair. In the judgement, tribunal chairman Michael Griffiths said: "The claimant asserts that the provision to her two male colleagues of new chairs... was discriminatory. "We find that by reason of her status and seniority, she was free to arrange for the purchase of such necessary office equipment as she from time to time required, without prior reference to any of her colleagues.''


Japanese 'Eton' sparks debate: "A boys' boarding school modelled on Eton has sparked concerns that egalitarian education, which many believe has underpinned Japan's economic success, could be undermined by a trend towards elitism. Kaiyo Academy, built with 20 billion yen (œ97 million) in corporate donations, opened at the weekend, stirring debate about the future of education. Some 123 12-year-old boys wearing crisp black uniforms took part in the enrolment ceremony.



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:40 PM

 


YOU CAN'T BEAT THE RABBI (1)

A rabbi and a priest get into a car accident and it's a bad one. Both cars are totally demolished, but amazingly, neither are hurt. They crawl out of their cars and the rabbi sees the priest's collar and says, "So you're a priest. I'm a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There's nothing left but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God. God must have meant that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace the rest of our days." And the priest said, "I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God."

And the rabbi said, "and look at this. Here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of Mogen David wine didn't break, surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune. And so he handed the bottle to the priest. The priest said he agreed, took a few big swigs, and handed the bottle back to the rabbi. The rabbi took the bottle, didn't drink at all, put the cap on, and handed it back to the priest. The priest asked, "aren't you going to have any?" And the rabbi replied, "No . . . I think I'll just wait for the police."






YOU CAN"T BEAT THE RABBI (2)

There was a Rabbi who went to the Catholic Priest at the church and asked "How do you get the money to make your church so beautiful?". Father said "We hear confessions; observe while I demonstrate". So the priest gets in the center compartment, the Rabbi on one side and in walks the first penitent. "It's been one week since my last confession and I have commited adultery three times". Father says "For your penance say a Hail Mary and put five dollars in the collection box and your sins will be forgiven". The next penitent walks in and says "It's been one week since my last confession and I've committed adultery three times". Father says "For your penance say a Hail Mary and put five dollars in the collection box and your sins will be forgiven". The Rabbi says, "Ooh, can I try?" So the priest and the Rabbi switch booths. In walks the next penitent. "Can I help you" says the Rabbi. The penitent says "It's been one week since my last confession and I've committed adultery two times". The Rabbi says "Go out and do it a third time; we have a special - Three for five dollars!".









THE NEWS

Now chocolate is good for you!: "For centuries chocolate has been regarded as a vice but now it could become a life-saver. A leading professor is to administer confectionery to heart patients to test its health benefits. Scientists believe there is growing evidence that eating dark chocolate can relax the blood vessels, help to prevent blood clotting and stave off heart attacks. To test the thesis Roger Corder, professor of experimental therapeutics at Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, is applying for ethical approval for a trial of dark chocolate on 40 patients with cardiovascular disease. Corder believes there will soon be enough evidence that flavanol molecules found in dark chocolate fight heart disease for doctors to recommend a daily portion of about four squares as part of a healthy diet."


Shop offers $204 sandwich: "A new gourmet sandwich is to go on sale at an upmarket London store tomorrow - but at a cost of 85 pounds ($204) it could be too much to swallow for hungry shoppers. The cheekily-named McDonald sandwich - after its creator Scott McDonald, the executive chef of department store Selfridges on Oxford Street - earns its whopping price tag because of the Wagyu beef that makes up most of the filling. According to the the UK's Sunday Telegraph, which had a taster of the expensive delicacy, the 595g sandwich comprises 24-hour fermented sour dough bread, spread with a foie gras-flavoured mayonnaise. It also contains Brie de Meaux, considered one of Europe's finest cheeses, English cherry tomatoes and rocket, plus roasted peppers. "Utterly fantastic mixture of tastes," one of Britain's leading chefs, Giorgio Locatelli, told the newspaper through a mouthful of the sandwich. "Tangy, sweet... a monster mouthful that would be a really sexy love food to share with a lover. The beef simply melts, it falls apart. I'm impressed."


Wrong shoes!: "An Egyptian man who routinely donned the full Islamic veil to visit his mistress incognito was tipped off by his unfeminine shoes in the Cairo metro's women-only carriage, newspapers reported today. Camouflaged under a head-to-toe black burqa to spare his illegitimate partner her neighbours' reprobation, the 30-year-old student eventually met his own doom after accidentally revealing suspiciously clumpy footwear. An alarmed passenger on board the carriage screamed for security at a central Cairo underground station and the impostor was unmasked, the newspapers said".




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 4:51 PM

 


Murphy's Law for Cops

Bullet Proof vests aren't.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. They punch, kick and choke harder too.

The speed at which you respond to a fight call is inversely proportional to how long you've been a cop.

Tear gas works on cops too, and regardless of wind direction, will always blow back in your face.

High speed chases will always proceed from an area of light traffic to an area of extremely heavy traffic.

If you know someone who tortures animals and wets the bed, he is either a serial killer or he works for Internal Affairs.

Placing a gun back in a shoulder holster with your finger on the trigger will cause you to walk with a limp.

Flash suppressors don't really.

If you have `cleared' all the rooms and met no resistance, you and your entry team have probably kicked in the door of the wrong house.

If a cop swings a baton in a fight, he will hit other cops more often than he will hit the bad guys he swings at.

Domestic arguments will always migrate from an area of few available weapons (living room), to an area with many available weapons (kitchen).

If you have just punched out a handcuffed prisoner for spitting at you, you are about to become a star on `Eyewitness News'.

Bullets work on veteran cops too. They also work on weight lifters, martial arts experts, department marksmen, Narco Investigators, S.W.A.T. jocks, and others who consider themselves immortal.

When a civilian sees a red light approaching at a high rate of speed, he will always pull into the lane the cop needs to use.

If you drive your patrol car to the geometric center of the Gobi Desert, within five minutes some dumb civilian will pull along side you and ask for directions.

You can never drive slow enough to please the citizens who don't need a cop, and you can never drive fast enough to please the ones who do.

Any suspect with a rifle is a better shot than any cop with a pistol.

From behind you, the bad guys can see your night sights as well as you can.

On any call, there will always be more `bad guys' than there are good guys, and the farther away your back-up, the more there will be.

The longer you've been a cop, the shorter your flashlight and your temper gets.

Whatever you are about to do, if there is a good chance it will get you killed, you probably shouldn't do it.

You should never do a shotgun search of a dark warehouse with a cop whose nickname is "Boomer."

The better you do your job, the more likely you are to be shot, injured, complained on, sued, investigated, or subpoenaed on your day off.

If a large group of drunk bikers is "holed-up" in a house, the Department will send one officer in a beat car. If there is one biker "holed-up" in a house, they will send the entire S. W. A. T. Team.

The likelihood that you are speaking to an undercover law enforcement officer, is directly proportional to the number of personal questions being asked of you.









THE NEWS

Aspartame now OK again: "A huge federal study in people takes the fizz out of arguments that the diet soda sweetener aspartame may raise the risk of cancer. No increased risk was seen even among people who gulped down many artificially sweetened drinks a day, said researchers who studied the diets of more than half a million older Americans. A consumer group praised the study, done by reputable researchers independent of any funding or ties to industry groups. 'It goes a fair way toward allaying concerns about aspartame,' said Michael Jacobson, head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which had urged the government to review the sweetener's safety after a troubling rat study last year. Findings were reported Tuesday at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research."


Rich women like toy-boys: "What do women want from a man? In the past, surveys have overwhelmingly shown that women want a rich man, and men want a good-looking woman. While not much has changed for men, as women's financial independence has increased, it seems that their preferences have changed. Fhionna Moore and colleagues at the University of St Andrews, UK, analysed questionnaires from 1851 heterosexual women between the ages of 18 and 35. They found that as a woman's level of "resource control" increases - in other words as they become more financially independent - so does their preference for physical attractiveness in potential partners."


No right to dance in NYC: "New York City may be known as a centre of artistic expression, but a judge has dismissed a lawsuit that argued people have a constitutional right to dance in any bar or restaurant. Ruling on a suit that argued recreational dancing was a form of expression protected under the New York State Constitution, Judge Michael Stallman of New York's State Supreme Court said clubs and restaurants that permitted dancing increased traffic and noise around the establishment. The case was brought by a club seeking to overturn a law requiring establishments to have a special licence for patrons to be allowed to dance. Although he dismissed the case for "a lack of any viable constitutional claim", the judge did say the 80-year-old prohibition-era cabaret law could be re-examined. "The city can take the lead by finding a way to accommodate more opportunities for participatory social dancing," he said. "Surely, the Big Apple is big enough to find a way to let people dance."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 3:34 PM

 


Creative Comeback Lines For The Workplace

1. Obviously you're unable to assimilate my stimulating concepts into your blighted and simplistic world-view.

2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.

3. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.

4. I can see your point, but I still think you're full of it.

5. I like you. You remind me of me when I was young and stupid.

6. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?!?

7. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.

8. I'll give you a nice, shiny quarter if you'll go away.

9. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.

10. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.

11. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.

12. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

13. How about never? Is never good for you?

14. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.

15. You sound reasonable. It must be time to up my medication.

16. You're just jealous because the little voices talk to ME.

17. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

18. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

19. I don't work here. I'm a consultant.

20. Who me? I just wander from room to room.









THE NEWS

Indonesian city outlaws lengthy pashes: "Unrelated people who kiss each other on the lips for longer than five minutes in public will be arrested in the Indonesian city of Tangerang, local media say. The Government in Tangerang, near Jakarta, has defended the regulation as a practical guideline for its officers to follow up on tough and heavily-criticised anti-prostitution laws, passed last year. "Please do not dramatise this," Tangerang public order spokesman Ahmad Lutfi said. "We will not arrest people at will as we are not oppressors." Mr Lutfi has declined to comment on whether officers will be armed with stopwatches, the Koran Tempo newspaper says. It is unclear if the guideline refers to an uninterrupted five-minute kiss. Kissing in public is generally frowned upon in Indonesia, especially in rural, predominantly Muslim areas, but giving a time limit for such behaviour is unheard of. Around 85 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam, giving the sprawling archipelago the largest number of Muslims of any country."


Yuk! "A Czech man ate frogs and other small animals for four days after he was trapped on an island cut off by flooding, the daily Pravo reported today. Zdenek Bucek, 30, was taking a short-cut through the woods near the southeastern town of Breclav when a flood wave trapped him on a small patch of high ground. Mr Bucek was not carrying a mobile phone and the water was too cold to swim through. To survive, he caught frogs and drank the floodwater until he flagged down an emergency crew passing by on a boat four days later. "I had no idea a flood was coming. I had not even noticed that the forests were declared off limits," he said. Pravo said Mr Bucek had matches, but did not elaborate on how he preferred his frogs".


'Psychic friend of dwarves' judge sacked: "A Philippines judge who allegedly claimed to have psychic powers and said he had made a covenant with "dwarf friends" has been removed from his post. Judge Florentino Floro, who presided in a suburban Manila court, allegedly said he was empowered with supernatural abilities, could read the future and conducted "healing sessions" in his chambers. "His mental problems for now appear to render him unfit with the delicate task of dispensing justice," the Supreme Court said in a ruling, stressing that Floro had not been found guilty of misconduct or corruption. Floro, who was said to start his court sessions with a reading from the bible's Book of Revelation, was relieved of his post on administrative grounds but not disbarred or charged with any criminal offense".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 3:41 PM

 



IN BRIEF

Noticing that her boss's fly was open , the embarrassed secretary told him as she left the office, "Your garage door is open." The bewildered exec didn't know what she meant until a co-worker finally told him what she was referring to. The next day, he called his secretary into his office and said, "Yesterday when my garage door was open, did you see a long red Cadillac with a hard top?" "Oh, no," she replied. "It was a little pink Volkswagen with two flat tires up front."



Two cannibals, a father and son, were elected by the tribe to go out and get something to eat. They walked deep into the jungle and waited by a path. Before long, along came this little old man. The son said, "OOh dad, there's one." "No," said the father. "There's not enough meat on that one to feed the dogs. We'll just wait." Well, a little while later, along came this really fat woman. The son said, "Hey dad, she's plenty big enough." "No," the father said. "We'd all die of a heart attack from the fat in that one. We'll just wait." About an hour later, here comes this absolutely gorgeous woman. The son said, "Now there's nothing wrong with that one dad. Let's eat her." "No," said the father. "We'll not eat her either." "Why not?" asked the son. "Because, we're going to take her back alive and eat your mother."



Stationed on a remote Pacific Island, a Marine writes to his wife that he needs something to while away the hours so he won't be preoccupied with all the beautiful native women. His wife sends him a harmonica and suggests he learn to play. A year later he comes home and says, "Baby, I'm so love-starved! Let's go to bed right now!" "Sure," she says. "But first, play me something on the harmonica."









THE NEWS

Stellar booze: "Astronomers say they have spotted a cloud of alcohol in deep space that measures 463 billion kilometres across, a finding that could shed light on how giant stars are formed from primordial gas. The vast bridge-shaped cloud of methyl alcohol has been spotted in a region of our galaxy, the Milky Way, that is called W3(OH), where stars are being formed by the gravitational collapse of concentrations of gas and dust, the discoverers said in a press release. Methanol, an organic (carbon-based) molecule, is a cousin of ethanol, which is found in alcoholic beverages. Methanol is not suitable for human consumption. The cloud was spotted by astronomers based at Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory led by Lisa Harvey-Smith. Their work was to be presented on Tuesday at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in Leicester, central England. In 2004, methanol, also called methyl alcohol, was spotted for the first time in one of the disc-like clusters that form around nascent stars. That discovery opened up a new area of debate in astrophysics"


Free rent for sex in New York City "Wealthy New Yorkers are advertising rent-free rooms to women in exchange for sexual favours. The New York Daily News reports the trend and lists a number of ads on the popular Craigslist.org website. One, entitled "Take Care of My Needs and Live Rent Free", offers: "All you have to do is take care of all my urges, and I'll let you live in a one-bedroom apartment I own rent free." Another ad reads: "All I am looking for is an attractive, playful, and submissive woman who is uninhibited to my proposal... substituting rent for sexual encounters." In the posting, the 33-year-old man living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, adds that the room comes with a TV, DVD player, internet-ready computer and a phone line. "I don't need the rent but would like to fill it up with a woman who would love to show her appreciation for my generosity," he wrote. But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne warned that the advertisements amounted to prostitution".


How British: "Passengers on a jet returning to Britain were told they could not land because an air traffic controller was having a tea break. The Thomson flight was forced to circle the airport, finally landing 25 minutes late, reports the Daily Mirror. Ken Jones, 70, said he and fellow passengers though the captain was pulling their legs when he made the announcement as they approached Cardiff Airport. Ken, coming home from a break in Tenerife, added: "He said sorry for not being able to land but explained that the duty controller at the airport wasn't authorised to land us and we'd have to wait until the other one came off his break. "The captain added 'In all my time flying, I have never come across anything like it before'. Because it was April 1, I thought at first it might have been a practical joke." A spokeswoman for the National Air Traffic Services said: "We regret the delay to the arriving Thomson flight. Staff at Cardiff are fully qualified. The cause of the delay is now being investigated"



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:33 PM

 


Ahhh, Retirement

Question: How many days in a week?
Answer: 6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday

Question: When is a retiree's bedtime?
Answer: Three hours after he falls asleep on the couch.

Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?
Answer: Only one, but it might take all day.

Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?
Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done.

Question: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?
Answer: The term comes with a 10% percent discount.

Question: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?
Answer: Tied shoes.

Question: Why do retirees count pennies?
Answer: They are the only ones who have the time.

Question: What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and refuses to retire?
Answer: NUTS!

Question: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?
Answer: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.

Question: What do retirees call a long lunch?
Answer: Normal.

Question: What is the best way to describe retirement?
Answers: The never ending Coffee Break.

Question: What's the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree?
Answer: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.

Question: Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work, but misses the people he used to work with?
Answer: He is too polite to tell the whole truth.









THE NEWS

Not so ecstatic: "Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants at the addiction centre at St George's Medical School have published a case report of a man estimated to have taken 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2000 pills. Although the man, now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw that often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these afflictions could be permanent. The man, referred to only as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21"


'Wardrobe malfunctions' in India: "Outraged officials in India will examine video clips to see whether a halter slipping off a top model, or another's zip splitting, at a fashion show were "deliberate" acts. Last week, model Carol Gracias's skimpy halter slipped down to her waist showing her breasts to snapping photographers and rolling TV cameras during a fashion show in Mumbai. This was followed by another sensational "wardrobe malfunction" when former Miss India Gauhar Khan's skirt zip split, revealing her bottom to the media and Mumbai's smart set. This has not gone well with Mumbai's politicians who have been waging a morality campaign which shut down the city's famous dance bars, making thousands of female dancers jobless"


Man tries to sell soul online: "A 24-year-old man has tried to sell his soul on China's most popular auction website and managed to get 58 bids before operators pulled his advertisement. "It was just an impulse," the seller, who requested anonymity, said today from Shanghai. The man posted the announcement on Taobao last week asking a starting price of 10 yuan ($1.71). But the firm decided that selling one's soul was inappropriate and deleted the ad on Friday after Chinese media reported it. By then there were 58 bids from people with the highest at 681 yuan ($116.80). Other than guns or drugs, the auction company has not posted rules against selling anything else online. "We pulled down the posting because we think only God can control souls," Taobao's public relations manager Tao Ran said. "Souls are just not supposed to be sold since they cannot be seen or touched." The man said a female journalist later bought his soul for a price he refused to disclose. "I will give it to her by express mail," he said."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 3:50 PM

 


From Jay Leno:

Welcome to the "Tonight Show". It's refreshing to see a crowd gathered in L.A. that's not an immigration protest.

This past weekend there were half a million illegal immigrants on the streets of Los Angeles. And that was before the protest march. That was Friday.

Over a half a million people gathered. It looked like career day over at Wal-Mart.

The cover story of this week's "Time" magazine is about global warming. It's pretty frightening story. They say if current warming trends continue, by the year 2015, Hillary Clinton may actually thaw out.

Wal-Mart is now hiring 150,000 people to work in their stores in China. Illegal immigrants thought the Rio Grande was tough to swim across. Wait until they try the Pacific Ocean.






MUSLIM DOG?











THE NEWS

Booze bad for you again: "Most studies that suggest moderate drinking staves off heart disease are flawed, according to Australian funded research released here. In the suspect studies, people who had cut back or quit drinking because they were ill, frail or on medication were counted as "abstainers," whose death rates were compared to that of drinkers, an international team of researchers says. The comparisons indicated that those who knocked back up to four drinks a day tended to live longer than abstainers. The mortality difference could have been due to the shabby health of those compelled to give up booze rather than health benefits of alcohol, according to a research team led by universities in San Francisco and Victoria, Canada. "These findings suggest that caution should be exerted in recommending light drinking to abstainers because of the possibility that this result may be more apparent than real," said Tim Stockwell of the Centre for Addictions Research at the University of Victoria."


French strikers called 'lazy frogs': "The chairman of a British low-cost airline has condemned French strikers protesting at new youth labour laws, posting a message on his firm's website calling for "lazy frogs" to go back to work. Jet2.com boss Philip Meeson's comments-- illustrated by a toy frog reclining in front of an air traffic control tower - were prompted after students staged a sit-in on the runway at Chambery airport in the Alps. Flights were grounded after air-traffic controllers supported the action against controversial plans to introduce contracts for under 26-year-olds that employers can terminate without explanation during a two-year trial period. In the message published March 30, Meeson wrote: "Jet2.com condemns French strike action and calls for lazy frogs to get back to work!" He added: "What exactly are you striking about? Or just in case you don't undestand that, 'pouvez-vous nous expliquer pourquoi exactement etes-vous en greve?' "After a token stoppage why can't you just sort the matter out amicably without bringing thousands of people around the world, who, I would like to add, give your country huge economic wealth, into the argument?""


More sex therapists for Nordic nations: "Nordic European countries, which have attracted a reputation for their chilliness and reserve, have more sex therapists than their warmer more southerly neighbours, according to a new survey. The Euro-Sexo survey, carried out by sociologist Alain Giami from the French medical research institute Inserm, found startling differences in the number of sex therapists in seven European countries. Finland registered the highest with 109 for every million habitants, although that figure included sex education teachers, Mr Giami said. France came in lowest with just 13 per million people, and in contrast to the other countries most French sex therapists tend to be men and doctors. "Britain has more sex therapists who are not doctors, but they also prescribe more medication for erectile dysfunctions than in France," Mr Giami said. Denmark came in second place with 40 sex therapists per million people, Norway third with 30 and Sweden had 22. Britain followed with 19, with Italy in second to last place with 14".



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 8:52 PM

 


You Were a Child of the 1980's if...

You remember Don Johnson when he was "cool"

You know who shot J.R

You remember when Michael Jackson was actually considered something of a sex symbol

You practice getting in and out of your car through the windows

You owned at least one skinny leather tie.

Your first Walkman weighed 10 pounds and was the size of a brick.

You wore L.A. Gear tennis shoes.

You know the meaning of Wax on/Wax Off

You're always "in the mood for dancing"

If you can "See Better" with sunglasses that have paint splattered all over the lenses.

You can feel St. Elmo's fire burnin' in you.

You need a shopping cart to carry your personal stereo with you.

You remember what Michael Jackson looked like before the surgery.

You go rollerskating every Friday night (not to skate, but to 'hang out')

You still want to take Karate...(after you move to California)

You watch NYPD Blue thinking, "Well, they're no Crockett and Tubbs, that's for sure".

"Outrageous!" is the term to describe something neat and cool

You think that Garbage Pail Kids are your children's worst enemy

You had a poster of Bo, Luke & Daisy Duke

There was nothing to question about Bert n' Ernie living together

The phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter.

You went out and purchased the sound track for 'Miami Vice'

You remember the magazines of song lyrics

If you think Hulk Hogan is the best wrestler of all time.

If the best non-slasher movie in your opinion is An American Werewolf In London.

Two words: The Clapper.

Six words: "This is your brain on drugs."

You want to live in 'the Valley'.

Ferris Bueller was your idol.

You watched 'Star Search' on a regular basis.

Every now and then, you blurt out: "Ooh noo, Mr. Bill!!!"

If you had an entire wardrobe of Esprit clothing (or coveted one.)

If you know the words to the "Oscar Mayer" theme songs

Your bangs are teased perfectly to 7 inches above the rest of your hair.

Have multi-colored earrings that touch your shoulders

Played Upwords, Boggle or Trivial Pursuit (the original) on a rainy afternoon

You wore lace gloves with the fingers cut off, bangle bracelets up to your elbows, bright red Reebok high tops and parachute pants to a school dance

You're still bitter that WHAM broke up

You know whose phone number is 867-5309

You drink Diet Coke because Max Headroom told you to

You still watch things on Beta tapes

You have the tendency to turn up the collar of your polo shirts

You never go out for a night on the town without frosted blue eyeshadow and feathered bangs

Everything in your wardrobe is either pastel or fluorescent

People are constantly gagging you with spoons.

You know all the words to "I'm just a bill, sitting up on Capitol Hill" and "School House Rock."

The feeling in your thumb is only now just returning after holding down the Atari joystick to control the racecar in Enduro Racer

You still can't believe that Milli Vanilli was deceiving you all that time

You can sing all the words to "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head, and now you understand that it is about chess.

You still wear a bandana tied around your leg and/or a ponytail off-center on the side of your head.

You know who Martha Quinn is.

You still carry your boom box on your shoulder

You think David Hasselhoff was awesome in Knight Rider but sucks in "Boob Watch."

When you saw luging at the Winter Olympics you poured water down your driveway and tried it yourself.

A piece of folded paper and two hands could tell your fortune.

Knickers and leg warmers were cool

You ever wanted to learn to play "Stairway to Heaven" on the guitar and choreographed "Dancing Queen" by yourself in your room.

You had ringside seats for Luke and Laura's wedding

You ever had a Dorothy Hammill haircut.

You thought a Commodore 64 was the highest technology available

You wanted to be "The Hulk" for halloween

You want to be "Where Everybody Knows Your Name"

'A Different World' kicked butt

Remember "Dancin' to a Big Mac at McDonalds!"

You know who played Magnum P.I

One Phrase, "The Plane, The Plane"

You can name at least three members of the Brat Pack

Still think banana clips were a godsend

Still wear Wet n' Wild makeup

If your idea of hi-tech toys is still the heat-sensitive color-changing sticker on Transformers

If you remember Bruce Willis from Moonlighting, not Die Hard

You still wear your "Members Only" jacket.

You still have a couple of those barettes made of woven ribbons.

You had snap bracelets

You remember when Pee-Wee wasn't a pervert.

You had had five pairs of socks on at any given time

You still think Donkey Kong can beat Mario up

If you still have your scratch-n-sniff sticker collection

If you remember when you heard that drinking soda and eating Pop Rocks would make your stomach explode

If you ever used Lee Press-On Nails

If you wear jelly shoes

You still play with that CASIO SK-1 Keyboard

You're still hoping for a New Kids on the Block reunion tour

You still argue over who was better: Tiffany or Debbie Gibson

Every time you hear the "OH YEAH..." song you think of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

You still watch tapes of Stingray, McGyver, and Airwolf









THE NEWS

I shouldn't laugh: "A naked man suffered burns to one-fifth of his body when he tried to set fire to a spider at a nudist resort in the NSW southern highlands. The Sydney man, 56, tried to kill what he thought was a funnel-web spider by pouring petrol down the spider's burrow and igniting it with a match, the NRMA CareFlight service said. But the fuel exploded and the man suffered burns to 18 per cent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks. The incident happened shortly before 12.30pm yesterday at the resort, west of Bowral. Resort staff treated the man before paramedics arrived. The man was flown by helicopter to Sydney's Concord Hospital, where he was in a stable condition on arrival shortly before 4pm. Resort guests told emergency crews it was probably a harmless trapdoor spider and not a deadly funnel web, CareFlight said. The man's lack of clothing probably contributed to the extent of his burns, the rescue service said."


Aromatherapy bites the dust: "Aromatherapy is a "New Age marketing con" that does nothing more than burn a hole in your pocket, say researchers. Psychologists claim to have debunked the idea that aromatherapy oils can relieve pain and alleviate ill-health. The growing popularity of aromatherapy in Britain has led to a 20 million pounds-a-year industry in oils bought over the counter, plus a booming business in spas and health farms. Surveys show three out of four people believe the treatment works. But a psychologist who specialises in the power of scent says his experiments expose a massive marketing exercise which has no scientific basis. Rather than relieving pain, aromatherapy could even make people experience pain more intensely, says Dr Neil Martin, of Middlesex University. In his study, volunteers were asked to plunge their arms into freezing water to see if a pleasant lemon smell could mitigate their discomfort, or if the unpleasant smell of machine oil would make it worse. In fact, the lemon and the machine oil performed equally badly. In fact, the volunteers not exposed to any odours at all were best off".




Publican trains apprentice beer-drinking pig: "The Pub In the Paddock at Pyengana in north-east Tasmania has a new tourist drawcard. The pub is world-famous for its beer-drinking pig named Priscilla, who can scull a watered-down stubby in seven seconds. Priscilla is getting old, so a mischievous successor, Priscilla Babe, is being trained as a replacement. Tourists from all over the world travel to Pyengana just to buy Priscilla a beer. Owner Anne Free says it is crucial that she has a successor to keep her memory alive. "I had a woman from Texas recently and she was so excited, she said, 'is this the pub with the beer drinking pig?'," she said. "I said 'yes', she said ... 'I saw her on TV back home'." Ms Free says training a pig to drink beer is not easy. "Most pigs will drink beer, but you do have to train them to drink out of a bottle," she said. "It did take her a while to get the taste, she sort of played with the bottle and still does play with the bottle, she's not the expert [that] Priscilla is."



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 12:58 PM

 


HONDA WISDOM

A Honda motorcycle maintenance manual, discussing how to maintain a battery, lists under precautions to take "do not swallow any battery acid".

It goes on to say "Frankly, we can't imagine why anyone would want to drink battery acid. It has a terrible sour taste. However, our legal staff told us we should include a warning against doing so. We would also like to caution our customers against biting the tires, especially while the motorcycle is in motion.

We watch our legal staff closely to be sure that they do none of these foolish things."




A BORN SALESMAN

This salesman has been bugging a haberdasher (guy who runs a suit shop) for a long time for a job, and finally the haberdasher looks at him in disgust and says, "Look, I'll make a deal with you. I've got one suit that I just haven't been able to sell -- that purple, yellow, and green thing in the corner. If you can sell it while I'm out to lunch; you can have a sales job here for life!" And with a smug smile he goes to lunch.

He comes back and the salesman runs up to him, exclaiming: "I sold the suit! I sold the suit!" The owner looks at him in dismay -- the salesman's clothes are ripped and torn all to hell, his face is scratched and bruised and bleeding. The owner says, "What happened; did the customer put up a fight!?" The salesman quickly replies, "Oh, no; not at all -- but his seeing eye dog was pissed!"






AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT











THE NEWS

Fewer bubs for potheads: "The use of marijuana by either the man or woman before fertility treatment could reduce the likelihood of success, a study suggests. "If these study findings are confirmed by additional research, we would recommend that physicians tell couples to not use marijuana for at least one year before starting fertility treatment," says Dr Hillary Klonoff-Cohen of the University of California. With colleagues, she investigated the possible effects of marijuana use on the outcomes of 221 couples who underwent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) treatment for infertility. The findings are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. At least 10 per cent of men and women smoked marijuana in the year before the fertility procedure, the authors report, and 3 per cent of women and 0.5 per cent of men reported smoking marijuana the day before the procedure. Longer marijuana use over a woman's lifetime reduced the number of eggs that could be retrieved and the number of embryos that could be transferred, the results indicate. Compared with women who didn't smoke marijuana, the researchers note, women who smoked marijuana during the year before the procedure had 25 per cent fewer eggs and about one less embryos transferred."


Nigerians referees can take bribes: "Football referees in Nigeria can take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence their decisions on the pitch, a football official says. Fanny Amun, acting Secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, says bribery is common in the Nigerian game. "We know match officials are offered money or anything to influence matches and they can accept it," Amun told Reuters. Amun had made the statement earlier to a football seminar in the capital Abuja, prompting protests from other officials. "Referees should only pretend to fall for the bait, but make sure the result doesn't favour those offering the bribe," Amun said."


Workaholics anonymous: "Sam used to sneak into his office before dawn so no one would know how many extra hours he worked. Charles goes on all-night work binges to meet deadlines, and Susan can't say no to volunteer projects, social clubs, bridge games, choral singing, lectures and classes. Each one is a member of Workaholics Anonymous, a 12-step recovery program for compulsive workers based upon the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each one opted to keep their identity secret. 'It's been called the addiction that society applauds,' said Mike, a physician and member of the group known as WA. 'People brag about it and say, 'I'm a workaholic'' he said. 'But workaholics burn out and then you've lost them or they become very dysfunctional and bitter and cynical in the organization and corrosive.'"



(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 5:51 PM

 


THE MOAN

Old Seth had been a farmer his whole life. Up at 5am, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, no matter what the weather, and back to bed at 11pm (if he were lucky). He had led a hard life, supported by his wife, Bess, who had borne his children and run his household. He had now retired and for once had time on his hands. He read the papers avidly, and when he'd finished those he read the womens' magazines which Bess occasionally bought.

It was after reading "What the Doctor Says" in one of these magazines that he called to Bess.

"Sithee, come 'ere, lass. 'Ah've found out what's bin wrong with us all these years."

"Oh, and what would that be, Seth?"

"Well, this Doctor 'ere says that when us makes love, you should moan! So, next time we makes love Ah wants yer ter moan, reet?"

So the next time that they are making love, Bess says, "Shall I moan now, Seth?"

"Nay lass, nay. Ah'll tell thee when to moan."

At the critical moment Seth says, "Now lass, NOW !"

"WELL, SETH, JUST LOOK AT THE STATE OF THAT CEILING. IF I'VE TOLD YOU ONCE I'VE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES, THE CRACKS NEED FILLING AND IT NEEDS PAINTING AND YOU'VE NEVER.......!"







OH DEAR!

A woman goes into to see the psychiatrist about her low self-esteem. She is unhealthy, pale, and obese. After tearfully explaining her predicament, the doc says, "hmm, yes, could you please lie on the floor under the window?" "Now over next to the door." "Now under the bookshelves." "Thank you."

He then occupies himself with writing. The patient, exasperated, interrupts him and asks if he has anything he can offer her. "No, he says, you need to see your internist about your poor health." "Then what was all that stuff you had me do, lying on the floor?"

"Oh, I'm having a new white sofa delivered next week and was wondering where to put it."










THE NEWS

Now vitamins can be bad for you: "Taking vitamin supplements could increase the risk of pre-eclampsia for pregnant women rather than decrease it as previously thought, new research suggests. The nationwide study said that mothers-to-be who are at risk of the potentially fatal illness should avoid large doses of vitamin C and E. Vitamin-takers are also at risk of having a baby with a low birth weight. Up to 25,000 British women a year are affected by pre-eclampsia, which causes blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels. It is believed that it kills about 10 women and as many as 1,000 babies every year. In 1999 research by Tommy's, the baby charity, suggested that anti-oxidants such as vitamins C and E could counter the problem. But the new study, also by Tommy's and published online by The Lancet medical journal today, found that the reverse appeared to be true."


All-time loser: "It's one of Australia's most recognisable features, stands 340m tall and even at night is pretty hard to miss. But despite being just 100m from Uluru [Ayers Rock], a NSW tourist still couldn't find the huge red monolith and last night waved down a vehicle to ask for directions. Unfortunately for him it was a police car - and he was over the limit. "The man thought the oncoming vehicle contained park rangers, but to his surprise it was a police car," Northern Territory police said in a statement. "Nonetheless the tourist told police he and his female companion wanted directions to the rock. "The police officer breathalysed the driver after pointing out his headlights were shining right at it - 100 metres away." The 44-year-old man allegedly returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.116, and was found to be driving unlicensed, police said."


Germany: Woman called police over hubby's porn habit: "A frustrated German housewife called police because her husband would not stop watching porn movies. The 44-year-old woman, from Aachen, dialled the emergency police number and told the dispatcher in a weepy voice there was an emergency. But when officers arrived at the scene they found her pacing the apartment while her husband, 46, sat in front of the TV watching a blue movie. She told the police: 'Nothing will move him, not even if I offer him the real thing, and he has the TV on so loud I'm sure the neighbours can hear it.' She was told however that there was nothing the police could do in such a case, but refer her to a counsellor for help."




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 6:01 PM

 


THE FIRST TIME....

It was my first time ever
And I'll never forget
I'd do it again
Without a single regret.
The sky was dark
The moon was high
We were all alone
Just she and I.
Her hair was soft
Her eyes were true
I knew just what
She wanted to do.
Her skin so soft
Her legs so fine
I ran my fingers
Down her spine.
I didn't know how
But I tried my best
I started by placing
My hands on her breast.
I remember my fear
My fast beating heart
But slowly she spread
Her legs apart.
And when I did it
I felt no shame
All at once
The white stuff came.
At last it's finished
It's all over now
My first time ever
At milking a cow...














THE NEWS

House arrest for Connecticut attack cat: "A ferocious feline terrorized a quiet Fairfield neighborhood, to the point that residents are seeking help from the law to stop the so-called 'Terrorist of Sunset Circle.' Lewis, a 5-year-old, black-and-white longhaired cat, attacked at least a half-dozen people on the cul-de-sac and even took on the local Avon lady, neighbors say. 'He looks like Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot each with a long claw,' Sunset Circle resident Janet Kettman said. 'They are formidable weapons.' Kettman said Lewis attacked her twice."


Cats are good for you: "Children brought up with cats may be less prone to develop allergies than those in feline-free households, according to a new study. Research has found that unless children already showed symptoms and a family history of allergies such as asthma, eczema or hayfever, they were likely to develop a stronger immune system if they had a feline friend. Sydney pediatrician Catarina Almqvist has conducted a study of 516 children born in Sydney hospitals from 1997 to 2000. Tests last year showed that 29.3 per cent of the children, whose families had acquired cats in the past five years, had atopy, or a positive skin prick test for allergy. This is compared to 47.2 per cent who had atopy but lived in a feline-free household. There were similar findings for dog-owning families, with 51.8 per cent of kids without dogs testing positive for atopy and only 39 per cent positive if they had a dog. However, the study focused on cats because some of the families already had dogs at the time the children were born. None of the families involved in the study had a pet cat at the time of their child's birth. The results were in line with similar studies carried out in European countries, said Swedish-born Dr Almqvist, who now works for the Woolcock Institute for Medical Research at the University of Sydney. "Children who are exposed to pets or children who grow up on a farm have a reduced risk of atopy," she said. "The theory is it is some sort of modulation of the immune system.""


Big salad: "What better "weigh" to mark the loss of 500 pounds than a 500-pound salad. The massive salad contained 110 heads of lettuce, 165 pounds of carrots and about 120 cucumbers, and was prepared in a swimming pool. It took about 2 1/2 hours to prepare and a hungry crowd gobbled it up in about four hours Thursday, said Cheryl Mitchem, coordinator of the weight management program through the Tug River Health Association. Mitchem said the salad represented the total pounds lost by about 27 people over a five month period that ended March 1. "I think it is a phenomenal accomplishment," Mitchem said".




(And don't forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go)


posted by bussorah at 1:44 PM