# You can't make these things up thread



## MacDoc

Well my feel good stories has not rolled along as much as I wanted so I figured there must be a flip side of .......he did WHAT!!!! ???  stories about major screw ups.

Here's one........



> *Md. State Trooper Arrested After Abduction*
> 
> Kelly McPherson
> TOWSON, Md. (WJZ)
> 
> Baltimore County Police have arrested a Maryland State trooper for allegedly abducting a man and driving while intoxicated.
> 
> What happened at 3 a.m. Saturday has cost a Maryland state trooper his job.
> 
> Kelly McPherson reports it happened exactly one year after he graduated from the state police academy.
> 
> Police say off-duty state trooper Bruce Wrzosek, 22, pulled up to a Towson drive-thru and ordered up trouble.
> 
> 
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> 
> Baltimore County Police say they were called to Taco Bell by employees, who said they were being disturbed by a drunken trooper turning on his siren and trying to pull people over in the drive-thru lane.
> 
> "When our first officer got there, the trooper indicated that he was OK. But the officer didn't suspect that things were OK. Actually, he smelled an odor of alcohol," said Corporal Mike Hill, spokesperson for Baltimore County Police.
> 
> Before police got there, Wrzosek had thrown a 20-year-old man into the front seat of his cruiser. That man said while in the drive-thru, the trooper yelled, "Get the [expletive] out of the way." When he drove off from county police he said, "They can't do [expletive] to me."
> 
> County police chased the trooper into a residential area to Tilmont Avenue. The witness inside the trooper car told police it felt like they were going 95 miles per hour during the chase.
> 
> In the trooper's neighborhood, he failed the heel-to-toe sobriety test. During the test Wrzosek said, "That's great, I'm drunk."
> 
> Then before finishing he said, "I'm done, lock me up."
> 
> The county's investigation showed there was no reason for Wrzosek to force the 20-year-old man into his car at the restaurant's parking lot. The trooper is charged with DUI, false imprisonment and eluding police.
> 
> State police spokesman Greg Shipley says Wrzosek has been fired. During the incident, police say Wrzosek was dressed in plain-clothes but was driving his police car.
> 
> The trooper was still within his two-year probationary period, so his firing was swift.
> 
> "This type of behavior is not part of the Maryland State Police and is in no way condoned. This is completely inappropriate for anyone who wears this uniform," said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police spokesperson.
> 
> Wrzosek is in the Baltimore County jail on $500,000 bond.


one career kissed away with a life long millstone added..... 

wjz.com - Md. State Trooper Arrested After Abduction


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## Kazak

If he hurries, maybe he could still get pardoned by Bush.


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## MazterCBlazter

.


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## eMacMan

Nice to see the MD State Patrol reacted appropiately to totally inappropriate behaviour. :clap:

A nice change to some of the recent whitewash jobs.


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## Lichen Software

*It's True ... I Swear*

There was once a fellow in Northern Ontario who was always in trouble with the law. Among his exploits, he had apartment buildings and jumpered the meters. He actually managed to take about 5% of the town's power. They commissioned a study to determine why they were getting abnormal line losses. They actually were not getting any at all. Just billing losses.

Part of this fellow's defense was to always have a psychiatrist and plead being unbalanced.

Anyway, he eventually got pulled over for drunk driving and had his license suspended. Now at that time, his psychiatrist was a woman from Northern Quebec. He was not going to be stopped from driving, so here is what he did:

1. He got his psychiatrist pregnant

2. He did the honourable thing and married her ... In Quebec.

3. When he did that, he legally took her name and had all of his identification changed over.

4. Then he did the driver's license test in Quebec and got a Quebec drivers license ... In his new name.

5. Then he went back to Ontario.

Of course it was a small town, and the police saw him driving around and stopped him to charge him with driving without a licence.

His response: I am sorry officer, I my name is not "XXX" from the town "YYY" in Ontario, but rather my name is "AAA" from the Town "BBB" in Quebec, and here is my identification and you can F*** right off.


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## MacDoc

> *Legroom sparked inflight incident, witnesses say*
> 
> Toronto man, 33, facing charges for trying to open door midflight
> Jan 02, 2009 04:30 AM
> John Goddard
> Staff Reporter
> 
> Peel Regional Police last night laid charges against a Toronto man who terrified fellow airline passengers by trying to open a door midflight over the Dominican Republic.
> 
> Peel investigators flew to Punta Cana, where the plane made an unscheduled stop, and charged Adrian Worrell, 33, of Toronto with endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight, mischief endangering life and several assaults, a police spokesperson said.
> 
> Police were expected to return with the prisoner last night, he said.
> 
> The man is charged in connection with events on Skyservice Airlines flight 828, which originated Tuesday in Grenada and stopped in Barbados, bringing the passenger list to 202. It reached Toronto one day late on New Year's Eve because of the emergency.
> 
> Problems started with an argument over legroom, witnesses said. The man began hitting the fully reclined seat in front of him, after the plane had reached cruising altitude.
> 
> "I heard a loud banging," passenger Beresford Moseley of Barbados, seated five rows ahead of the disturbance, recounted after arriving at Toronto's Pearson airport.
> 
> "The flight attendant told him to stop," said Shery Henry of Toronto, who also turned around to look. "All of a sudden he got up. He started running up the aisle, then he went from side to side trying to open the emergency exit doors.
> 
> "He tried both," Henry recalled. "He said, `God sent me. I'm supposed to kill myself and take you with me.' I started screaming and crying."
> 
> A flight attendant called for help. Six to eight men tackled the man, the witnesses said.
> 
> Two male flight attendants and the passengers tied him with his own belt and with straps used to secure babies.
> 
> "He said, `I like the pain. Give me more pain,'" Henry recalled.
> 
> "A flight attendant told me and others, `If he gets away from them, don't let him get to the flight deck,'" Moseley said. "We got to tackle him next."
> 
> But it was over. The man was immobilized.
> 
> Half an hour later, the plane made an unscheduled landing at the eastern tip of Dominican Republic in Punta Cana.
> 
> "The medics met him at the front door with a syringe," Moseley said. "Then they took him off the plane."
> 
> A Skyservice spokesperson said the door was never at risk of opening and the man was taken into custody.


I would NOT want to have been on that plane. Even tho I know the doors were safe - a crazy man loose on a tightly packed aircraft is a nightmare. 

'Nother one that has screwed up his life - tho sounds like he was well prepped to be locked up anyways.


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## fellfromtree

This is the one that amazes me. The boingboing link rounds up the assorted details/links. Young girl standing outside her home arrested by plainclothes Galveston police in a prostitution sting... and then it gets crazy. 

Plainclothes allegedly police beat up 12-year-old honor student girl then arrest her 3 weeks later - Boing Boing


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## Ottawaman

Madcap moments from the world of work


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## ComputerIdiot

Ottawaman said:


> Madcap moments from the world of work


:lmao: 
Why don't I ever get to work at places like these??


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## MacDoc

> Wednesday, 7 January 2009
> 
> *US boy takes car in school dash*
> 
> By Rajini Vaidyanathan
> BBC News, Washington
> 
> Police say the boy was in a hurry to get to school
> 
> The parents of a six-year-old boy in the US have been charged with neglect after the boy drove their car for 10km in an attempt to get to school on time.
> 
> Police in Virginia said the boy, who was not named, took the keys to the car after he missed the school bus.
> 
> *He drove for six miles (10km) on major roads, weaving through traffic and overtaking slower cars, before losing control and going off the road.
> 
> The boy told police he learned to drive by playing video games.*
> 
> Protective custody
> 
> Police said the boy was so intent on getting to school after failing to make the bus, that he got the keys to his father's Ford Taurus and took the wheel himself.
> 
> "When he got out of the car, he started walking to school. He did not want to miss breakfast and PE," said Northumberland County Sheriff Chuck Wilkins.
> 
> His road trip came to an end only after he ran off the road several times before hitting an embankment and utility pole. He was not, police said, wearing a seat belt.
> 
> He was treated for minor injuries at a hospital before police took him to school.
> 
> It happened at 0740 on Monday, while the boy's mother was still asleep.
> 
> Both of his parents have been charged with endangering their child. He and his four-year-old brother are now in protective custody.


 

BBC NEWS | Americas | US boy takes car in school dash

Expanded report here

washingtonpost.com


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## SINC

*Winner Of Lottery For Sex Abuse Victims 3-Time Offender*

I figure this one fits this category pretty well.



> ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The winner of the $500,000 lottery drawing came forward Saturday to collect his prize, and the man who will pocket a half-million dollars from a raffle designed to benefit a sex abuse victims charity is a three-time sex offender.
> 
> Alec Ahsoak of Anchorage was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor twice in 1993 and once in 2000, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety Sex Offender/Child Kidnapper Central Registry.
> 
> The lottery, which had its drawing Friday night, was conducted by Lucky Times Pull Tabs. State law says all games of chance must benefit charity, and the organization Standing Together Against Rape, or STAR, was the designated beneficiary.
> 
> Ahsoak, who will turn 54 later this month, collected his winnings Saturday at Lucky Times in the form of a ceremonial check presentation.
> 
> He says he plans to use the money to buy a home and to improve his life, and late Saturday afternoon said he will donate $100,000 to STAR.
> 
> When Channel 2 News first met up with Ahsoak, he couldn't have been more excited. But as the day unfolded, Ahsoak's past came to light in an ironic intersection with the mission of the event.
> 
> Ahsoak says he's had a hard-luck life, and the money will help him turn that around. He grew up in foster homes and the Jesse Lee Home for Children in Seward.
> 
> In the past he said he has donated money to a children's home in South Dakota, but that could not immediately be verified.
> 
> Lucky Times' owners said they started the lottery with the best of intentions and really just wanted to help out a cause they believe in.
> 
> They hope just as many residents will want to participate in the charity lotteries to come.


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## SINC

*Man Stung By String Of Nigerian Scammers*

Sometimes all you can do is shake your head:



> A LONELY postal worker has landed himself in huge debt – after handing over £130,000 to a string of internet scammers.
> Shane Symington started sending cash to the fraudsters in 2007 after he was contacted by a woman claiming she needed funds to help her sick mother.
> The trusting postie agreed and started sending money from an inheritance he had received when an elderly relative passed away.
> He even stumped up the cash for a funeral when the woman said her mother had died.
> He finally smelt a rat after the woman failed to reply to any of his emails.
> Symington was then contacted by another 'victim' who told him the woman he had been in contact with was actually a Nigerian gang.
> That email was quickly followed by one from men claiming to be the FBI who said they were investigating the fraud.
> The men told Mr Symington they would take on his case if he sent money to fund their trip to Nigeria, including any costs they incurred during the trip.
> Mr Symington agreed and, after taking out loans to raise the funds, he eventually sent money to three separate ’FBI’ agents.
> This went on until December last year when Mr Symington realised he had been scammed again.
> In total he forked out just over £130,000.
> Now to rub salt into his wounds, police say he won’t be able to recover the money he sent because the Nigerian police are not willing to cooperate.
> Detective Jon Knox said: “This is a very sad situation.
> “This man has now parted with huge sums of money through his own good nature - by trying to help others and then by trying to recover some of what he had lost.
> “We do not want anyone else to fall foul of this kind of shocking activity.
> “I would warn anyone who is asked for money over the internet by people they do not know to refuse, and not put yourself at risk.”


Man in 130k internet scam | The Sun |News


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## MacDoc

Former cannibal calls radio station - Gazette Live


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## MacDoc

I almost wasn't sure which "story" category to put it in. 










_Knife in head x-ray
On a knife's edge ... the blade narrowly missed major arteries, blood vessels and nerves. Picture courtesy of EuroPics(CEN)_



> Man survives after 12cm knife thrust deep into head
> January 16, 2009 11:04am
> 
> A MAN who walked into a hospital emergency room with a 12cm blade buried in his head says he was stabbed by his father.
> 
> This amazing x-ray picture, obtained by Central European News, shows the blade plunged deep into his skull.
> 
> A nurse reportedly fainted as Wen Wen, 38, walked up to reception at a hospital in central China, and calmly answered questions about his injury with the handle of the knife poking out of his head, UK tabloid The Sun reports.
> 
> The razor sharp blade sunk into Wen's head above his right ear, down into the nasal cavity and finally emerged into his mouth.
> 
> It narrowly missed several major arteries, blood vessels and nerves.
> 
> Wen had walked up to reception at the Jiaotong University clinic in Xi'an, central China, and casually answered questions about his injury.
> 
> One medic at the Xi'an clinic said Wen was “incredibly lucky”.
> 
> "He could walk and talk perfectly and he'll make a full recovery,” he said.
> 
> “One or two centimetres in another direction, though, and he'd be dead."
> 
> Wen told doctors he had been stabbed by his 76-year-old father who has now fled the family home.
> 
> "I was cleaning up the house when my father attacked me and did this with just one strike of the knife.
> 
> “He's old but sane and rational and I've no idea why he did it. I'm worried that he might think he's in trouble now and won't come back to the family,” he said.


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## MacDoc

> *Lost dog man in key-lock metly ice car-plunge nightmare*
> 
> Thursday, January 22, 2009
> 
> Ice: has a tendency to melt
> A man's search for his lost dog ended in funny disaster on Tuesday, as he managed to lose a borrowed car in a frozen river.
> 
> Things started to go wrong when Nathan Seely drove the Buick onto the frozen surface of Black River, in Port Huron, Michigan. The river is often used by cars and snowmobiles when iced over in winter, local police said.
> 
> Unfortunately for Seely, he managed to lock his keys inside the car.
> 
> This would have been frustrating enough, but the problem was compounded by the fact that the engine was still running. E was forced to watch as the heat from the engine slowly melted the ice beneath the car, sending it crashing through into the river.
> 
> As if that wasn't bad enough, the car wasn't even his – it was on loan from a local garage while his own car was in for repairs.
> 
> Seely now has a deadline to get the car out of the river, or he could face a fine.
> 
> Police divers said they haven't yet been asked to help remove the car, according to the Port Huron Times Herald. They're quite experienced at retrieving vehicles from the river, St. Clair County Sheriff's Lt. Matt Paulus noted. 'We usually get a couple a year. We already had two snowmobiles go in last week,' he told the Detroit Free Press.
> 
> Reports do not indicate whether Seely ever found his dog.


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## ComputerIdiot

I wasn't sure whether this should go here or in the joke du jour thread:

Oopsie


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## SINC

*Goat detained over armed robbery*

Hard to believe . . .



> LAGOS (Reuters) - Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.
> 
> Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.
> 
> "The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.
> 
> "We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said.
> 
> Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.


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## eMacMan

*Baby Makes 911 call*

And the forever popular;

ROBERT MATAS 
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
January 21, 2009 at 10:16 PM EST





> VANCOUVER — The 11-month-old toddler in his pyjamas was playing with a phone and a light-up toy ball when police, responding to a suddenly aborted 911 call, burst through the front door of his home in the Vancouver suburb of White Rock.
> 
> The police found a quiet domestic scene. The boy's 29-year-old father was with the toddler in a bedroom, watching a late-morning television program. There was no emergency. But once the police were inside the house, they picked up a distinctive odour and quickly discovered 500 marijuana plants growing a floor below.
> 
> The toddler's accidental emergency call drew attention to a prevalent problem: The emergency call centre for Southwest British Columbia, known as E-Comm, receives several hundred calls by mistake every day, Jody Robertson, a spokesperson for E-Comm, said yesterday in an interview.
> “We have to follow up on each call,” she said. “It is a concern. It occupies time of emergency operators as well as police resources.”
> 
> Many of them are referred to as “butt calls,” she said. People program a button on their cellphone for a 911 call. They put the phone in their back pocket and then sit on their phone, inadvertently pressing the button for 911.
> Calls also come into the emergency centre by mistake from cellphones in a backpack or a purse.


globeandmail.com: Toddler's 911 call leads to grow-op bust


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## MacDoc

> Police car crashes into west-end home
> 
> HENRY STANCU/TORONTO STAR
> In the second cruiser incident in two days, Toronto police heading to Dundas St. W. drug store holdup Jan. 25, 2009 swerved to avoid a car and plowed into a Jane St. house. Two officers scrambled out their cruiser after it became embedded in the building near St. Marks Rd. around 9 p.m. A woman in the home at the time was not injured. Her tropical fish weren't as fortunate.
> 
> Two arrested after Saturday armed robbery attempts
> Toronto police say two men who sparked a lockdown in a west Toronto neighbourhood Saturday after trying to rob a Beer Store made an attempt at a second robbery before they were chased down and arrested.
> No injuries, but pet fish didn't survive the 'almighty crash'
> 
> A Toronto police cruiser responding to a call crashed into a west-end home earlier tonight.
> 
> At 9 p.m. police responding to a report of a robbery on Dundas St. W. swerved to avoid striking a car, climbed a snow bank and plowed into a home at the corner of Jane St. and St. Marks Rd.
> 
> The nose of the car crashed into the living room and both officers managed to scramble out of the car.
> 
> "The police vehicle is at 45-degree angle pointing to the sky and it's at least three feet into the house," said Zenon Barchynsky, who lives across the street. "I haven't seen a car in a house in a long time."
> 
> A metro ambulance crew examined both officers at the scene. They suffered minor cuts and bruised egos, but did not need to go the hospital.
> 
> The crash alarmed neighbours in the area.
> 
> "I was watching TV when I heard a giant screech," said Andrew Young.
> 
> He opened the blinds to see the police car had driven into the house across the street.
> 
> "It was an almighty crash," said his father Jonathan. "The police car is half-embedded into the house."
> 
> At last report a 911 caller reported the robbery suspects car was heading south on Runnymede Road from Dundas St. W.
> 
> Toronto EMS said no one in the home was hurt, however Barchynsky said the resident's fish did not survive.


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## MacDoc

> *Highway to heaven: motorist propelled 115ft into church roof*
> 
> A car that crashed into a church roof in Limbach-Oberfrohna, Germany
> 
> (Michael Pape/EPA)
> 
> Police said that a grass bank had acted like a 'springboard'
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> David Byers
> 
> A German motorist missed a bend in the road, hurtled up a bank and "took off" into the roof of a church, in an accident which police said was unlike any they had ever seen.
> 
> Police in the east German state of Saxony said that the bank acted like a springboard, propelling the black Skoda 115ft through the air and straight into the building's roof frame, where it remained wedged seven metres off the ground.
> 
> “We’ve never ever had a case of a car landing in a church before,” said Frank Fischer, a spokesman for Chemnitz police. He said that excessive speed was a possible cause for the accident while officers were also testing the driver for alcohol.
> 
> The 23-year-old was being treated in hospital today for serious injuries, while the car - which was extracted from the roof by a crane - had suffered around £13,000 of damage.
> 
> The cost to repair the church roof has not yet been estimated


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## kps

MacDoc must have missed this one:



> Police told Kaloutsky the cruiser was only "a little bit on the tracks'' when it was struck, but Kaloutsky agreed that was like being "a little bit pregnant.''





> "I heard a train whistle and I thought, that's weird,'' said the witness. "The guy being questioned, he said to the cop, 'Hey man, give me my ID, there's a train coming!' And the cop's saying, 'Settle down, settle down.'
> 
> "Then all of a sudden everybody's running and the train hits."


TheStar.com | News | Why park a cruiser in train's path?

These days Toronto cops seem more like the Keystone cops.


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## MacDoc

and you thought it was cold out.... 



> Frozen caribou
> 
> Jan 25, 04:14 PM
> 
> These pictures come from a friends friend who lives in Alaska. This caribou froze while standing up in -80°F winds on the North slope at the top of Alaska.


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## MacDoc

where to even start.......












> *Detective shocked when drugs went missing*
> 
> MAP: GTA HOMICIDES
> CRIME STOPPERS
> Feb 03, 2009 11:53 AM
> BOB MITCHELL
> STAFF REPORTER
> 
> A Peel Detective booked off sick to visit friends in Halifax a day after he was part of a team involved in what they believed was a major drug seizure in Mississauga.
> 
> Det. Marty Rykhoff was later disciplined and docked five days pay for pretending to be sick when he was actually with friends for a college football game.
> 
> It was while he was in the Maritimes that his boss called and told him that "drugs were missing" and that one of his officers - Cst. Sheldon Cook - had been charged criminally.
> 
> "I was shocked," Rykhoff told a Brampton court today.
> 
> He learned when he returned from Halifax that a Toronto Star article reported 15 kilograms of cocaine were found at Cook's Cambridge residence. Cook, a 14-year veteran officer, has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges in the judge alone trial before Justice Casey Hill.
> 
> The bricks were found in a storage compartment in a Sea-Do inside his garage two days after the surprising seizure in Mississauga on Nov. 16, 2005..
> 
> Cook, 40, is accused of stealing 15 of the 102 wrapped packages of suspected cocaine that were discovered in a courier delivery truck. A search of Cook's home also uncovered marijuana and several MP3 players allegedly taken from an unrelated investigation.
> 
> None of the drugs were real They were white flour and part of an international RCMP-controlled delivery from Peru to Canada.
> 
> Federal prosecutors David Rowcliffe and Ania Weiler say Cook believed the cocaine was real when he removed the bricks during his involvement as part of Rykhoff's crew. He is charged with attempt to possess a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, possession of stolen property (MP3 players) from a police investigation and breach of trust as a police officer. He remains suspended with pay.
> 
> Rykhoff was upset when he learned just before leaving for Halifax that he and his officers had been investigating a drug seizure that was part of an elaborate RCMP sting. He and others officers, including Cook, spent several hours investigating and unloading and loading boxes of mangoes with what was believed to be hidden bricks of cocaine. They also called out the bomb squad when wires were located attached to some of the suspected drugs.
> 
> "I assumed the RCMP were around and watching us go through the motions," he said. "They should have intervened. We had been wasting our time."
> 
> Incredibly, the RCMP wasn't on the scene. They had no idea their shipment had been picked up from Pearson International Airport earlier. The suspected drugs were taken back to Peel 12 Division where it was discovered that 44 of the original 102 bricks were missing.
> 
> A GPS tracking device located 15 of the missing packages at Cook's residence. The rest have never been found.
> 
> Rykhoff testified that he left 12 Division around 2 a.m. and didn't return to the scene of the seizure and did not know how many boxes were in the courier van.
> 
> "The drugs went missing when I was the supervising officer," Rykhoff said. "I had phoned in sick when I wasn't sick and didn't complete my notes when I should have." Superintendent Frank Roselli later suspended him.
> 
> Rykhoff said Cook was one of the officers, who loaded the drugs into another officer's van as they waited for the bomb disposal unit to arrive. Cook also drove that van about a block away from the courier truck after the bomb disposal unit moved into place so they could water bomb the possible explosive device.
> 
> The drugs were later transferred to a morality van. Cook and other officers of his team, left the scene about midnight in different vehicles soon afterwards. Rykhoff and Cook drove unmarked cars while three other officers left in a van.
> 
> Altogether 88 boxes containing 146 bricks of fake cocaine arrived at Pearson from Peru on the morning of Nov. 16, 2005.
> 
> Incredibly, despite being under surveillance, the shipment disappeared 12 hours later.
> 
> The RCMP wanted to catch those responsible in an international drug smuggling operation. The identity of the Canadians was unknown but the RCMP intended to follow the shipment and arrest whoever received it.
> 
> But the courier driver, who wasn't involved, became suspicious. Instead of delivering the mangoes he drove to a Peel community police station on Lakeshore Rd. in Mississauga where officers, including Cook, were called to inspect the shipment.
> 
> By the time the drugs arrived in Canada, 11 bricks had been tampered with in Peru and re-filled with cement instead of flour.
> 
> The trial is continuing.


 

So a sting from the RCMP catches one cop with his hand in the cookie jar and another AWOL from duty but they managed to lose track of their own shipment......how confidence inspiring right up the line......

as the title says - can't make these things up.


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## MacDoc

> *Gang of children - some as young as TEN - caught slowly roasting puppies over bonfire*
> 
> By Jaya Narain
> Last updated at 8:42 PM on 04th February 2009
> 
> Shocked and huddled together for safety, these puppies are lucky to be alive after being saved from an act of almost unbelievable barbarity.
> 
> A gang of youths had seized the seven-week-old brother and sister and were slowly roasting them over a bonfire on a canal bank.
> 
> Yelping in panic and distress as their fur began to burn, the pair struggled desperately to escape the children's clutches.
> Lucky to be alive: The two puppies saved after a 'cruel' gang of children were caught roasting them on a fire
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Lucky to be alive: The two puppies saved after a gang of children were caught roasting them on a fire_
> 
> The commotion attracted a walker who ran over to the bonfire and ordered the gang to release them immediately.
> 
> Melanie Johnson, 32, said: 'I just could not believe the cruelty being shown by these kids. If I hadn't turned up, I think they would have burned the dogs alive.'
> 
> Miss Johnson, from Rochdale, added: 'Most of the kids were aged 12, 13 or older. But some were as young as ten. I was ripping mad and still am to think that anyone - least of all children - could do this.'
> 
> She took the two puppies from the bank and carried them to the safety of her home before wrapping them in a towel and taking them to an RSPCA shelter.
> 
> The cross-bred pups were examined by a vet after the incident in Newbold, Rochdale on Friday and were found to be in generally good health.
> 
> Jean Spencer, the RSPCA shelter manager, said: 'The puppies are only seven weeks old and still smelled of smoke from the bonfire when they arrived.
> 
> 'The fur on one of them was singed and the other has a small hernia. Fortunately, they are going to be fine.'
> 
> She added: 'To think that children could be so cruel is really disgusting. The puppies are absolutely gorgeous. Everyone here has fallen in love with them.'
> 
> The male puppy has been named Guy and his sister Cinders.
> 
> They will now go to a shelter in Halifax to be re-homed.
> 
> No arrests have been made in connection with the incident.


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## MacDoc

> *Wife pleads guilty to exercising husband to death*
> Updated Sat. Feb. 14 2009 2:12 PM ET
> 
> The Associated Press
> 
> CHARDON. Ohio -- A woman has pleaded guilty to reckless homicide for exercising her 73-year-old husband to death in a swimming pool, repeatedly refusing to let him leave the water.
> 
> Surveillance video showed Christine Newton-John, 41, pulling James Mason around the pool by his arms and legs, said Middlefield police Chief Joseph Stehlik.
> 
> The chief said he counted 43 times in which Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the water, and Mason rested his head on the side of the pool several times while gasping for breath.
> 
> "The video is bone-chilling," Stehlik said. "The whole case is very sinister."
> 
> Mason had a heart attack June 2 after the extended swim session. An officer who had investigated previous complaints that Mason was being abused pursued the case because he suspected there was more to the death, Stehlik said.
> 
> Newton-John pleaded guilty Thursday and faces up to five years in prison. No sentencing date was set.
> 
> Police did not immediately respond to a call Saturday seeking comment on a motive.
> 
> The video would have had a profound effect on a jury, Geauga County prosecutor David Joyce said. But that wouldn't have been enough for a conviction if Newton-John had been charged with murder.
> 
> "You can see the man struggling for his life on the tape, but there is no audio, so we couldn't hear what he was saying," he said.
> 
> Geauga County Chief Public Defender Robert Umholtz, who represented Newton-John, declined to comment.
> 
> Mason was a longtime friend of his wife's family. He knew her as John Vallandingham before she had gender reassignment surgery in 1993 and changed her name in honour of the singer and star of the hit movie version of the musical "Grease."
> 
> The couple were wed in 2006 in Kentucky, where people can change their gender on their birth certificate.


----------



## SINC

*Man's penis injured in grinder accident*

Marissa Calligeros | February 18, 2009 - 3:40PM

A man whose penis met an ill fate with a grinder in Brisbane's north this afternoon has been rushed to hospital.

It is understood the 23-year-old was working in Northgate when he was injured just after 2pm.

A Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman could not identify the type of grinder that had injured the man or detail how he came in contact with the device.

Man's penis injured in grinder accident - Queensland - BrisbaneTimes


----------



## MacDoc

> Female athlete was really a man
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A Chinese woman athlete who won dozens of medals has thrown most of them away after learning she is really a man.
> 
> Xiao Nan wins another medal /Quirky China News
> 
> Xiao Nan, of Chengdu, won more than 40 medals as a women in student competitions after graduating from high school.
> 
> But after hospital tests confirmed Xiao's suspicions that she was really a man she has thrown out all but 10 of them.
> 
> "Being a champion was never a happy thing to me. Standing on the podium made me feel guilty, and I always thought the real champion should have been the one standing next to me," Xiao said.
> 
> Xiao's extraordinary athletic performances in schools and in provincial and national competitions, won her great honour and free access to university education.
> 
> But, inside, she felt confused: "I felt I often had an impulse or desire for women instead of men. And my body is more like a man than a woman."
> 
> Xiao had a check-up at a local hospital and the result confirmed she had male chromosomes.
> 
> He is now living as a man and has begun a course of sex change surgery at Sichuan Xichan Plastic Surgery Hospital which will take nine months.
> 
> "The first thing I want to do after the surgery is to go swimming, wearing only boxer shorts," Xiao told Chengdu Business Daily.


----------



## MacDoc

Worst Burglar Ever on truTV.com Video


----------



## KC4

MacDoc said:


> Worst Burglar Ever on truTV.com Video


:lmao::lmao::lmao: He'd be a candidate for the Darwin awards, but amazingly, he didn't kill himself.


----------



## MacDoc

This one is so astounding that your head will reel.........  Do take the time to read it all......the best summary, and explanation of the mess I've see yet...and how it was ALLOWED to happen.  

A villian's tale

The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone


----------



## Macfury

*Qld Rail defends crash refund decision*

Queensland Rail NewsQueensland Rail has defended its decision not to refund tickets to passengers on board a fatal Tilt Train crash despite doing so in another deadly smash.

Two drivers were killed and nine passengers injured when the Tilt Train and a truck collided at a level-crossing at Cardwell in November.

On New Year's Day, a garbage truck driver was killed and six Sunlander passengers injured in a collision at a level-crossing at Mundoo, near Innisfail.

While Sunlander passengers were refunded their ticket costs, Tilt Train passengers were not.

Queensland Rail passenger services manager Paul Scurrah said _the Tilt Train passengers were nearing their destination when it crashed, while the Sunlander's patrons were beginning their trip._


Railpage Australia™ - Qld Rail defends crash refund decision


----------



## kps

MacDoc said:


> This one is so astounding that your head will reel.........  Do take the time to read it all......the best summary, and explanation of the mess I've see yet...and how it was ALLOWED to happen.
> 
> A villian's tale
> 
> The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone


 you don't get it.................................

Good read, the writer didn't pull any punches.


----------



## bgw

From the Crap Blog:



> According to a news report, a certain private school in Victoria, BC recently was faced with a unique problem.
> 
> A number of year 12 girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back.
> 
> Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.
> 
> To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
> 
> There are teachers, and then there are educators.


Uuuukkkk!XX)


----------



## SINC

That one was in the joke thread no so long ago.


----------



## SINC

*A Sad Tale Of An Undeserved Nobel Prize For Al Gore*

In May 2008, a 98 year-old Polish lady named Irena Sendler died.

During WWII, she got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist but she had an ulterior motive. She KNEW of the Nazi's plans for the Jews. Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and, in the back of her truck, she had a burlap sack for the larger children. 

She had a dog in the back of the truck that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the noise of the children.

She managed to smuggle out and save 2,500 children before she was caught; the Nazis broke both her legs and her arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the children that she smuggled out which she kept in a glass jar buried under a tree in her back yard. After the War, she tried to locate any parents that had survived and reunited the families. Most, of course, had been gassed but she helped those children to be placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Here's the part that really sucks:

*In 2007, Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but was not selected. Al Gore won - for a slide show on Global Warming!*

Check it out.

Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project


----------



## Macfury

SINC said:


> Here's the part that really sucks:
> 
> *In 2007, Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but was not selected. Al Gore won - for a slide show on Global Warming!*


Unbelievable, SINC.


----------



## Dr.G.

Sinc, this is a great story. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. There is a Jewish proverb that I was brought up to understand -- "A person who saves one life saves the entire world. Every life that we save is meaningful." Irena Sendler is one of these persons. Shalom.


----------



## darkscot

SINC said:


> In May 2008, a 98 year-old Polish lady named Irena Sendler died.


there's a true hero 
how anyone can hurt a child is beyond me


----------



## Dr.G.

"there's a true hero 
how anyone can hurt a child is beyond me"

I strongly agree, darkscot.


----------



## SINC

MacDoc said:


> Too bad you had to ruin a heart felt story with a cheap and seriously stupid shot Sinc......think it about it next time you plant both feet in your mouth so firmly and odiously. I hope the taste of horse**** lingers for a while.
> 
> 
> Irena deserves better than you using her to try and score on your tiresome anti-AGW agitprop.
> Pretty damn low.


'Twas not me who ruined the story MD. It was the Nobel judges. The only horsesh!t being spread here came from _your_ stall. I guess the truth hurts, does it? Besides, that is exactly the way the story arrived in my e-mail today, word for word. I took the trouble to check it out on snopes.com before posting it.

And yes, I will accept your apology for calling me stupid. Either that or I report your comments. Take your pick.

Here is the original e-mail:


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> Too bad you had to ruin a heart felt story with a cheap and seriously stupid shot Sinc......think it about it next time you plant both feet in your mouth so firmly and odiously. I hope the taste of horse**** lingers for a while.
> 
> 
> Irena deserves better than you using her to try and score on your tiresome anti-AGW agitprop.
> Pretty damn low.


MacDoc, I think you've blown it yet again. This is the "you can't make this up" thread. SINC has every right to state that Gore's minor performance pales in comparison to this woman's deeds--and that the Nobel committee overlooked them in favour of Gore's slide show.

Please stop embarrassing yourself with these outbursts


----------



## EvanPitts

Macfury said:


> Queensland Rail NewsQueensland Rail has defended its decision not to refund tickets to passengers on board a fatal Tilt Train crash despite doing so in another deadly smash...
> 
> ...On New Year's Day, a garbage truck driver was killed and six Sunlander passengers injured in a collision at a level-crossing at Mundoo, near Innisfail.
> 
> While Sunlander passengers were refunded their ticket costs, Tilt Train passengers were not.


So that's where Chretien's Cabinet Ministers "retired" to...


----------



## MacGuiver

Thats quite a story SINC. Thanks for sharing it. Unbelievable Gore's powerpoint presentation topped that.

Cheers
MacGuiver


----------



## bgw

Even the Nobel prize granters make a mistake occasionally! 

Looking at her Wikipedia page she has had many other honours, which is great. She did deserve that Nobel.


----------



## Dr.G.

"In 1965, Sendler was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, which was confirmed in 1983 by the Israeli Supreme Court. " Glad to have read this about this remarkable woman. She earned the Nobel Peace Prize, whether it was awarded to her or not, for her courage and efforts in saving all of those children.


----------



## SINC

Macfury said:


> Unbelievable, SINC.





Dr.G. said:


> Sinc, this is a great story. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. There is a Jewish proverb that I was brought up to understand -- "A person who saves one life saves the entire world. Every life that we save is meaningful." Irena Sendler is one of these persons. Shalom.





darkscot said:


> there's a true hero
> how anyone can hurt a child is beyond me





Dr.G. said:


> "there's a true hero
> how anyone can hurt a child is beyond me"
> 
> I strongly agree, darkscot.





MacGuiver said:


> Thats quite a story SINC. Thanks for sharing it. Unbelievable Gore's powerpoint presentation topped that.
> 
> Cheers
> MacGuiver





bgw said:


> Even the Nobel prize granters make a mistake occasionally!
> 
> Looking at her Wikipedia page she has had many other honours, which is great. She did deserve that Nobel.





Dr.G. said:


> "In 1965, Sendler was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, which was confirmed in 1983 by the Israeli Supreme Court. " Glad to have read this about this remarkable woman. She earned the Nobel Peace Prize, whether it was awarded to her or not, for her courage and efforts in saving all of those children.





MacDoc said:


> Too bad you had to ruin a heart felt story with a cheap and seriously stupid shot Sinc......think it about it next time you plant both feet in your mouth so firmly and odiously. I hope the taste of horse**** lingers for a while.
> 
> 
> Irena deserves better than you using her to try and score on your tiresome anti-AGW agitprop.
> Pretty damn low.


Anyone else notice how dreadfully out of step the final quote is, not to mention the totally unnecessary name calling? He who is always right disapproves and then resorts to bullying and name calling and personal attacks. Post reported.


----------



## groovetube

interesting post.

Although I enjoyed Al Gore's 'powerpoint', I have to say I hardly thought it was worthy of the peace prize. This woman certainly was.


----------



## KC4

I agree with Groovetube - I've seen Al Gore's presentation - it's very interesting....but he didn't risk his life, nor directly save any.....

It makes me wonder about the politics behind the award. 

Thanks for enlightening me with your Irena Sendler post SINC - It deserves to be spread around some more. I don't see it being materially about anything else.


----------



## MacDoc




----------



## SINC

*Breast-Feeding Drunk Driver – Alice Springs*



> A 19-year-old woman who was breast-feeding her baby whilst driving intoxicated was arrested in Alice Springs just before 7pm last night.
> 
> Police said the woman drove out of the Gap View Hotel carpark onto Gap Road into the path of on on-coming police car. Police avoided colliding with the woman’s vehicle, and she was apprehended a short distance along Gap Road. Police said the driver was breast-feeding her four-month-old son as she was driving the Holden Commodore Station Wagon.
> 
> She was taken into custody and the baby was given into the care of relatives. The woman has been charged with:
> 
> * Failing to provide a breath sample
> * Drive whilst disqualified
> * Drive an unregistered and uninsured motor vehicle
> * Failing to give way to the right
> * Driving with a child under 12 months unrestrained
> 
> She has been bailed to appear in the Alice Springs Magistrates Court on April 23.


Breast-feeding drunk driver ? Alice Springs


----------



## MacDoc

Well this was a puzzle as to where to park but I figured the "inside the car" view point made it a "can't make these things up candidate.




> Rally Car Driver Falls Off Mountain And Lives
> 
> April 6, 2009
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Total Pro Sports - During a race on April 3rd, 2009 rally Car driver Jari-Matti Latvala, is lucky to be alive, following a frightening crash in Portugal a couple of days ago. Not only did this guy almost die, but now his team wants to fire him, and I thought North American sports were cut-throat.
> 
> Apparently, someone forgot to tell this guy that there are no guardrails in rally driving. After watching the video multiple times, I can't believe the guy actually survived.
> 
> Check it out for yourself right here.
> 
> YouTube - Latvala's rolls Rally Portugal
> 
> "This was the biggest accident of my career," said Latvala. "All was going well as we approached a right bend over a crest before a slow left corner. I was carrying too much speed into the crest and the car lifted. It hit a bank, went up onto two wheels and over the barrier. I rolled maybe 150m off the road. As we rolled there was an incredible noise and the roll cage started to fold in around us. It was very frightening." (Race Results)
> 
> The best part is all of this happened on his birthday. What a great present!!!


----------



## MacDoc

Now THIS one was easy - there is a link in the article to listen in....



> *Mobile Phone in Kid's Pocket Calls Police as He Brags of Burglaries; Found With Hot Stereo in Hands*
> 
> By Ray Stern in News
> Monday, Apr. 6 2009 @ 12:11PM
> 
> Machines turning on their human masters:
> 
> It sounds like the plot of science fiction movie, but it actually happened to a Peoria punk who police say likes to burglarize vehicles.
> 
> The 16-year-old was bragging to his homies about stealing from a car when his mobile phone spontaneously called the police. Perhaps his phone had a one-touch button to call 911, or the kid dialed the numbers by mistake while scratching himself. But little did the chatty guy know, cops began listening in on his conversation.
> 
> Click on the button below to hear the recording released by Peoria cops. At one point, it sounds like the kid is describing how tough it was to steal a stereo.
> 
> "It was bolted down -- I had to rip it out," a voice can be heard saying on the recording released by Peoria cops. "It took all my energy to lift it out of the car."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> His friends seem to be unimpressed with a stolen Cricket phone, lamenting that it's not a Blackberry.
> 
> Despite long interludes of silence or muddied, unintelligible voices, the cops continued to eavesdrop. They used cell-phone-signal triangulation to get a bead on the kid's approximate location and dispatched a squad car to the area of 9100 West Kings. There, cops found the kid with a stolen car stereo in his hands, says Mike Tellef, police spokesman.
> 
> The Peoria boy was released to the custody of his parents or guardian and written up for felony vehicle burglary, which will be prosecuted in juvenile court, Tellef says.
> 
> The dilemma for the parents in this case: Take the mobile phone away as punishment -- or force him to carry with him always, as a conscience-booster.


Phone in Kid's Pocket Calls Police as He Brags of Burglaries


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) -- "The chase began with a stolen plane from a Canadian flight school, meandered through three states with U.S. fighter jets hot on the trail and forced the evacuation of the state capitol in Wisconsin."

Multistate plane chase ends on Missouri dirt road - CNN.com

I am amazed that it was not shot down.


----------



## iLabmAn




----------



## MacDoc

I think there is some real questions about Conjugal Harmony being a spoof site

Is the Conjugal Harmony Dating Site a Gag?

Note the copyright
© 2008 Conjugal Love LLC in Cooperation With the Governor of Illinois 

••

Dr. G wasn't sure where to park that one - weird story with a at least a non violent outcome.
I think with some of the fraying at the edges we will see many more people in despair doing strange things.


----------



## Macfury

iLabmAn said:


> Conjugal Harmony Prison Dating Browse Inmates


© 2008 Conjugal Love LLC in Cooperation With the Governor of Illinois

But still very funny.


----------



## Dr.G.

"Dr. G wasn't sure where to park that one - weird story with a at least a non violent outcome.
I think with some of the fraying at the edges we will see many more people in despair doing strange things." Sad, but all too true, MacDoc.


----------



## MacDoc

Perils of the wilderness.......even in the city.....



> *Sheepish hikers trapped in mudhole*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Two girls grateful and embarrassed after firefighter rappels 35 metres into ravine to pull them free
> Apr 11, 2009 04:30 AM
> 
> STACEY ASKEW
> STAFF REPORTER
> A Good Friday hike went awry for two young girls when they got stuck in soft ground on a ravine cliff and couldn't get out.
> 
> The two, about 10 to 12 in age, were tramping yesterday in the Don Valley area by their homes, in a highrise pocket north of Eglinton Ave. E. near the Don Valley Parkway. They had explored the popular hiking area before.
> 
> When they attempted to climb out of the ravine, the girls became trapped and mired in a mudhole created by recent rains. The two were spotted just before noon by a passerby who alerted a police officer. Firefighters were called to the scene, as well as EMS personnel.
> 
> Firefighter Chris Tessaro said he descended about 35 metres on a rope to rescue the girls.
> 
> When he reached them, he said the girls were apologetic and "a bit concerned they were going to be in trouble for getting stuck." Tessaro said he reassured them with a smile.
> 
> He said when he freed the first girl, her friend sank further into the mud, from knee deep to her waist.
> 
> Stephen Ryan, a paramedic at the scene, said both were fine once they were brought to the top. One told him they "were on a hiking expedition, as they normally do," when they got into difficulties scaling the steep bluffs.
> 
> He said she was "quite embarrassed" that they needed rescuing.
> 
> About an hour after the drama began, the two were back home, safe and sound.


video here

CityNews.ca - Toronto's News: Girls Rescued After Getting Trapped In Mud

Waist deep - that much have been scary.


----------



## Macfury

You know MacDoc--I think you could make that one up. What's unbelievable about two girls getting stuck in a ravine?


----------



## ErnstNL

*$500 ethernet cable*

Ultra Premium super duper ethernet cable with arrows to indicate proper electron flow!!!
































































From the Denon Website:
_AK-DL1 

$499.00 

Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the *AK-DL1* will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature connected to a Denon Link enabled Denon A/V receiver. The *AK-DL1* employs high level tin-bearing alloy shielding not typically available in commercial cabling, to eliminate data loss caused by noise. Additionally, *signal directional markings* are provided for optimum signal transfer. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage. _

The best part of this snake oil scam are the buyer's commentaries from Amazon.com. Read a few, they are priceless! Note also that there is one used cable available for $2499.00
Link:
Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable


----------



## Macfury

Those are great reviews!


----------



## KC4

Macfury said:


> Those are great reviews!


+1:clap:


----------



## MacDoc

Not so cheap thirlls....



> *Norwegian man caught having sex with girlfriend while driving at 100mph
> A Norwegian man faces a heavy fine and a driving ban after police caught him having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on the motorway, police said on Monday.*
> 
> 
> Last Updated: 6:02PM BST 13 Apr 2009
> 
> The unnamed couple, a 28-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, were caught in the act late on Easter Sunday by traffic police on the E18 highway, some 25 miles west of Oslo.
> 
> Officers who clocked the couple's silver Mazda 323 racing at 133 kilometres per hour in a 100 zone realised they were doing more than just breaking the speed limit, police told AFP.
> 
> "It was veering from one side to the other because the woman was sitting on the man's lap while he was driving and doing the act, shall we say," said Tor Stein Hagen, a superintendent with Soendre Buskerund district police.
> 
> "He couldn't see much because her back was in the way," he added.
> 
> "Why they did it on a highway with such a high risk we don't know."
> 
> After following the couple for nearly a kilometre, officers pulled the car over at a service station.
> 
> "We have taken away his driving licence because of the danger that he caused," Mr Hagen said.
> 
> Prosecutors will decide within the next week what his punishment will be, with police having filmed the incident to use as evidence against the driver.
> 
> Mr Hagen said he expected the man to face a fine of "several thousand Norwegian crowns" and a lengthy driving ban.


Norwegian Couple Caught Having Sex While Driving At 100mph


----------



## Dr.G.

Feathery Fracas Lands Man In Court - Local News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh

"BURLINGTON, Vt. -- The man police say organized an impromptu pillow fight in front of a Vermont mall is being dragged into court to face charges."

Under Vermont law, he could get up to 13 years. We shall see. They don't call Vermont "The Pillow State" for nothing.


----------



## MacDoc

Geez - spoilsports......something out of Alice's Restaurant


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc, the law is the law in Vermont. They take their state motto, "Freedom and Unity" seriously ........... except when you attempt to express your freedom of association and unite in a pillow fight.


----------



## eMacMan

Some ones math is a bit rusty. 133 KPH is a shade less than 85 MPH. Course that doesn't make them any less stupid.beejacon


----------



## MacDoc

I thought the shoe fit for this "story" 

The GOP: divorced from reality - Los Angeles Times

If we read the script of his party's fate to Dwight D. Eishenhower do you think he would believe it.?


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> If we read the script of his party's fate to Dwight D. Eishenhower do you think he would believe it.?


Sure--but he would think Obama's Democrats were plum loco.


----------



## Dr.G.

You should hear/read what Meghan McCain feels about the Republican Party.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Meghan McCain - Blogs from CNN.com


----------



## Macfury

McCain was a disaster for the party, Dr. G. I don't think anyone much cares what his relatives think now.


----------



## MacDoc

Strange his daughter didn't - but of course you know better MF  That's why she voted for Obama



> The last time the United States had an open election was 1952. My grandfather was pursued by both political parties and eventually became the Republican nominee. Despite being a charismatic war hero, he did not have an easy ride to the nomination. He went on to win the presidency -- with the indispensable help of a "Democrats for Eisenhower" movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation.
> 
> It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Barack Obama's candidacy for president. If the Democratic Party chooses Obama as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America's greatest challenges. To be successful, our president will need bipartisan help.


Susan Eisenhower - Why I'm Backing Obama - washingtonpost.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury, there are many Republicans who feel that she is making sense and that she is openly talking about the direction that the Rep.Party needs to take if they are to be a strong party once again. We shall see.


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> Strange his daughter didn't - but of course you know better MF  That's why she voted for Obama


MacDoc, what on earth does it matter which party someone's grandchild votes for? Is this supposed to be some sort of fable? If I found the grandchild of a Democrat president voting for a Republican would that be meaningful? Certainly not to me. 

Now how many time have you dragged out that tired old link and posted it here? Maybe I'll count them later.


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> Macfury, there are many Republicans who feel that she is making sense and that she is openly talking about the direction that the Rep.Party needs to take if they are to be a strong party once again. We shall see.


Dr. G: 



> "I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable."


Neither the Democrats or Republicans will form "a government that stays out of people's lives and businesses" or one that is "efficient and accountable."

McCain could not have offered this and Obama isn't either. 

I would happily see either U.S. party take on these two characteristics.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury, like it or not, the Democrats and Obama are in a position of strength in Congress and the White House. Mid-term elections are in 18 months, so it will be interesting to see if Congress shifts any. Hopefully, by then, Coleman will have the last of his appeals rejected and Al Franken might take his rightful place as the junior Senator from Minn. We shall see.


----------



## Macfury

Dr. G: The Democrats won the e;ection. Who can argue with that? But they are showing neither fiscal restraint nor accountability. I don't believe John McCain offered it either.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury, after the mess of the 8 Bush years, I don't think fiscal restraint is the key to getting the US out of this recession/depression. Hoover tried this and it did not work then, and won't work now. There was absolutely no accountability over the original $700 billion that was given to the financial institutions, but that was under the Bush administration.


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> There was absolutely no accountability over the original $700 billion that was given to the financial institutions, but that was under the Bush administration.


Agreed. But I see no reason to outdo Bush with 4 trillion dollars in spending. Just one example of lack of accountability: the supposed purpose of TARP and its continued financing under Obama was to assist the American economy to the benefit of the taxpayers, many of whom wanted to see proof that the money would eventually be returned. Now that banks are desperate to pay the money back, Obama is making it extremely difficult for them to do so. Where is the accountability here?


----------



## Dr.G.

I see that there is far more accountability now than in the prior Bush administration. I was disappointed by Congress adding on so much pork to the basic spending bills just for their vote to pass the overall bill.


----------



## Macfury

Dr. G: I don't see any more accountability at all. Just more money.


----------



## Dr.G.

Read the US Treasury reports and their guidelines.


----------



## Macfury

We should probably carry this over to another thread if you're interested Dr. G. since I think we are entering the realm of things people CAN make up.


----------



## MacDoc

..MUST be cultural....

YouTube - SUNTORY?TVCM??????A FIRE MAN??


----------



## Dr.G.

Michigan high school senior gets perfect ACT, SAT and PSAT scores

Michigan high school senior gets perfect ACT, SAT and PSAT scores

Wow!!!!!!!!


----------



## MacDoc

Could be urban legend BUT......rings too true from what I've seen on science forums....

Heavy Boots


----------



## MacDoc

you really have to wonder...tough kid.:clap:...seriously flawed father....



> *Boy, 1, survives night in Quebec woods*
> 
> Apr 27, 2009 03:24 PM
> THE CANADIAN PRESS
> 
> MONTREAL – Quebec provincial police say it's a miracle that a one-year-old boy was found in good health after he spent a cold night alone in the woods.
> 
> Police say the child, allegedly abandoned by his father Sunday morning, spent nearly 12 hours in the forest, wearing just a T-shirt and diaper in rainy, five-degree weather.
> 
> Const. Patrick Sullivan ran into the thick brush when a police helicopter spotted the infant around 90 metres from a road in Quebec's Eastern Townships.
> 
> Sullivan says the boy, who still doesn't walk, held his arms up when the officer reached him.
> 
> He says the child was in good spirits despite suffering mild frostbite on his cheeks.
> 
> The boy's father, who allegedly left the child in the forest after crashing his car, is expected to face criminal charges Monday.


TheStar.com | Canada | Boy, 1, survives night in Quebec woods

Happy and horror all at once....


----------



## CubaMark

*RCMP deploys 2 incompatible computer systems: $9m/year extra*



> *B.C. RCMP's separate computer system costs $9M extra per year*
> 
> The RCMP's use of two non-compatible computer systems to house data about criminal cases — one system in B.C. and another that serves the rest of Canada — is costing taxpayers millions of dollars extra every year, CBC News has learned.
> 
> Internal documents obtained by the CBC under an Access to Information request reveal that the extra costs of running two computer systems is "conservatively estimated" at more than $9 million a year. (more)


 (Source: CBC)


----------



## KC4

*Smoke or Be Fined!*

Diss-claimer : pulled from Faux News....
China's ultimatum: smoke or be fined | Weird True Freaky | News.com.au

OK, maybe Alberta's proposed education legislature isn't THAT bad....


----------



## Dr.G.

Saw this today on CNN.com --

"Jeb Bush says it's time for Republicans to leave the Reagan era behind them and look forward. The former Florida Governor insists the party's ideas need to be "forward-looking and relevant" instead of dwelling on the nostalgia of the good old days."

Guess he feels that the Republican Party should now focus upon the "accomplishments" of the two Bush presidents, and use their strategies to win future elections.

To this I say, "Read my lips ................. no new Bushes". We shall see.


----------



## MacDoc

For 40 years.....



> James Carville has finished a book making the case that we are at the beginning of a 40 year cycle in which the Republicans will be outside.
> 
> James Carville: If GOP Abandoned Christian Right, "Their Party Would Crumble"
> 
> It is telling that Republicans he has spoken with agree with his assessment. They are tied to the Christian Right like an anchor.


----------



## MacDoc

Ouch......silly apes we are at times......best water on the planet and what do some want to do



> *The battle over the world's purest water*
> 
> Environmentalists vow to stop a plan to build a garbage dump in Ontario's Tiny Township, famed for water as clean as any on Earth
> 
> MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
> 
> From Monday's Globe and Mail
> 
> May 4, 2009 at 5:10 AM EDT
> 
> ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
> 
> Groundwater beneath Ontario's Tiny Township has been called the cleanest in the world, as pristine as if it were drawn from ancient ice buried deep in an Arctic glacier.
> 
> The Ontario government is about to find out whether this super-clean water - found gushing out of artesian wells in a rural, farming area about 120 kilometres north of Toronto - can coexist with a notorious source of contaminants: a garbage dump.
> 
> If all goes according to plan, some time this year trucks will begin dumping municipal trash into a provincially approved landfill atop the unspoiled water, which won its reputation as the cleanest in the world after testing at a German university in 2006 found that samples had some of the lowest levels of trace metals ever observed.
> 
> The province says the location of the dump is nothing to worry about, but Ontario's Environmental Commissioner is decrying the selection of the site. So are prominent conservationists, including Maude Barlow, the UN's water adviser and head of the Council of Canadians, who calls the dump a "travesty." She has vowed to "sit in front of bulldozers if necessary" to stop it. Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May also wants the dump shelved.
> 
> The presence of bountiful amounts of water is one of the reasons the site is attractive for a dump. There is so much hydraulic pressure under the proposed landfill that clean water will tend to naturally seep into the dump pit. The landfill will be equipped with pipes to collect any seepage, which will be trucked to a sewage plant for treatment because it will be contaminated with garbage residues.
> 
> The design is thought to be an improvement over dumps that leak into the surrounding groundwater.
> 
> Although a landfill designed to have water leak into it sounds counterintuitive, it is becoming common and has received the blessing of Ontario's Environment Ministry.
> 
> The ministry and Simcoe County, which will operate the site, both insist it won't pose a risk. "This site, when we build it, will be the most protective site in the county," said Rob McCullough, Simcoe County's director of environmental services.
> 
> The site sits over thick clay, which is an added defence against groundwater contamination, and it will have a plastic liner, another barrier.
> 
> Even before the chance discovery that it lies above unusually pure water, the dump had become one of the longest-running and strangest environmental disputes in Canada.
> 
> The Tiny Township site was selected in the mid-1980s, when municipalities in northern Simcoe County were looking for a new landfill to replace one that was leaking toxic chemicals into groundwater after illegal hazardous-waste dumping.
> 
> The choice was subjected to a provincial environmental assessment, which in 1989 rejected it, saying the county's evaluation process was "in part non-existent" and "flawed." That would have effectively killed it, but for an unusual political decision.
> 
> The then-Liberal cabinet of Ontario in 1990 ordered the environmental assessment to resume, in effect approving the site. Cabinets rarely exercise this kind of power, especially for a relatively small dump located in a rural backwater.
> 
> "I've never seen anything like this," said Gordon Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. "How on earth this thing got escalated to a cabinet agenda, I have no idea. That in itself is very unusual. Somebody obviously had the juice to do that."
> 
> Because it has taken nearly 25 years for the dump to be ready for construction, standards have changed and Mr. Miller said he doubts the site could pass muster if it were chosen today.
> 
> "It would be screened out," he said.
> 
> Mr. Miller said one of the reasons he believes the dump wouldn't be approved is that that the site is so waterlogged that large amounts of pumping will be needed to prevent the plastic liner that will be placed under the garbage from floating up. The county has a provincial permit to remove nearly 250 million litres while the dump is being constructed.
> 
> The site is also close to an airport, raising worries about bird collisions.
> 
> Since the area's dump closed in 1987, residents have been sending their garbage to other landfills in the county and elsewhere. One justification for the dump is that the residents don't have a landfill of their own, and are using up capacity elsewhere in Simcoe.
> 
> Even so, the county council has been bitterly divided over the dump, and approved it by only a one-vote margin.
> 
> Mr. Miller has asked the province to review its approval, but the request was ignored.
> 
> A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, Cindy Hood, said government scientists have analyzed the data supporting the dump and vouch for it. "We're confident that the site ... will be operated in an environmentally responsible way," she said.
> 
> ***
> 
> The gold standard for purity
> 
> The water under the proposed landfill in Tiny Township has been named the world's purest because it has extremely low concentrations of trace metals.
> 
> The amounts of cobalt, chromium and vanadium match those found in the cleanest layers of Arctic ice drawn from deposits as much as 15,000 years old. The lead concentrations are among the lowest detected anywhere in the world.
> 
> At one time it was thought the water was so clean because it was ancient and dated from the last ice age, but researchers now believe it's of much more recent vintage. It probably fell nearby as rain within the past 20 years.
> 
> The secret to the clean water is that as rain slowly drains through the area's glacial soil, pollutants are removed.
> 
> The clean water has already been used for research - as a kind of gold standard of purity. It was used in a study that found many samples of supposedly high-quality bottled water actually contained elevated traces of a metal, antimony, that leaches out of plastic containers into the beverages.
> 
> Martin Mittelstaedt


----------



## Dr.G.

This just in from CNN.com

"George W. Bush often has said that historians will vindicate his presidency. And since he left office, he's moving fast to give them the tools.

Longtime financial backers of the 43rd president have raised more than $100 million for a presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas that will house his official papers, sources close to Bush told TIME." 

This fundraising effort was done in less than 100 days.


----------



## Dr.G.

Police: Bus Driver Refuses To Drop Kids Off After School - News Story - WEWS Cleveland

If I was a parent, I would be frantic as well.


----------



## MacDoc

> *Baby flies from car, drunk mom flees the scene*
> 
> By Emily Kaiser in How We Live, Notable accomplishments by Minnesotans
> Friday, May. 8 2009 @ 1:36PM
> 
> Nope, this isn't a trashy comedy film about hicks in trailer parks. This story is real and terribly embarrassing. Why people like this reproduce is beyond us. Save the human race by not making more humans to destroy.
> 
> Willmar police say a drunk mom took such a sharp turn in a cul-de-sac at a trailer park that the back car door swung open and her 4-month-old fell out into the street after not being strapped in. To top off the classy move, the mom sped off, leaving the crying infant in the street.
> 
> Tuck and roll, baby.
> 
> Elaine Velasquez, 22, was arrested Wednesday and charged with a long list of crimes: drunken driving, child endangerment, reckless driving, and driving with a suspended license. During the breath test, she had a blood alcohol content of 0.125 percent
> 
> Luckily the baby survived with minimal injury. The infant had a forehead scrape and was kept in the hospital overnight for observation.
> 
> Prior to the incident, Velasquez was arguing with a man at a home in the park. She and the man got into the car, a 1992 Lincoln Town Car, and the baby was placed in the car seat in the back. The seat was not attached to the car's seat belts.
> 
> A woman reported seeing the car speeding toward the cul-de-sac and then making a left turn that was so hard, the tires squealed, the right back door swung open and the car seat flew out.
> 
> The witness heard a baby crying from the pitched car seat as Velasquez and the man continued arguing. The man then left the scene on foot, and Velasquez drove off.
> 
> When police found her, she apologized and asked if her baby was OK. How sweet of her.
> 
> In other excellent Minnesota parenting news, a Brainerd woman has been sentenced for biting her child. It's a highly effective discipline method, or so we've heard.


----------



## MacDoc

Incredible Frontline on PBS about Madoff. ON this week.










FRONTLINE: the madoff affair | PBS


----------



## Dr.G.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- About 500 students will graduate this weekend from Atlanta's prestigious Morehouse College. One person who won't be there is Rashad Johnson, shot three times by a fellow student. But the shooter will receive his diploma -- part of a plea deal that spared him up to 20 years in prison.

Even Atlanta's chief district attorney, Paul Howard, is outraged by the generous plea deal, an offer that was made by a prosecutor under his command.

"First of all, for the victim and his family, they deserved a better resolution," said Howard, a Morehouse graduate himself. "It seems like the wrong person got the right benefit."

Student who shot classmate to graduate, no jail time - CNN.com


----------



## MacDoc

> *Texas mum Mia Washington has 'twins' to different dads*
> 
> By staff writers
> NEWS.com.au
> 
> May 18, 2009 03:10pm
> 
> ASTONISHED US medics say there's "an overwhelming 99.999 per cent chance" that a set of 11-month-old Texan twins have been born to different fathers.
> 
> Babies Justin and Jordan Washington arrived just seven minutes apart, UK tabloid The Sun reports, but were conceived separately because their mother Mia was cheating on partner James Harrison.
> 
> A disbelieving Mia, 20, told The Sun: “Out of all the people in America and all the people in the world, this had to happen to me.”
> 
> The Texas mum admitted having the affair at the time she conceived, and submitted to a paternity test because the two boys looked so unalike.
> 
> The double pregnancy is known technically as “heteropaternal superfecundation”.
> 
> It can occur when a woman woman releases multiple eggs during ovulation, which can be fertilised individually by sperm cells from separate partners.
> 
> Genny Thibodeaux, from Clear Diagnostics DNA Lab which did the test, said: “It’s crazy. Most people don’t believe it can happen but it really can.”
> 
> The test result means the boys will now be officially referred to as half-brothers.


.


----------



## MacDoc

> Published: 05.18.2009
> 
> *Phoenix man killed in gun-safety demo*
> 
> ARIZONA DAILY STAR
> 
> A 26-year-old Phoenix man accidentally killed himself early Sunday while explaining gun safety to two Sierra Vista residents.
> Samuel Benally Jr. was at an apartment on West Tacoma Street when he said guns should be kept unloaded because people could point them at their heads, said Sierra Vista police Sgt. Brett Mitchell.
> Benally then demonstrated by putting his own 9mm Ruger, *which he believed to be unloaded,* to his head and firing it, Mitchell said.
> Benally was flown to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Mitchell said.
> An investigation is ongoing, but police do not believe alcohol or drugs were involved, Mitchell said.
> Kim Smith


----------



## MacDoc

> *Driver evading ticket runs over traffic agent*
> 
> May 23, 2009 10:04 AM
> 
> THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
> 
> NEW YORK–An NYPD traffic agent was *hospitalized with broken legs and a head injury* after she was run down by a driver trying to evade a parking ticket.
> 
> The incident happened Friday afternoon on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx.
> 
> Police say the 26-year-old agent was about to write a ticket for a double-parked car when the motorist ran to the vehicle, got in and tried to drive away.
> 
> As he made his escape, the car knocked the agent to the ground and then drove over her, crushing her legs.
> 
> Police were trying to identify a suspect. They say the traffic agent is in guarded condition at St. Barnabas Hospital.


for a parking ticket???!!....some people...

I would NOT want to be the person responsible......the whole law library will get thrown at said offender.....


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> for a parking ticket???!!....some people...
> 
> I would NOT want to be the person responsible......the whole law library will get thrown at said offender.....


"DIp-lo-matic immunity..."


----------



## Dr.G.

"LONDON, England (CNN) -- A royal chauffeur was suspended Sunday after he allegedly allowed undercover reporters from a British tabloid to enter Buckingham Palace in exchange for cash."

Royal chauffeur suspended after alleged palace security breach - CNN.com


----------



## MacDoc

If anyone is watching the Indy today there is an incredible story emerging










one would think driver and car are toast....literally......

nope.....



> During a pit stop, Vitor Meira got the OK to pull away before the fuel probe was totally withdrawn, resulting in a full-car fireball!
> 
> * The pit crew quickly put out the fire and Meira went back into the race and remained on the lead lap! *Cajones? Yep.


it gets worse.... the racing gods were out to get him......a few laps later.....that's him up on the wall 



> *Meira breaks back in Indy 500 crash*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Vitor Meira, of Brazil, crashes into the wall as his teammate A.J. Foyt IV passes by during the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, May 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Bill Friel)_
> 
> By Bill Friel (AP)
> Published: 2009-05-24 18:30:06
> Location: INDIANAPOLIS
> 
> Veteran Vitor Meira has broken two vertebra in his lower back and will spend at least two days in an Indianapolis hospital after a scary crash late in the Indy 500.
> 
> In the closing laps, Meira, last year's runner-up, collided with rookie Raphael Matos, sending Meira's car sliding along the wall on two wheels.
> 
> Track officials say Meira will be fitted for a back brace at Methodist Hospital, where he was taken for further evaluation. He's not expected to have surgery. Earlier in the race, Meira's car caught on fire on pit road.
> 
> Matos bruised his right knee and was released from the infield medical center.


 quite the day for him.....

Quite a drama story for the winner too

Helio Castroneves is a winner again - ESPN


----------



## Snapple Quaffer

*Moron*

You really did read it here!

Oafus Caledensionis ... a thriving species.


----------



## MacDoc

watch the video

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Passer-by pushes suicide man off bridge

for some reason it reminds me of something from Patton.... .


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> watch the video
> 
> BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Passer-by pushes suicide man off bridge
> 
> for some reason it reminds me of something from Patton.... .


MacDoc, I would be proud to follow you ............ anywhere .......... anytime. Paix, mon ami.

YouTube - General George S. Patton "Wonderful Guys" line


----------



## MacDoc

> Stubborn mules attached to a cart block a bridge and stall a convoy causing a lot of destruction as it is strafed by German planes. When Patton finds out what the hold up is, he's furious. Without hesitation he pulls out his pistol and executes the mules. The owner of the mules stares in disbelief as the animals are discarded over the bridge.


sometimes decisive action is required......this Chinese take charge guy obviously thought so.....note the clapping....

I actually thought Karl Malden stole the movie from George....


----------



## MacDoc

oops

Danger at Every Turn on truTV.com Video


----------



## KC4

Mom puts GPS tracker on her son


> Harry Wilder is not a 7-year-old who is prone to chase passing dogs and cars.
> Harry is 19 and will soon start a business management degree course at Oxford Brookes University in England.
> Before he does, he's going on a long trip to Australia, Thailand, and South Africa. In fact, he's already in Australia. So is his Traakit, which allows his mom to locate him to within 15 feet of his actual body.


----------



## MacDoc

in any number of ways





> *Hungry tiger pounces on motorcyclist*
> Thursday, May 28, 2009
> A hungry tiger has been captured in Russia - after it was run over when it tried to pounce on a motorbike rider.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _The tiger on the road before being captured_
> 
> The big cat leapt at the biker as he drove along the road in Vyazemsk, Russia, but was hit in mid-air by a car.
> 
> *'It just ran right in front of me - I hit it just as it was about to leap on the bike rider,' * the driver of the car told local media.
> 
> Vets say that the tiger had probably been driven to stalk populated areas after running out of food. Wildlife experts were able to sedate the cat run-over, which had sustained minor leg injuries, and have now taken it to a local zoo.
> 
> Keepers estimate that the animal hadn't eaten for a month - possibly after becoming ill and being unable to catch its prey. However, they say that it is now recovering.


a somewhat satisfactory ending to what could have been "nasty all around" tale....


----------



## MacDoc

UNreal........not only expensive but totally incompetent..... - there are no words....



> *Victim of mistaken amputations gets rare second chance to sue*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Written arguments due Monday after a Florida judge reversed a jury verdict ruling against quadruple amputee who went to hospital with a kidney stone_
> 
> Davie, Fla. — Associated Press, Friday, May. 29, 2009 12:26PM EDT
> When the sharp pain shooting through Lisa Strong's back got worse, she thought it was another kidney stone and expected the discomfort to pass. This time was different.
> 
> Through a series of mistakes, miscommunications and misdiagnoses, she wound up having her arms and legs amputated. She sued the doctors, who essentially blamed one another for what everyone involved agrees were profound errors.
> 
> Everyone except the jury that ruled against Ms. Strong.
> 
> The verdict came in the face of such overwhelming evidence that in a rare move, the judge tossed out the jury's decision and ordered a new trial.
> 
> As she awaits her second chance in court, Ms. Strong vividly remembers the day she became ill.
> 
> On Sept. 20, 2003, she was at her job at a mall and could barely walk. She went home, and hours later, the pain grew more intense. Her fever spiked at 106 degrees. She decided to go the ER.
> 
> “I told the nurse I had a kidney stone. I had a history of kidney stones,” said Ms. Strong, now 45.
> 
> But the stone was never treated, setting off a downward spiral that triggered a life-threatening infection and septic shock that starved her limbs of blood. Her flesh turned black as a “line of death” crept up her arms and legs. It didn't stop for a month.
> 
> “I figured if I exercised, moved around, I could get the circulation back. But it's like frostbite,” she said. “My fingers turned black. My toes and the bottoms of my feet turned black. My fingers started to curl. It looked like I had held them in a fire, like they were charred.”
> 
> A month after she first went to the hospital, doctors amputated her legs below the knees. Three days later, her arms below the elbows.
> 
> Two years later, Ms. Strong sued the doctors for negligence. Lawyers involved think so many mistakes were made, the jury had a hard time fixing blame.
> 
> But Broward County Circuit Judge Charles M. Greene reversed the jury's verdict and concluded it was “contrary to the law and the manifest weight of the evidence.”
> 
> Such reversals are extraordinary. According to the U.S. National Center for State Courts, judges set aside jury verdicts in only 78 of 18,306 civil trials in the United States in 2005, the most recent year complete statistics are available. That's less than one-half of 1 per cent.
> 
> The two physicians — emergency room Dr. Laurentina Kocik and attending physician Dr. Jason Strong, no relation to Lisa — have appealed the judge's ruling. Written arguments are due Monday, though another trial could be at least a year from now.
> 
> Dr. Kocik, a 30-year veteran of ER medicine, insists she told Dr. Strong over the phone that Ms. Strong likely had a kidney stone. Dr. Strong works for a firm contracted by Ms. Strong's insurance company to make medical decisions if her personal doctor isn't available or chooses not to make the call.
> 
> But Dr. Kocik didn't write “kidney stone” on her diagnosis report. Asked during the trial if she wished she had written it down, Dr. Kocik said: “You better believe I wish I did ... a million times.”
> 
> Dr. Strong remembers talking with Dr. Kocik and there was no mention of a kidney stone. He also was not told she was in septic shock, so he went with a diagnosis of acute cholecystitis, a gallbladder condition unrelated to the kidneys.
> 
> Dr. Strong handled everything by phone, which is common in such cases.
> 
> “I did not come in this particular case because, No. 1, I felt the patient was reasonably stable. I was not given a history that the patient was in septic shock or that she was crashing and dying,” he said.
> 
> Dr. Kocik insists she stressed the dire condition. She said she expected Dr. Strong to give a few treatment orders and immediately come to the hospital. She also didn't turn the case over to her ER replacement during a shift change because Dr. Strong was calling the shots.
> 
> “I needed him to examine and make his own decision,” Dr. Kocik said. “I wanted for him to come in. I expected him to come in.”
> 
> But he never did. And Ms. Strong waited hours to undergo unnecessary surgery, which further weakened her. Finally, about 16 hours after she came to the ER, a test revealed the kidney stone that was causing her life-threatening infection. It was removed.
> 
> Four months later, Ms. Strong got out of the hospital, a quadruple amputee.
> 
> Dr. Anthony Smith, chief of urology at the University of New Mexico medical school, said it is critical people get prompt treatment for kidney stones.
> 
> “You can get a massive, overwhelming infection,” Dr. Smith said. “When we have patients die, it's almost always because they delayed coming into the hospital.”
> 
> But Ms. Strong didn't delay in getting to the hospital.
> 
> Life has been difficult since she was discharged. She struggles to prepare meals with her prosthetic limbs. Her 10-year-old daughter, Chloe, helps her put on makeup.* She's in constant pain and owes some $850,000 (U.S.) in medical bills.*
> 
> Her 10-year marriage fell apart and ended with the couple sharing custody of Chloe and another child, nine-year-old Jesse. She gets by on monthly $1,600 in disability payments.
> 
> Lately, she has had misgivings about the new trial.
> 
> “I had decided, this is over. I'm moving forward. Now, this whole thing is back on my lap and hanging over my head. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt,” she said. “Everybody says you really can't win at these things.”


----------



## KC4

> Man fathers 21 children by 11 different women... and he's only 29
> By PAUL THOMPSON
> Last updated at 3:04 AM on 29th May 2009
> 
> A man aged 29 has fathered 21 children with 11 different women, it emerged yesterday.
> 
> Desmond Hatchett's brood came to light after authorities in Tennessee in the U.S. took him to court for non-payment of child support.
> 
> He has apparently set a U.S. record but said: 'It just happened.'
> 
> 
> He's the daddy: Desmond Hatchett speaks to reporters about his prolific brood
> 
> He added that he would not have any more children. 'I'm done. I'll say I'm done,' he said.
> 
> Hatchett, who earns a minimal wage, told TV reporters he knows the names and ages of all his offspring.
> 
> Their ages range from newborn to 11 years old.
> 
> Authorities in Knoxville said they plan to take half of his monthly salary to pay for the youngsters but officials said that would work out to just over £1 a week for each.
> 
> His lawyer Keith Pope said: 'The children can't all be supported by Desmond, so the state of Tennessee has had to step in.'
> 
> Many Knoxville residents called for him to be castrated.
> 
> He even boasted of fathering four children by different women in the same year.
> 
> Hatchett's name appeared on court documents 11 times representing 15 of his 21 children.
> 
> U.S. authorities are now braced for more women coming forward to claim Hatchett is the father of their children after he appeared on local TV.
> 
> He said the women he was involved with all knew he had other children.
> 
> One mother, who has two children with Hatchett, said she should get £44 a month but rarely receives any child support.
> 
> 'It's frustrating, but usually, when I ask he gives it to me,' she said.
> 
> Authorities in Knoxville ordered Hatchett to court to explain how he intends to pay child support.
> 
> He arrived for the hearing with just over £300.


Desmond Hatchett fathers 21 children by 11 different women... and he's only 29 | Mail Online


----------



## MacDoc

Moron Cuts Tree and Crushes His PorchVideo


----------



## MacDoc

Bizarre



> *Stolen Picture*
> 
> May 28th, 2009
> 
> So, this is the price we pay for indulging in social media, I guess.
> 
> I am thrilled to have reconnected with so many friends on Facebook. One of them sent me this message yesterday:
> 
> Alright, so how’s this for random: I’m in the car, taking my wife for a check up, pass by a new grocery store and notice that they have a picture of you, your husband and two kids on the store front window. Life size. I kid you not. Will take a photo of it later today and send….
> 
> What you don’t know from this message: this college friend lives in the CZECH REPUBLIC.
> 
> Clearly, my family did NOT take a picture for any advertisements - either here or abroad. And, clearly, whoever hijacked the picture assumed no one would recognize us so far away. Hmmmm…wrong.
> 
> I’ll admit, there is an element of flattery (I think) to the whole thing. But still, there is something creepy about knowing our family picture was stolen from one of my sites. This is the only place the picture exists on my blog. It is a scanned picture of our Christmas card. It is also on my Facebook page (which is one of the reasons Justin recognized us) but my FB page is open only to friends.
> 
> Perplexing.
> 
> Here is the real picture:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And here is our modeling debut in Prague.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> According to my friend, Justin, the translation reads: _ “We will prepare and deliver your requests in two business days.” _
> 
> Thanks, Justin for letting me know!
> 
> Interesting. Bizarre. Flattering, I suppose. But quite creepy.
> 
> This picture was taken by a friend of mine, Gina Kelly. She does give me the rights to the pictures she has taken - and has authorized me to use them on my site, etc.
> 
> Your thoughts?
> Filed under Are you kidding me?, I'm just sayin' |


Stolen Picture at Extraordinary Mommy


----------



## MacDoc

> *A man was dead and for 2 weeks no one listened*
> 
> Jun 10, 2009 04:30 AM
> Be the first to comment on this article...
> JOE FIORITO
> 
> We're all in this together but some of us are alone. I do not mean those people who are single.
> 
> Edmond Channo lives in community housing on Davenport Rd., west of Lansdowne – a nice building in a tough but plucky neighbourhood. He pays market rent for his apartment. He has two fish in a tank, and many potted flowers and an armchair on the balcony.
> 
> In early May, it occurred to him that he had not seen his neighbour for a while. "I didn't know his name. I'd meet him coming in or going out. We never talked. He wouldn't talk. He was nice, though.
> 
> "He had a daily ritual – he'd sit at the convenience store across the street and smoke a couple of cigarettes. I'd say he was in his mid-60's.
> 
> "Last year, he went in the hospital. He lost weight. He began to look pale. He'd point to his stomach. There was pain in his face. We were concerned. And then I didn't see him. "And then, the smell."
> 
> Edmond knew that smell meant death, but he thought – he hoped – he was mistaken. "I knocked on his door a couple of times."
> 
> No answer.
> 
> What did he do then?
> 
> "I went downstairs. I found the assistant superintendent. I told him about the smell. He said, `We don't have the right to barge in.'"
> 
> Hmm, let's see: If you get no answer when you knock, and then you barge in, and the tenant is ill or in trouble, who will be upset? Or, if you barge in and the tenant is dead, who will be upset?
> 
> What did Edmond do?
> 
> "I left it there. I had things to do. A few days later, I went again to the assistant super. The odour had increased. I told him there was something wrong. I said something should be done."
> 
> Oh, well, you know how it goes sometimes in community housing: the people who work in the building are hired for maintenance, for security, to replace carpets, to mop floors. Dead bodies?
> 
> Not part of the job.
> 
> What did Edmond expect? "I was expecting him to call management." That is what you or I would expect: a simple human response, an act of community.
> 
> Edmond did not give up.
> 
> He raised the matter again a few days later. "The super said, `We have no right to go in. We can be sued. There could be money – someone could say we took money. There could be someone high on crack.'" Consider this: You go in with a witness. And the tenant of record is not a crack addict, but an older man with stomach pains.
> 
> Edmond said, "I had family matters to deal with at the time. I was preoccupied; my mother was not well. But the smell was unbearable."
> 
> He covered his own apartment door with a sheet, and poured fragrant oil on the sheet in order to mask the smell.
> 
> Ten days or so had now passed since he first raised his concern. "Then, a couple of days before Mother's Day, one of my neighbours – she doesn't speak English – pointed at the door and said, `Caca.' Finally I resolved to call security.
> 
> "I went down and walked into the office; someone was there; that's rare. He said, `I'm not the regular guy. You're talking about Apartment 312. We're waiting for the coroner." A little later, Edmond saw his neighbour taken away in a body bag.
> 
> People who live alone tend to die alone; that's a shame. Here's the greater shame: Edmond did what he should have done, and for two weeks no one listened.
> 
> Those who will not listen must be the loneliest people in the world.
> 
> Derek Ballantyne, the former CEO of TCHC, was recently awarded the Jane Jacobs prize for contributions to Toronto. The press release describes him as a "housing activist" and notes that, "Because of his vision, of his endurance, people in this city ... have a better idea of what public housing could be like."
> 
> I don't know about Jane, but I'll bet the guy who died across the hall from Edmond is spinning in his grave.


urk..... TheStar.com | GTA | A man was dead and for 2 weeks no one listened


----------



## Dr.G.

Whatever happened to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Insanity"????

Canadian Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

EVERETT, Wash. - Being honked off doesn't give you a right to honk on. 

That's the ruling from a Superior Court judge in Washington state in the case of a woman who expressed her anger at a neighbour by leaning on her car horn at 6 a.m. 

Helen Immelt, of Monroe, got into a dispute with the neighbour in 2006, after she learned that he had filed a complaint with their homeowners' association about her chickens. 

She responded by parking in front of his house at 5:50 a.m. the next day and leaning on her horn for 10 minutes straight. 

After he called the police, she returned for a second round of honking two hours later. 

Immelt was cited for a noise violation and appealed her conviction to the superior court, saying her honking was free speech. 

But Judge Richard J. Thorpe ruled Monday, "Horn honking which is done to annoy or harass others is not speech." 

Wash. judge: No, blaring your horn in front of your neighbour's house is not free speech


----------



## MacDoc

> *did israeli woman junk mother's mattress - with her $1m savings?*
> 
> jun 10, 2009 05:48 pm
> ian deitch
> the associated press
> 
> jerusalem – an israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress she said had almost $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites today.
> 
> The woman told the associated press that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise present on monday – and threw out the old one.
> 
> The next day, she said, she remembered that she had hidden her life savings inside the old mattress. "i woke up in the morning screaming, when it hit me what happened," said the tel aviv woman, who asked not to be identified.
> 
> She went to look for the mattress, but it had already been hauled away by garbage collectors, she said. Searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.
> 
> She said the money was in u.s. Dollars and israeli shekels. She refused to say how she acquired such a large sum. "it was all my money in the world," she said. There was no way to verify her claims, and she refused to disclose key details.
> 
> Israeli police spokesman micky rosenfeld said he was not familiar with the case and no report had been filed.
> 
> The israeli daily yediot ahronot published a picture of the woman searching through garbage at a dump in southern israel. The picture shows the woman, dressed in a white top and black pants with her back to the camera, picking through a huge pile of trash that fills the frame about 3 metres in all directions.
> 
> Yitzhak borba, the dump manager, told army radio that his staff was helping the woman, saying she appeared "totally desperate." he said the mattress was hard to find among the 2,500 tons of garbage that arrives at the site every day.
> 
> He said he increased security at the site to keep would-be treasure hunters away.
> 
> The woman said the money had been stashed in a mattress because she had had "traumatic experiences with banks" in the past. She would not elaborate.


some trauma!!!


----------



## MacDoc

> *Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash*
> 
> (Brazil Air Force/AP)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _The remains of Flight 447 is still being recovered
> officers recover debris belonging to the Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean_
> Philippe Naughton
> 
> An Italian woman who arrived late for the Air France plane flight that crashed in the Atlantic last week has been killed in a car accident, it has been reported.
> 
> Johanna Ganthaler, a pensioner from Bolzano-Bozen province, had been on holiday in Brazil with her husband Kurt and missed Air France Flight 447 after turning up late at Rio de Janeiro airport on May 31.
> 
> All 228 people aboard lost their lives after the plane crashed into the Atlantic four hours into its flight to Paris.
> 
> The ANSA news agency reported that the couple had managed to pick up a flight from Rio the following day.
> 
> *It said that Ms Ganthaler died when their car veered across a road in Kufstein, Austria, and swerved into an oncoming truck.* Her husband was seriously injured.


Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash - Times Online

It's hard to know what to say..........


----------



## MannyP Design

Ever see Final Destination?


----------



## Dr.G.

MannyP, that raises the interesting quandary -- "Could there really be a design? Does death really have a pattern planned out for everyone? And if so, after cheating death once, can you find a way to do it again?"


----------



## MacDoc

This one just boggles my mind..... 

TheStar.com | Canada | Canal deaths 'an accident'


----------



## i-rui

Wrestling midgets killed by fake hookers | Metro.co.uk

Wrestling midgets killed by fake hookers


"The world of Mexican midget wrestling is in mourning after two of its most famous stars were apparently poisoned by fake prostitutes.

Brothers in armlocks Alberto and Alejandro Pérez Jiménez were found dead in a hotel room after being drugged and robbed.

The women who spiked the twins' drinks are thought to be members of an organised crime gang who pose as prostitutes to attract victims.

They normally just knock out their victims but the dose proved too much for Alberto – aka 'La Parkita' (Little Death) and Alejandro – aka 'Espectrito II'.

The 36-year-olds were veteran stars of the 'Lucha Mini' world of midget wrestling.

They began their fighting careers 17 years ago in a tag team called the Small Devils and sometimes crossed over into American WWF/WWE wrestling.

Skeleton-masked La Parkita fought at the WWF Royal Rumble showpiece events in 1997 and 1998 in a tag team alongside Lucha Mini legend and Hollywood actor Mascarita Sagrada.

At the 1997 Royal Rumble, he faced – and beat – a tag team featuring his brother, who was fighting under the name Mini Mankind.

Alejandro also fought at WWE events using the alias 'Tarantula'. But it seems their wrestling careers were the last thing on their minds on Sunday night.

The luchadors picked up the two women after filming a TV fight show and took them to a hotel, according to police in Mexico City.

But while preparing for their 'bouts' they appear to have had their alcoholic drinks spiked before being robbed.

The pair were found by cleaners at the hotel on Monday. Tests suggested they had not had sex with the women.

It is thought their size made them more vulnerable to the drugs the women put in their drinks.

Police suspect a gang known as The Leak or The Drops was involved in the incident and said 20 people were arrested for similar crimes last year.

Yesterday, there were conflicting reports as to whether the 'prostitutes' had been arrested."


----------



## MacDoc

more detail on the car in the lock.... ;(



> ngrid Peritz
> 
> Montreal — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 03, 2009 07:15PM EDT
> 
> In a house in Montreal engulfed in grief and bewilderment, the parents of three sisters who died after their car plunged into the Rideau Canal wonder if it all began with a joy ride that went tragically amiss.
> 
> The mother and father of the teenaged girls say the eldest of the three had taken the family car without permission several times before. They worry that’s what happened on a rainy night in Kingston.
> 
> In an instant, a night-time outing sank the dreams of an immigrant family from Afghanistan who had come to create a better and safer life in Canada.
> 
> Still, the parents are casting no blame.
> 
> “It’s not Canada’s mistake, it’s my family’s mistake,” a shaken Mohammad Shafi, eyes rimmed with red, said in an interview in the family’s duplex.
> 
> The incident took place on a family road trip to Niagara Falls to mark the end of the school year. Mr. Shafi and his wife, Tooba, piled the seven children and a relative into two cars.
> 
> *They were returning home to Montreal when they stopped at a Kingston motel late at night to break up the drive. At about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, as everyone was bedding down, 19-year-old Zainab knocked on the door of her parents’ room and asked to borrow the keys to the Nissan Sentra.
> 
> “She said she had left her clothes in the car,” her mother said.
> 
> It would be the last time she would see her daughter alive.*
> 
> Both parents said Zainab had taken the car without permission in the past, even though she doesn’t have a driver’s licence, and may have done so again that night.
> 
> “She did it for fun. Maybe she wanted to go near the water,” Tooba Shafi said in an interview in the family kitchen, a shawl draped gently over her shoulders.
> 
> No one knows how the car could circumvent several obstacles to reach the canal’s waters, but it ended up submerged. Inside were the bodies of Zainab and her two younger sisters, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, none of whom could swim.
> 
> Also killed was Mr. Shafi’s 50-year-old cousin, Rona Amir Mohammed. He said his cousin didn’t know how to drive, making it unlikely that she was at the wheel.
> 
> The next morning, the couple woke up to find their daughters and the Nissan gone. In a panic, they eventually turned to Kingston police, only to learn the vehicle had been found at the bottom of the canal.


continues

Devastated parents say daughter might have been practising driving - The Globe and Mail


lucky that there was an observant Parks Canada worker about....that would have been even more of a "disappear into thin air mystery""



> *The car was found Tuesday morning after a Parks Canada worker saw a slick of oil on the water*.
> A Navy diver who happened to be on the scene reportedly said there were major dents in the drivers' side of the car.


What a horror for the rest of the family tho.....family outing goes all wrong...


----------



## MacDoc

> *Woman, 85, lay dead in her flat for FIVE YEARS before anyone noticed*
> 
> By Steven Henry
> Last updated at 6:05 PM on 03rd July 2009
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Forgotten: Isabella Purves' body lay undiscovered for five years_
> 
> The badly decomposed remains of an 89-year-old woman were discovered in her flat five years after she died, police revealed today.
> 
> Isabella Purves' body was only found after a downstairs neighbour noticed water dripping through the ceiling of her tenement flat and reported it to the local council.
> 
> Officers forced their way into her flat, fighting through the piles of unopened mail which had gathered behind her front door, before making the gruesome discovery.
> 
> It is thought nobody noticed Miss Purves was missing as her pension was paid directly into a bank account and bills were paid by direct debit.
> 
> Today, as detectives tried to trace the elderly woman's relatives, neighbours, pensioners' charities and politicians spoke of their horror over the tragic case, which one described as a glaring example of the country's fractured society.
> Isabella Purves's flat in Edinburgh
> 
> Tragedy: Isabella Purves is believed to have lain dead in her flat - the top bay window - in Edinburgh since 2004
> 
> The last reminder was sent out in 2004. His wife, Dorothy, who co-owns the business, said the discovery was 'an indictment' of society.
> 
> She said: 'Nobody cares any more, that's pretty sad. It's down to basic neighbourly behaviour. I would hope people would be looking out for others.'
> 
> Giovanni Cilia, who owns the Fioritalia florist below Miss Purves's traditional tenement flat, said he was shocked at how long it took to find her. He said: 'How did no one notice the smell, or wonder where she was?
> 
> 'I heard there was a big pile of letters and bills behind the door. I used to see her walk past the shop maybe four times a week. She would often go across the street and pick up litter to clean the place up.'
> 
> Mr Cilia, who has run the shop for 20 years, added: 'It's shocked everyone here. When I saw her she looked quite fit and healthy for her age. 'She used to wear boots and would often carry a rucksack like she enjoyed going for walks.'
> 
> Isabella's neighbour Lucy Balloch, 28, added: 'It's very saddening and a real shock. There are a lot of people moving in and out all the time in here and it's not easy to get to know the neighbours that well.
> 
> 'That's maybe why nobody suspected anyone was in there.'
> Enlarge Isabella Purves's flat in Edinburgh
> 
> Tragic: Isabella Purves' name is still on the doorbell to her flat
> 
> Little is known about Miss Purves, although it is thought she never married.
> 
> The windows of her top-floor flat were left open today in the tenement building, which occupies a block on the busy junction with Broughton Road, above a pub and row of shops.
> 
> Douglas McLellan, of Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland, said it was a 'tragic case'.
> 
> He said: 'If she was not receiving care treatment from anyone and not receiving social care, then the likelihood of being found quickly is minimal.
> 
> 'The question is not just about public services finding people and neighbours checking up, it's about how elderly people themselves are living their lives. If they're leading private lives, then how are people going to find them?'
> 
> Mr McLellan urged people to take more notice of their neighbours and 'knock on doors' if there is any concern.
> 
> 'Society has fractured. We're not in the same units as we used to be. People might not phone their own gran more than once a month,' he added.
> 
> Meanwhile, Labour leader Iain Gray, MSP, said he was 'shocked and troubled' by the case. 'These sad circumstances are a reminder to us all to make an effort to speak to our neighbours whenever we get the chance, especially those who are elderly and on their own,' he added.
> 
> Malcolm Chisholm, Labour MSP for Ms Purves' constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith, said: 'It is deeply disturbing that the body of an elderly person can lie undiscovered for five years.
> 
> 'In the city of Edinburgh there is a great sense of community but with such a bustling sometimes transient population it is worthwhile and really important that young and old reach out and build those bridges.'
> 
> Edinburgh City Council confirmed it was contacted about a leak from the tenement but said Miss Purves was not a council tenant.
> 
> A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: 'Police were called to an address in Rodney Street in Edinburgh on June 30, after concerns were raised over an elderly resident.
> 
> 'On entering the premises, officers discovered the body of a 90-year-old woman. There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.'


Woman, 85, lay dead in her flat for five years before anyone noticed she was missing | Mail Online


----------



## MacDoc

Unreal irony.... Escape from tornado alley for a vacation and



> *Oklahoman visitors die in Ontario twister*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TOM THOMSON PHOTO
> _An aerial view of the Fisherman's Cove resort, 200 kilometres northeast of Kenora, after a tornado hit July 9, 2009._
> 
> Jul 11, 2009 04:30 AM
> 
> THANDIWE VELA
> STAFF REPORTER
> 
> They came from Oklahoma, home of some of the deadliest tornadoes in the U.S., for a bit of fishing and relaxation in northwestern Ontario.
> 
> But two American men were killed and a third is believed dead after a tornado hit their camping resort near Ear Falls, about 200 kilometres northeast of Kenora.
> 
> *The men were in one of two cabins that were uprooted and dropped into the lake by the twister when it hit the Fisherman's Cove Resort on Lac Seul about 8:30 Thursday evening.
> 
> Ontario Provincial Police Const. Beth Chevalier says she has not heard of a tornado touching down in northwest Ontario since the 1970s.*
> 
> Oklahoma, home to all three victims, sees more than 50 tornadoes a year.
> 
> Bernie Jackson, 65, and Stan Hollis, 79, were killed, according to the Tulsa World newspaper. Dennis Kinkaid, 66, was still missing yesterday, said his wife, Dayna.
> 
> "Here we are in tornado alley and you go to Canada and have this freakish thing happen," she told the paper.
> 
> The tornado was ranked as an F2 and had deadly force wind speeds between 180 and 240 km/h, according to Environment Canada.
> 
> "As we approach winds of around 200 km/h an hour or stronger, these are definitely deadly force winds and can do significant damage to structures," said meteorologist Geoff Coulson.
> 
> Five others who were inside the second cabin were treated for minor injuries at a Red Lake hospital, Chevalier said.


TheStar.com | Ontario | Oklahoman visitors die in Ontario twister


----------



## MacDoc

a series??!!!!










_Bicycles are scattered along the side of the road at an intersection in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata following a series of hit-and-run incidents on Sunday, July 19, 2009._



> *Driver arrested after van hits 5 cyclists in Ottawa*
> Updated Sun. Jul. 19 2009 6:16 PM ET
> 
> CTV.ca News Staff
> 
> Ottawa police say they have made an arrest after a minivan struck and seriously injured five cyclists. At least two of the cyclists are listed in critical condition.
> 
> Investigators say they have located the minivan involved in the incident.
> 
> The driver was not present at the scene when paramedics arrived Sunday morning and found most -- or all -- of the cyclists unconscious, at an intersection in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata.
> 
> A suspect turned himself in to police about two hours later.
> 
> "That male has since been arrested. He attended with his wife. We've since located the crime vehicle and seized it for forensic identification," said Acting Insp. John Maxwell.
> 
> A bystander called 911 at 7:52 a.m. to report the incident, Darryl Wilton, Ottawa Paramedics superintendent of operations, told CTV.ca.
> 
> According to Wilton, the first paramedic unit to arrive found the group suffering from a number of traumatic injuries:
> 
> A woman, believed to be in her 30s, who was found unconscious and in pre-cardiac arrest. According to Wilton, the woman sustained "significant" brain injuries, as well as a fractured ankle. She was treated by an advanced life support paramedic unit before being taken to hospital, where she is listed in critical condition.
> A 27-year-old female, who was also unconscious when paramedics arrived but regained consciousness with treatment. She suffered a closed head injury, as well as hip and upper leg fractures. She was flown from the scene in an air ambulance and is in serious condition in hospital.
> A 36-year-old male, who was found unconscious with a closed head injury and severe scalp lacerations. He is in critical condition.
> A 39-year-old male who sustained a concussion and a minor leg injury. He is in serious condition.
> A 45-year-old female, who also has a concussion, in addition to a fractured left arm and elbow. She is also in serious condition.
> It appears the victims were travelling together in a dedicated cycling lane at the time they were struck. According to Wilton, the distance between the point of impact and the patient farthest away was 120 metres.
> 
> Wilton said two paramedic supervisors on the scene told him that victims appeared to be dedicated cyclists, as they all had top-of-the-line equipment.
> 
> The cyclists were on their way to meet a woman, who identified herself to officials at the scene as a physician.
> 
> "When they didn't show up on time she was waiting and then when she saw the helicopter landing she thought, 'Oh no,'" Wilton said. "So she came to the scene."


CTV.ca | Driver arrested after van hits 5 cyclists in Ottawa


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) -- Giant jellyfish descend on the Sea of Japan, causing untold devastation to coastal villages and leaving a trail of destruction and human misery behind.

Japanese fishermen brace for giant jellyfish - CNN.com


----------



## MacDoc

More than met the eye....



> *3 arrested in canal deaths*
> 
> SUNNY FREEMAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Flowers sit near the Kingston Mills locks on the Rideau Canal, at a memorial honouring four Montreal residents who died there in a car crash days earlier, in Kingston, Ontario on Thursday July 2, 2009._
> 
> Three sisters, aunt were found dead in car that was found at the bottom of Kingston's Rideau Canal
> 
> Jul 22, 2009 05:42 PM
> ANDREW CHUNG
> QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
> 
> MONTREAL – Three members of the Montreal family in which three sisters and their aunt were found dead in their car that that plunged into Kingston's Rideau Canal late last month were arrested today.
> 
> As well, Kingston police have announced a press conference for 2 p.m. tomorrow where the police chief will be outlining all of the details of a major change in focus of the investigation.
> 
> Up to now, the police were considering the deaths to be "suspicious."
> 
> The three suspects were apprehended this morning while heading to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, possibly to flee the country, La Presse newspaper reported. They were taken to Kingston. They are suspected of having killed the women, according to La Presse.
> 
> The Shafi family came to Canada from Afghanistan, via Dubai, and have lived in Montreal for the past two years.
> 
> The Shafi sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, all died along with their aunt Rona Amir Mohammed. The family was returning from a trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto when they stopped for the night at a motel in Kingston. The car was found the morning of June 30 in the canal.
> 
> While the family claimed one of the older sisters might have taken the car out in an ill-fated attempt to practice driving, the circumstances were always uncertain. The car, for instance, would have had to traversed numerous obstacles to make it into the water.
> 
> Neighbours of the Shafi family in the Montreal borough of St. Leonard told the Toronto Star that Montreal and Kingston police were at the Shafi home last night for at least three hours.
> 
> Earlier this month, the supervising regional coroner Dr. Roger Skinner, told the Star that the preliminary autopsy results were given to the family. However, the family repeatedly denied to the Star having received any such results from the coroner.


TheStar.com | Crime | 3 arrested in canal deaths


----------



## MacDoc

> *Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe*
> Faraglioni Rocks on the Italian island of Capri
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _The romantic holiday isle of Capri lies in the Gulf of Naples_
> 
> A Swedish couple in search of the isle of Capri drove to Carpi, an industrial town in northern Italy, because they misspelt the name in their car's GPS.
> 
> Italian officials say the couple asked at Carpi's tourist office where they could find Capri's famous Blue Grotto.
> 
> The car's sat nav system had sent them 650km (400 miles) off course to Carpi.
> 
> "Capri is an island. They did not even wonder why they didn't cross any bridge or take any boat," said a bemused tourism official in Carpi.
> 
> Once they realised their mistake, the couple got back in their car and headed south, the official added.


a little over confidence in tech and monumental lack of common sense...


----------



## MacDoc

Damn Interesting • The Wrath of the Killdozer


----------



## MacDoc

Can you imagine !!!!!!!!????!!!!



> *My Bad! Woman's House Mistakenly Auctioned by Bank*
> 
> A Homestead woman's home was auctioned to the highest bidder
> By TODD WRIGHT
> Updated 5:32 PM EDT, Tue, Aug 18, 2009
> 
> Bloomberg News
> 
> You know times are tough when people are getting kicked out of their house when it’s not even for sale.
> 
> That’s what happened to Anna Ramirez after she found all of her stuff out on the front lawn of her Homestead home last week and a strange man demanding she get out of his newly purchased house.
> 
> The eviction came after Ramirez’s home was mistakenly auctioned off to the highest bidder by her bank, Washington Mutual. Usually, you get a warning before you get the boot. A foreclosure letter. Maybe a sign saying your house is up for sale. Not Ramirez, who found her belongings bashed and battered in the street.
> 
> "This came out of nowhere," Ramirez said. "The bank took the house from right under my feet."
> 
> The man who bought the house told Ramirez he paid $87,000 for it, which shocked Ramirez, who bought the house for $260,000.
> 
> What's worse is her husband, daughter and grand children were also kicked out by Homestead and Miami-Dade police officers, said Martha Taylor, who witnessed the unexpected eviction.
> 
> "I have never seen anything like it," Taylor said. "They literally threw all her stuff on the front lawn. I didn't sleep that night and it wasn't even my house."
> 
> Ramirez and her family had three hours to get out of the house, police ordered. They had to stash their belongings at multiple locations and shacked up with a friend for the night as cops chained the doors of their home. With Taylor's help, Ramirez appeared before a judge two days later to explain what happened.
> 
> "I had all my stuff scattered everywhere," she said. "They did this in front all my neighbors. It was so embarassing."
> 
> A mistake in the Miami-Dade Clerk's Office appears to be behind the mishap, which landed Ramirez homeless for more than 24 hours.
> 
> The sale was eventually reversed by a Miami-Dade judge, leaving one man pissed and looking for a new house to plunder and Ramirez back in her old digs. Ramirez said she wants to sue for the damage to her furniture.
> 
> "This shouldn't be happening, you know, because we did the right thing," she said. "We went step by step."
> 
> Ramirez has lived in the house for three years and recently refinanced the house with the bank.


My Bad! Woman's House Mistakenly Auctioned by Bank | NBC Miami


----------



## ComputerIdiot

Not sure there's anything I can add to this ... 



> Woman, 107 seeks husband 23
> 
> 17 September 2009 16:30 PM
> 
> A 107-year-old Malaysian woman is searching to find her 23rd husband.
> 
> Wook Kundor is on the hunt for a new man after her latest spouse Mohammed Noor Che Musa checked into a Kuala Lumper clinic for drug addicts.
> 
> However, Wook is convinced her 37-year-old partner will meet and fall in love with a younger woman.
> 
> The fickle wife has already started looking for 'Mr Right' in case her latest husband leaves her.
> 
> Wook holds the world record for the largest number of legal marriages.


Woman, 107 seeks husband 23 | Showbiz | STV Entertainment


----------



## Snapple Quaffer

Total utter eejits.


----------



## ComputerIdiot

... oops ...

:lmao:



> NAIROBI (AFP) – Somali pirates attempted to storm the French navy's 18,000 tonne flagship in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the French military said on Wednesday.
> The crew of La Somme, a 160-metre (525-foot) command vessel and fuel tanker, easily saw off the brazen night-time assault by lightly armed fighters on two lightweight skiffs and captured five pirates, a spokesman said.
> "The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs," Admiral Christophe Prazuck said in Paris.
> La Somme is the French command vessel in the Indian Ocean, overseeing French air, sea and land forces fighting Somali pirates and hunting terrorists under the banner of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.
> Officers on the ship have directed commando operations to free French hostages in the hands of Somali pirates.
> The pirates tried to flee when they realised their mistake but were pursued by French forces who, after an hour-long chase, caught one of the skiffs, Prazuck said.
> On it they found five men but no weapons, water or food as the pirates had apparently thrown all of the boat's contents overboard, the spokesman said.
> A Western official at sea in the area, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that there had been an exchange of fire between the warship and the pirate launches.
> "One of the skiffs managed to get away in the night because La Somme was busy with the first pirate boat," he said.
> "Despite the arrival of other vessels, they haven't yet managed to find the second boat," he said, adding that many warships in the area were busy hunting another group which attacked a cargo ship off the Seychelles on Sunday.
> The world's naval powers have deployed dozens of warships to the lawless waters off Somalia over the past year to curb attacks by pirates in one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes.
> La Somme was operating 250 nautical miles (460 kilometres) off the Somali coast, on its way to resupply fuel to frigates patrolling shipping lanes as part of the European Union's Operation Atalanta anti-piracy mission.
> This was not the first time that Somali pirates have mistakenly attacked a French naval vessel. Several pirates were captured in May when they attempted to board a frigate in the area.
> Somalia has had no proper government since it plunged into lawlessness after President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.
> The country is riven by factional fighting and pirate gangs operate freely from several ports along its Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden coasts.
> According to the environmental watchdog Ecoterra International, at least 163 attacks have been carried out by Somali pirates since the start of 2009 alone, 47 of them successful hijackings.
> Last year, more than 130 merchant ships were attacked, an increase of more than 200 percent on 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur.
> Pirates have in recent weeks resumed attacks with the end of the monsoon season. Last week Somali gunmen captured Spanish fishing boat The Alakrana with 36 crew members in the Indian Ocean.
> The US Maritime Administration warned last month that the end of the monsoon season was likely to bring an increase in piracy off Somalia and urged shipping companies to be vigilant.
> Calmer waters allow pirates, who often operate in small fibreglass skiffs towed out to sea by captured fishing vessels, to hijack freighters, trawlers and private yachts. Cruise vessels have also been attacked.


Somali pirates attack French military flagship - Yahoo! News


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## ComputerIdiot

MazterCBlazter said:


> The Somali pirates will come to Canada as refugees and then get a job in the civil service.


I'm sensing some skepticism there ...


----------



## ehMax

MazterCBlazter said:


> The Somali pirates will come to Canada as refugees and then get a job in the civil service.


Ummm... not appropriate, and somewhat off topic.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## EvanPitts

Only a few will ever "get it".

Perhaps the problem isn't your statement - it is just that it happens all of the time, so people do not have any facade of disbelief.

But then again, this country treats immigrants shabbily, recruiting them from all over so they can get low paying, minimum wage (or lower) jobs doing drugery in a sweatshop - mostly because employers of that sort are unwilling to hire regular people because it will only take five minutes for a regular person to invoke their rights and call the Ministry of Labour or the nearest Trade Union...


----------



## MacDoc

XX)

The Associated Press: Insurers dropping Chinese drywall policies


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## bgw

Some crminals are really dumb!


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## bgw

One of them will be Palin's running mate. The other will marry Bristol!


----------



## ComputerIdiot

Ahmadinejad Reportedly Claims U.S. is Blocking Return of Mankind's Savior - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News - FOXNews.com

Obviously he has not stopped to consider the implications of his comments vis-a-vis the power of the U.S. versus the power of this supposedly stranded saviour ...

And I'd love to know what this "documented" evidence is, and what the writers were smoking when they documented it.


----------



## CubaMark

*Missouri government plots undercover sting operations against families selling raw milk*



> In case you're not yet sure what you're reading here, note carefully that these daughters were not caught selling crack, meth or crank. They weren't dealing second-hand pharmaceuticals to yuppie school kids. They weren't selling e.coli-contaminated hamburger meat, cancer-causing diet sodas (made with aspartame) or canned soups laced with MSG. They weren't even selling broiler chickens contaminated with salmonella -- just as you can find in every grocery store in America. Nope, they were selling raw milk. You know, the bovine mother's milk, unpasteurized, unprocessed, non-homogenized and wholly pure, natural and innocent. The stuff America was raised on. The stuff your parents fed you when you were a kid, if your family was lucky enough to have a cow.


----------



## ComputerIdiot

CubaMark said:


> *Missouri government plots undercover sting operations against families selling raw milk*


We had a similar situation, oh, 20 years ago, in the very small town (basically a crossroads, LOL) in which I was starting my journalism career. I think the guy is _still_ fighting. And, of course, there are still people interested in purchasing his milk -- whether they think it's healthier or whether they just have hit their limit with having the government dictate their lives, I don't know.

Personally, I've tried raw milk cheese and find it has a great flavour. I've also made my own eggnog (raw eggs, anybody?) and didn't die from it, nor from the Steak Tartare I've had (there ya go, raw meat AND a raw egg! And don't forget the raw onions -- they probably kill off any germs!)


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> *Missouri government plots undercover sting operations against families selling raw milk*


I was about five before I found out that milk came from a cow and not from the milk machine in the basement of our apartment building. A quarter got you a quart of milk.

Fresh milk from a cow? I actually tried to milk a cow once, and had fresh from the source milk. Actually liked it ............... not bad for a kid from New York City ............... 

As for this case, they should be thrown into jail for at least three years.


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> I was about five before I found out that milk came from a cow and not from the milk machine in the basement of our apartment building. A quarter got you a quart of milk.
> 
> Fresh milk from a cow? I actually tried to milk a cow once, and had fresh from the source milk. Actually liked it ............... not bad for a kid from New York City ...............
> 
> As for this case, they should be thrown into jail for at least three years.


I assume you mean the ones ordering and running the sting.


----------



## MacDoc

> *Small price to pay*
> 
> Comments: 34
> *NYers' love for tiny apartments*
> 
> By ANGELA MONTEFINISE
> _Last Updated:_ 2:00 PM, December 13, 2009
> _Posted:_ 3:37 AM, December 13, 2009
> They do their dishes in the shower, sit sideways on the toilet and need to watch their weight just to fit into their bathrooms.
> But these cramped New Yorkers wouldn't have it any other way.
> A week after The Post told the story of Zaarath and Christopher Prokop and their 175-square-foot micro-studio on Sunday, other New Yorkers lined up to share their tales of living small, including a 55-square-foot apartment in Hell's Kitchen and a 90-square-foot home on the Upper West Side.
> SEE ALL THE PHOTOS
> "To me, it's all about location," said Eddie Rabon, 24, who lives in a microscopic Hell's Kitchen abode. "I'm in an amazing neighborhood, and the money I save on rent alone lets me really enjoy New York for what it is. My apartment is a place to hang my hat and catch a few hours of sleep. That's it."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Angel Chevrestt
> Eddie Rabon
> 
> see more videos
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *55 sq. ft., Hell’s Kitchen*
> When freelance event planner Eddie Rabon talks about his itty-bitty pad — just one square foot larger than a Rikers Island jail cell — the excitement is clear in his voice.
> “It’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s a great neighborhood in the greatest city. It’s about $800 a month. You won’t find that price anywhere else in this area. I feel like the money I save not having to get on the train to get around because I’m in the center of everything is worth it.”
> Rabon said the longest wall in his apartment is 121/2 feet, and that includes the apartment door. At its narrowest spot, he can spread his arms and almost touch both opposing walls. He said he has trouble turning around in his little shower, and said taller friends have been unable to close the bathroom door if they need to sit.
> “The bathroom has an airplane sink turned lengthwise,” he said. “So I can’t actually fit in over the sink
> *90 sq. ft., UWS*
> The first night Felice Cohen, 39, slept in her tiny apartment — with a full-size loft bed only 23 inches from the ceiling — she had a “panic attack.”
> “But now I love it. It’s cozy,” she said of the 12-by-7-foot place, which rents for just over $700 a month.
> Her tiny bathroom is a challenge, though: “I had to learn to sit sideways on the toilet so I don’t bang my leg on the tub.”
> *105 sq. ft., Greenwich Village *
> Genevieve Shuler, 31, always knew she wanted to live near Washington Square Park, the neighborhood her parents once called home. “When I first walked in, I thought, ‘This is really incredibly tiny,’” she said of the $780-a-month pad. “There were no closets, no real kitchen. But I knew I could do more with it . Once I knew my loft bed could fit, I took it.” When it comes time to do the dishes, because the kitchen sink is so small, “I do them in the shower.”
> 
> 
> Read more: Small price to pay - NYPOST.com


 :yikes:


----------



## Dr.G.

With me being claustrophobic, I could not survive in that small a space.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## KC4

Humanity would be the safest from now on by using the utmost in environmentally sound paper: Greenpeace flyers. 
Then They Came for the Toilet Paper and I Did Not Speak Out John Stossel


----------



## chasMac

KC4 said:


> Humanity would be the safest from now on by using the utmost in environmentally sound paper: Greenpeace flyers.
> Then They Came for the Toilet Paper and I Did Not Speak Out John Stossel


Very clever title Stossel came up with.


----------



## KC4

Ten commandments now only Nine?...
Priest advises congregation to shoplift | Mail Online


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## hayesk

KC4 said:


> Ten commandments now only Nine?...
> Priest advises congregation to shoplift | Mail Online


He has a point when it comes down to a choice between food or rent, or food or heat. Unfortunately, his point will probably be taken by many when it becomes a choice between food or an xbox, food or cigarettes, food or SUV payments, etc.


----------



## BigDL

This might the proper response for all consumers to deal with commercialism and Christmas gift giving Mark Fiore's Animated Cartoon Site


----------



## kps

*Des Sables Marathon.*

I have never heard of this marathon until a co-worker informed me that he's running it next year. It's a grueling 6-day, 243km run over sand dunes in the Sahara desert while carrying everything you need except water which will be provided on route.

I told him he's effing nuts, but he did good in the Honolulu marathon and wants to challenge himself. He's in his late fourties.

Marathon des Sables Introduction
*
Marathon des Sables - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## MacDoc

Wow - back to our savannah roots.

•••

How stupid is this...



> *A passenger set off fireworks on an Amsterdam to Detroit flight Friday afternoon, *causing a disturbance and several injuries, a Delta Airlines spokesperson said.
> 
> The incident took place on as Delta Flight 253, an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers, was landing in Detroit at about noon, Delta spokesperson Susan Elliot said.
> 
> The passenger was subdued, and the injuries were described as minor.
> 
> The FBI is investigating the incident.
> 
> With files from the Associated Press


CTV News | Firecracker lit on Detroit-bound flight, some injuries


----------



## MacDoc

Okay - different reality to the firecracker story



> *Passenger tried to blow up airplane: officials*
> Northwest Airlines passenger attempted to make use of an explosive device, initially thought to be a firecracker


Passenger tried to blow up airplane: officials - The Globe and Mail


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

Where do you find these unique sites, MCB??? Some are very interesting and unique.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

MazterCBlazter said:


> I do my best to be informed of what most everyone else seems to know, and then seek out other things that most are unaware of.


A wise approach in the quest for knowledge.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

MazterCBlazter said:


> I also try to see if the info is useful. I also try to understand viewpoints that I do not agree with to understand how and why they hold those views.


A wise philosophy, MCB. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## CubaMark

> "Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league."
> _-- announcement from the All-American Basketball Alliance, which hopes to launch in June with 12 teams in 12 cities_
> 
> "White, American-born citizens are in the minority now....Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?"
> _-- AABA commissioner Don "Moose" Lewis_


(Doonesbury)


----------



## Dr.G.

Mark, I have not heard of the All-American Basketball Alliance, and I wonder if it is legal?


----------



## hayesk

MazterCBlazter said:


> 10 Bizarre Phenomena


Number 9 on that list has been explained elsewhere by number 1.


----------



## CubaMark

*SoCal school district bans the dictionary*





> Southern California's Menifee Union school district has banned the Merriam Webster's 10th edition from use in fourth and fifth grade classes, over this salacious definition of "oral sex": "oral stimulation of the genitals".
> 
> "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.
> 
> While some parents have praised the move - "[it's] a prestigious dictionary that's used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern," said Randy Freeman - others have raised concerns.
> 
> "It is not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he may have even heard on the playground," father Jason Rogers told local press.
> 
> "You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next, pull encyclopaedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?"


(BoingBoing)


----------



## BigDL

:lmao:You gotta love the Excited States people lather up in.:love2:


----------



## Dr.G.

Good for them!!!!!!!!! Throw in copies of "Catcher in the Rye", the collected works of Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, and an assortment of other "questionable" works of literature, and they can have a real book burning bonfire. As we say in literacy education, "If you don't want kids to think, don't let them learn to read."


----------



## BigDL

Dr.G. said:


> Good for them!!!!!!!!! Throw in copies of "Catcher in the Rye", the collected works of Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, and an assortment of other "questionable" works of literature, and they can have a real book burning bonfire. As we say in literacy education, "If you don't want kids to think, don't let them learn to read."


...and from the other side of the debate "that'ill learn 'em"


----------



## Dr.G.

BigDL said:


> ...and from the other side of the debate "that'ill learn 'em"


True. Maybe they could hold the book burnings in the libraries of these schools. If the library and all its contents survive, then God wanted it to survive. If the library ............ and even the school burns down, then it was the will of God. Either way, the community is purged of these horrid words/phrases/ideas. 

"An idea is a greater monument to man than a cathedral."

YouTube - Inherit The Wind - Spencer Tracy Speech

YouTube - Darrow, Darwin & Dayton


----------



## BigDL

"...you can lock up a mouse or a man but can not lock up and idea." Mouseland speech Tommy Douglas


----------



## Dr.G.

BigDL said:


> "...you can lock up a mouse or a man but can not lock up and idea." Mouseland speech Tommy Douglas


Very true, BigDL. Of course ............. if you believe in this ........... you might be "one of them" ............... and you know what we need to do with those people, don't you?????? We don't need your kind of free-thinking/liberty loving/human rights supporting around these parts. So, keep on moving if you please. Merci, mon ami. Paix.


----------



## CubaMark

*Australian censor board demands large-breasted porn-stars*





> "Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them.


(BoingBoing)


----------



## SINC

> At first glance, the assignment must have seemed like something out of a Mission Impossible movie, but one even Tom Cruise would refuse to take on: Trek into the wilderness north of the Arctic Circle, retrieve a broken plane marooned on the edge of a remote, frozen lake, and find a way to drag it out of the bush some 2,500 kilometres back to civilization.
> 
> Oh, and do it in early spring when temperatures are still hovering around -40 C.
> 
> Sound like a fool's errand?
> 
> Not to Don Wieben, a vintage airplane enthusiast who has restored a number of older aircraft and flown them around Canada.
> 
> For this project, his prize was an abandoned Canso -- an amphibious plane built during the Second World War to hunt submarines and protect convoys crossing the Atlantic. Just a handful of the aircraft remain in the skies today, which is why Wieben, a farmer from Fairview, Alta., decided to recruit a group of relatives, friends and neighbours for an elaborate rescue mission.


Can-do farmers save Canso plane


----------



## Dr.G.

The Greensboro Four's act of civil defiance was 50 years ago today.

(CNN) -- "As the elderly white woman approached the four black students at the Woolworth's whites-only lunch counter, Franklin McCain braced for the worst.

"I was thinking to myself, she must have knitting needles and scissors in that handbag of hers and they're about to go right through me," McCain recalled. "I mean, we were invading her space, a space we were told we could not inhabit."

Fifty years ago Monday, McCain and three other freshmen at North Carolina A&T University took a stand by sitting at the lunch counter in the national chain's Greensboro, North Carolina, store.

The store had no qualms selling toothpaste or light bulbs to blacks, but a cup of coffee at the lunch counter? Out of the question. The Greensboro Four, as they came to be known, were fed up.

Instead of pulling a knitting needle on the young men, the woman placed her hand on McCain's shoulder and smiled warmly.

"She says, 'Boys, I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn't do this 10 years ago,' " McCain said. 

"That was the greatest source of inspiration to me, probably for all my life, primarily because it came from a very unexpected person," he said. "You picture 1960 in the South in a little old white lady's space and you are acting out of place, and she compliments you." "

Sit-in vet: 'Never request permission to start a revolution' - CNN.com


----------



## SINC

:clap::clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

Yes, that took guts. A year later, the Freedom Riders started their bus rides in the south.


----------



## CubaMark

*That’s one miraculous conception*



> Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina. Case report.


(Discover Magazine)


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) -- "There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 " scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates."

This is my old junior high school. Back when I was in grade seven, if we were caught doing this we were put on "scrub and rub" duty, cleaning off tables, walls, etc. Gum chewers had "scrape duty". 

Still, what they did to this young girl was stupid and way over the line.


----------



## Dr.G.

Today, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, won a straw poll for president on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Wonder what Sarah Palin is thinking right now????

At the same convention, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned those at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the left is "antithetical to the survival of America."

"I believe we are now in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America," Gingrich said. "I believe the radical left is a secular, socialist machine so dedicated to values destructive of America that if it is allowed to remain in power…that machine is antithetical to the survival of America as a prosperous healthy country. "

YouTube - The Communist Internationale (Original, with English Lyrics)


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Today, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, won a straw poll for president on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Wonder what Sarah Palin is thinking right now????
> 
> At the same convention, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned those at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the left is "antithetical to the survival of America."
> 
> "I believe we are now in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America," Gingrich said. "I believe the radical left is a secular, socialist machine so dedicated to values destructive of America that if it is allowed to remain in power…that machine is antithetical to the survival of America as a prosperous healthy country. "
> 
> YouTube - The Communist Internationale (Original, with English Lyrics)


I do believe that had Ron Paul been able to break the major network/Mega Corp. blockade he would have been the Republican nominee. I expect similar issues in 2012 will prevent any realistic run, unless of course he is willing to sell his soul as did W, Cheney, Palin and McCain.


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan said:


> I do believe that had Ron Paul been able to break the major network/Mega Corp. blockade he would have been the Republican nominee. I expect similar issues in 2012 will prevent any realistic run, unless of course he is willing to sell his soul as did W, Cheney, Palin and McCain.


I fear you are correct, eMacMan. While I don't support many of Ron Paul's views, I feel that he is an honest and honorable man.


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> I fear you are correct, eMacMan. While I don't support many of Ron Paul's views, I feel that he is an honest and honorable man.


He and Dennis Kucinich are about the only politicians (current crop) who have earned my respect. Opposite ends of the spectrum but their votes clearly reflect their stated policies.


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan, I too like some of what Dennis Kucinich has said and what he stands for, politically speaking. Men like him have the courage of their convictions to run for president when most say that he (or she) has no chance of winning. This is why I was an early supporter of Obama when everyone was saying that Clinton had the nomination wrapped up. 

I was about a month old when the classic headline of "Dewey beats Truman" was held aloft by HST on his way back to Washington, DC via train. So, "you can't make these things up".

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## eMacMan

*Woman charged in breast milk assault on jailer*



> *Woman charged in breast milk assault on jailer*
> 
> 
> A woman in jail for public intoxication was accused of assaulting a jailer by squirting breast milk at her. WYMT-TV reported that a 31-year-old woman was arrested Thursday on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication. But as she was changing into an inmate uniform, she squirted breast milk into the face of a female deputy who was with her.
> 
> The woman now faces a felony charge of third degree assault on a police officer. Her bond was set at $10,000.


Entire article quoted, found it here:
Woman charged in breast milk assault on jailer


----------



## MacDoc

Wasn't sure whether this should be in the feel good or face palm category..



> *Vehicle falls 700 ft, all six aboard survive!*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tue, Apr 6 05:40 PM
> New York, April 6 (ANI): A vehicle tumbled 700 feet off a cliff in Massachusetts over the weekend and miraculously all six people aboard survived.
> Kurt Wolfard, 29, a mechanic from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was among the six survivors of the frightening 700-foot plunge.
> "We're the luckiest people on the planet right now. Everyone there was calling it an Easter miracle," the New York Daily News quoted Wolfard as saying.
> The accident took place when Wolfard and the others decided to go out for a late-night joyride into the woods near South Hadley, Mass.
> With Wolfard were his sister-in-law Chloe Reynolds, 27, and her boyfriend, Greg Wilson, 28, both of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
> The crew, all there for the holiday weekend, piled into the old all-terrain vehicle to head to a nearby cliff for the view.
> "We all agree now that it was a dumb thing to do, acknowledging they had been drinking. We weren't planning on driving off a cliff," said Wolfard. (ANI)


Vehicle falls 700 ft, all six aboard survive! - Yahoo! India News


----------



## CubaMark

*What were you thinking? Man injured after using propane tank for target practice*












> _By The Canadian Press_
> 
> SHAKESPEARE, Ont. - Police say a southwestern Ontario man was injured by shrapnel after the propane tank he was using for rifle target practice exploded.
> 
> The man from Shakespeare, Ont., east of Stratford, was injured Monday night. Police say two young men were shooting at the tank when a rifle shot found its mark and caused an explosion.
> 
> Pieces of the cylinder flew back at the men, injuring one of them.
> 
> He was taken to Stratford General Hospital and has since been treated for his injuries and released.
> 
> No word yet if any charges will be laid.


(CP/Yahoo.Ca)


----------



## SINC

Quick, call for a ban on guns. The darn thing obviously shot the tank all by itself.


----------



## hayesk

SINC said:


> Quick, call for a ban on guns. The darn thing obviously shot the tank all by itself.


Let's lift the ban on nuclear weapons too. After all, people don't destroy themselves and the city around them, nuclear weapons do.


----------



## SINC

In either case, it takes a human to pull the trigger.


----------



## CubaMark

*Alberta principal vetos kilt at graduation*





> Hamish Jacobs is a graduating high-school student in Alberta, Canada. In deference to his Scottish heritage, he proposed to wear a kilt to the graduation ceremony, but the principal has rejected this proposal as being "inappropriate." Evidently, principal Mark Beazer is unfamiliar with the formal attire of other nations, and people in Scotland are up in arms over the issue.
> 
> Me, I say that school graduations should have the same dress-codes as science fiction conventions: "Wear anything you like, but remember, 'no costume is NO COSTUME.'" Provided you wear at least a modest cache-sexe or equivalent garment, you're clothed, and if you want to come as a superhero, a medieval blacksmith, a steampunk inventor, a tuxedoed gent, or a tentacled horror, that's great too.
> 
> Just remember: it's not a skirt. The last man what called it a skirt got kilt.


(BoingBoing)


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

Help protect people in Oregon!!!!!!!!

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Help save St.John's!!!!!!!! 

(CNN) -- "A piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan island has broken away from an ice shelf in Greenland, according to scientists in the U.S.

The 260 square-kilometer (100 square miles) ice island separated from the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland early on Thursday, researchers based at the University of Delaware said.

The ice island, which is about half the height of the Empire State Building, is the biggest piece of ice to break away from the Arctic icecap since 1962 and amounts to a quarter of the Petermann 70-kilometer floating ice shelf, according to research leader Andreas Muenchow."

The newly born ice island may become land-fast, block the channel, or it may break into smaller pieces as it is propelled south by the prevailing ocean currents. From there, it will likely follow along the coasts of Baffin Island and Labrador, to reach the Newfoundland's Atlantic coast within the next two years."


----------



## Guest

Dr.G. said:


> Help protect people in Oregon!!!!!!!!
> 
> Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


<rant>
Just needed to chime in that it's SOOO annoying to be forced to watch a 30 second "commercial" before a video. They lose me every time when that happens. I mean, most times the page that's already full of other ads -- is that not enough? That's one of the main reason's I ditched mainstream TV. I can now ad most mainstream "news" sites to my list of things to avoid. I say they are "news" sites as to me they are more like "advertising" sites. When you have sift through both all the on-page ads and then wait through video ads before you get to the news ... they are no longer news sites, that's just a consequence of watching all that advertising ... that you might possibly see what you came to see eventually.
</rant>

Please continue with the regularly scheduled program.


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> A piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan island ... about half the height of the Empire State Building...


I think the province should build an icy Gotham City on it.


----------



## SINC

mguertin said:


> <rant>
> Just needed to chime in that it's SOOO annoying to be forced to watch a 30 second "commercial" before a video. They lose me every time when that happens. I mean, most times the page that's already full of other ads -- is that not enough? That's one of the main reason's I ditched mainstream TV. I can now ad most mainstream "news" sites to my list of things to avoid. I say they are "news" sites as to me they are more like "advertising" sites. When you have sift through both all the on-page ads and then wait through video ads before you get to the news ... they are no longer news sites, that's just a consequence of watching all that advertising ... that you might possibly see what you came to see eventually.
> </rant>
> 
> Please continue with the regularly scheduled program.


Hmmmm, I guess you have yet to understand how the economy works?

There is no free lunch and you ain't ever gonna get it.

The trade off for that "news' you seem to think you are entitled to, are, well, advertising.

So you have a choice.

Suck it up and watch or remain ignorant of current affairs.


----------



## Guest

SINC said:


> Hmmmm, I guess you have yet to understand how the economy works?
> 
> There is no free lunch and you ain't ever gonna get it.
> 
> The trade off for that "news' you seem to think you are entitled to, are, well, advertising.
> 
> So you have a choice.
> 
> Suck it up and watch or remain ignorant of current affairs.


I read and watch the news online on sites that don't overdo it. I understand the economics of it all, but there's a tipping point and my time is more valuable to me to spend it on a 1:4 ratio of news vs ads. Just my feelings on it -- I don't want the www to turn into what tv has over the decades it's been around.


----------



## groovetube

I agree, I think a 30 second video for -every- freaking news items, is excessive. That, ad all the other ads popping around at you on top of it.


----------



## SINC

mguertin said:


> I read and watch the news online on sites that don't overdo it. I understand the economics of it all, but there's a tipping point and my time is more valuable to me to spend it on a 1:4 ratio of news vs ads. Just my feelings on it -- I don't want the www to turn into what tv has over the decades it's been around.





groovetube said:


> I agree, I think a 30 second video for -every- freaking news items, is excessive. That, ad all the other ads popping around at you on top of it.


You both really don't get it, do you?

TV has been regulated for years as to how much ad time is allowed vs programming.

The internet has no such regulations, so if you seek fewer ads, it is likely regular old TV will serve you better than the web.

Watch it happen as web based ads grow to a much higher ratio than your 1:4 example.


----------



## Guest

SINC said:


> You both really don't get it, do you?
> 
> TV has been regulated for years as to how much ad time is allowed vs programming.
> 
> The internet has no such regulations, so if you seek fewer ads, it is likely regular old TV will serve you better than the web.
> 
> Watch it happen as web based ads grow to a much higher ratio than your 1:4 example.


I see where you're going with all this, but the great part about the web not being regulated is that there will always be a choice as well. It's a real double edged sword but I think that the viewership at some point will dictate the content a lot more as time moves along -- which is something that's just not possible with tv, as it's a one sided communication. Or at least we can hope 

Anyway I think we've derailed this thread enough


----------



## groovetube

I get it, and reserve the right to complain about it, and visit other news sites that have less ads.


----------



## SINC

groovetube said:


> I get it, and reserve the right to complain about it, and visit other news sites that have less ads.


Yep right you are. And you will visit fewer and fewer of them in the future.


----------



## groovetube

an internet marketing guru.

wonders never cease.

Do you also fix drains too?


----------



## CubaMark

*Republican / Tea Party candidate for Governor in Colorado warns of dangerous United Nations plot to force Americans to ride bicycles!* 





> Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”
> 
> “This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.
> 
> “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”


(Wonkette)


----------



## bsenka

SINC said:


> Yep right you are. And you will visit fewer and fewer of them in the future.


Thankfully, they keep making better and better Ad Blockers. I don't see any ads at all on the CNN site on my computers. I very rarely ever see them on any site.


----------



## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> *Republican / Tea Party candidate for Governor in Colorado warns of dangerous United Nations plot to force Americans to ride bicycles!*


The headlines are amusing, but I did bother to read beyond the jokes. Maes says he has nothing against the bicycle program on its own, but does not want it to be adopted within the framework of the UN's International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives which lists, among other things, the goals of the IPCC as part of its goals. I can understand a candidate wishing to spare his state from the helpful sorts at the discredited IPCC.


----------



## CubaMark

*Fossilised mind control, 48 million years ago*





> This carpenter ant (Camponotus leonardi) is caught in the throes of a fungus-induced death grip. It has clamped itself to a leaf 25 centimetres above a forest floor in Thailand, and died.
> 
> The reason is growing out of the back of its head. The reddish-brown stalk is made by a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which has invaded the ant's body and manipulated its behaviour. The exposed position is ideal for releasing spores.
> 
> It turns out this parasitic mind-control is at least 48 million years old.


(NewScientist)


----------



## hayesk

That discovery would make a great first scene in a sci-fi horror movie.


----------



## Dr.G.

Man Lets Date Get Hit By Foul Ball—But That's Not Why They Broke Up? | The Frisky

Watch the video clip.


----------



## SINC

Bill Millin, Scottish Piper, Dies at 88



> With German troops raking the beach with artillery and machine-gun fire, the young piper played on as his fellow soldiers advanced through smoke and flame on the German positions, or fell on the beach. The scene provided an emotional high point in “The Longest Day.”
> 
> In later years Mr. Millin told the BBC he did not regard what he had done as heroic. When Lord Lovat insisted that he play, he said, “I just said ‘O.K.,’ and got on with it.” He added: “I didn’t notice I was being shot at. When you’re young, you do things you wouldn’t dream of doing when you’re older.”


----------



## KC4

Today At 6mins and 7secs after 5 o'clock, it wil be 05:06:07 08/09/10.

This won't happen again until 3010. 

Everybody synchronize your watches.........now.


----------



## chasMac

KC4 said:


> Today At 6mins and 7secs after 5 o'clock, it wil be 05:06:07 08/09/10.
> 
> This won't happen again until 3010.
> 
> Everybody synchronize your watches.........now.


I thought Canada, as the does the US employs the middle endian date format, so over here it would be 09/08/10.


----------



## Macfury

I slept through the August 9th happening!


----------



## eMacMan

*Suicide Eh!*



> Officials say a dead body has been found in a men's restroom at Los Angeles International Airport.
> 
> Airport spokesman Albert Rodriguez says a cleaner found the body around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday in a restroom in Terminal 3.
> 
> An official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked not to be named because the probe was ongoing, says the coroner's office is looking at the death as a possible suicide.
> 
> _*The official says the body was found with a bag on its head and its hands bound.
> 
> *_Read more: Body found in restroom at Los Angeles airport


Emphasis mine. It is the entire article:
Found here:
Body found in restroom at Los Angeles airport


----------



## CubaMark

*A sword, forged of meteor ore... how cool is tha*t?

*Terry Pratchett creates a sword with meteorites*






> ENGLISH fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett says he was so excited after being knighted by the Queen that he decided to make his own sword to equip himself for his new status.
> 
> It was not enough, however, simply to find some metal and get a blacksmith to bash it into shape.
> 
> Pratchett, believing the sword would not truly be his own unless it was made from metal he had produced, found a field with deposits of iron ore near his home in Wiltshire, west of London.





> ...he had thrown in "several pieces of meteorites — thunderbolt iron, you see — highly magical, you’ve got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not".


(TIME)


----------



## SINC

eMacMan said:


> For those who thought a knife registry was simply absurd I present the following link from Don's SAP site: mybirdie.ca
> 
> Terry Pratchett creates a sword with meteorites | News.com.au
> 
> Interesting article about a recently knighted author who forged his own sword.



WEBBITS | None | St. Albert's Place On The Web


----------



## Dr.G.

75 brawl during Ohio party for 3-year-old girl - CNN.com

75 brawl during Ohio party for 3-year-old girl!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Kleles

KC4 said:


> Today At 6mins and 7secs after 5 o'clock, it wil be 05:06:07 08/09/10.
> 
> This won't happen again until 3010.
> 
> Everybody synchronize your watches.........now.


There's only one unambiguous way to write the date using numbers only:
yyyy/mm/dd which is an analog to the way time is written, from largest unit to smallest:
hh/mm/ss


----------



## SINC

Kleles said:


> There's only one unambiguous way to write the date using numbers only:
> yyyy/mm/dd which is an analog to the way time is written, from largest unit to smallest:
> hh/mm/ss


Dates written numerically are properly written the way people speak.

No one using common language says today is 2010 of September the 30th.

Everyone says, when asked the date. "It's September 30, 2010."

And you can count on that 99% of the time.


----------



## Dr.G.

Woman, 101, to become U.S. citizen with help of 69-year-old document. A great story.

Woman, 101, to become U.S. citizen with help of 69-year-old document - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Unreal.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## hayesk

SINC said:


> Dates written numerically are properly written the way people speak.
> 
> No one using common language says today is 2010 of September the 30th.
> 
> Everyone says, when asked the date. "It's September 30, 2010."
> 
> And you can count on that 99% of the time.


First of all, you can't count on everyone speaking English, and in French and other languages, the order is different.

Second of all, we usually do not write the way we speak. 

Third of all, I often hear people say something like "it's the 12th of September."


----------



## Guest

Dr.G. said:


> Unreal.
> 
> Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


Unreal that they would deport the veterans? Or unreal that they can't even be bothered to broadcast their own video in the proper aspect ratio?


----------



## Dr.G.

mguertin said:


> Unreal that they would deport the veterans? Or unreal that they can't even be bothered to broadcast their own video in the proper aspect ratio?


Unreal that they would deport the veterans of the Vietnam war.


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Unreal.
> 
> Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


Given that Uncle sam was quite willing to draft non US citizens as Vietnam cannon fodder it should come as no surprise that he would be more than anxious to deport the same.tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

McDonald's Happy Meal bought by Sally Davies shows no sign of mould after 6 months | Mail Online

Unreal, if true. XX)


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> Unreal, if true. XX)


I once saw an uneaten Dairy Queen cone retain its full shape 24 hours after it was served, complete with curly-Q.


----------



## CubaMark

A pretty funny read about buying an old truck...

*How Not to Buy a Project Vehicle: The tale of the 1975 International Pickup*



(AutoBlog)


----------



## whatiwant

NY judge says 4-year-old can be sued. http://nyti.ms/ai7Cb5


----------



## bsenka

Macfury said:


> I once saw an uneaten Dairy Queen cone retain its full shape 24 hours after it was served, complete with curly-Q.


Really? I've never seen one that can even make to the car without melting and dripping down my arm! My biggest complaint about DQ is they don't keep their "soft serve" cold enough for it to be able to retain it's shape!


----------



## SINC

18-Month-Old Boy Survives Fall From Eighth-Floor Window in Paris


----------



## Macfury

bsenka said:


> Really? I've never seen one that can even make to the car without melting and dripping down my arm! My biggest complaint about DQ is they don't keep their "soft serve" cold enough for it to be able to retain it's shape!


It wasn't tasted at all, but left on a picnic table in the back yard. I'd say the temperature was about 20 degrees Celsius when the cone was bought.


----------



## Dr.G.

Now this is some maple leaf. :clap:

"Joseph Donato's giant maple leaf might not last forever, but the nine-year-old from Pickering, Ont., will probably remember it forever.

He marked Guinness World Records Day on Thursday by proudly displaying the giant specimen he picked up on his way home from a park last month.

Without the stem, the leaf measures more than 34 by 29 centimetres, bigger than some serving platters. Joseph is trying to preserve it in a picture frame."


CBC News - Toronto - Giant Ont. maple leaf sets world record


----------



## KC4

*Brush with the Law....*

Have I whined yet about how stupid cold it has been in Calgary lately? Well, it's starting to affect even the criminal element:

Convenience store robbed by bandit with a snow brush

Good thing the clerk handed over the money. It could have been a close scrape.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## hayesk

Macfury said:


> It wasn't tasted at all, but left on a picnic table in the back yard. I'd say the temperature was about 20 degrees Celsius when the cone was bought.


It must have been a dipped cone - the coating on dipped cones, when first heated, become solid at room temperature.


----------



## CubaMark

*The Customer Is Not Always Right » Inter-Screwed*



> _(It’s early morning. I need to organise my notes, so I sit down in the Reception area. The suited guy next to me is looking very nervous.)_
> 
> *Customer*: “You’re a bit of a porker, eh?”
> 
> *Me*: “Excuse me?”
> 
> *Customer*: “You’re really chubby. I mean, they told me they were considering someone else for the position as well. But if you’re all I’ve got to compete with, I’ve got it already!”
> 
> _(I realise that his pre-interview technique is from some old self-help book about psyching out the competition.)_
> 
> *Customer*: “And I was so nervous too! Guess you don’t have much of a chance, huh?”
> 
> _(I consult my notes.)_
> 
> *Me*: “Mr. Becker?”
> 
> *Customer*: “Yeah, that’s me! How’d you know that? You’re here for the job too, right?”
> 
> *Me*: “No, Mr. Becker. I’m Gary Robbins, a technical specialist from Human Resources. I’m here to conduct your interview.”


(The Customer Is Not Always Right)


----------



## singingcrow

Malawi row over whether new law bans farting


----------



## SINC

Condom firm cashes in on Prince William & Kate Middleton wedding | The Sun |News


----------



## KC4

Muffin Batter! Er, I mean Batterer!

Man arrested for throwing muffin at restaurant worker

Tsk.


----------



## CubaMark

*Amish Teen Levi Detweiler Leads Police on Horse-and-Buggy Chase*





> There are hot pursuits, and there are trot pursuits.
> 
> After a short attempt at a hoof-powered getaway, an Amish teen who was allegedly spotted drinking beer in a horse and buggy was locked up by sheriff's deputies in Cattaraugus County, N.Y.


(AOL News)


----------



## screature

*Man wakes after 21 hours in morgue fridge*

Man wakes after 21 hours in morgue fridge



> A South African man awoke to find himself in a morgue fridge - nearly a day after his family thought he had died, a health official has said.
> 
> Health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the man awoke Sunday afternoon, 21 hours after his family called in an undertaker who sent him to the morgue after an asthma attack.
> 
> Morgue owner Ayanda Maqolo said he sent his driver to collect the body shortly after the family reported the death. Maqolo said he thought the man was around 80 years old.
> 
> "When he got there, the driver examined the body, checked his pulse, looked for a heartbeat, but there was nothing," Maqolo told the Associated Press....


----------



## KC4

Christchurch goldfish quake survivors now world famous | NATIONAL News




> It's likely the hardy pair survived by eating weed and algae, although the small question of what really happened to the other four other tankmates is still unanswered for certain.
> When questioned about the whereabouts of their former swimming buddies Daphne and Shaggy just gulped and responded with blank stares.


_Small_ question? I think that CSI Seaworld needs to be called in on this one. Typical...Daphne and Shaggy become famous, while their "missing" friends are forgotten!


----------



## Macfury

KC4 said:


> _Small_ question? I think that CSI Seaworld needs to be called in on this one. Typical...Daphne and Shaggy become famous, while their "missing" friends are forgotten!


The fish aren't really missing--they were kidnapped to scare people sway from the treasure in the bottom of the tank. And it would have worked too, except for those nosy kids!


----------



## CubaMark

*Wal-Mart Goes Nuclear Over Chicken Necks; Newlyweds Lose House; Husband Deported*



> *BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) - *Newlywed shoppers claim Wal-Mart's false accusation that they tried to steal $2.90 worth of chicken neck bones caused the wife to be falsely arrested and lose her job, her husband to be deported, and both to lose their car, all their possessions and their house - though Wal-Mart's security video showed they had paid for the damn chicken bones.





> After all the false charges were dropped, Mary Bonin says, Wal-Mart refused to refund the $2.90 she had paid for the neck bones.


(CourtHouseNews)


----------



## Dr.G.

Roseanne sets sights on White House – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

(CNN) – Roseanne Barr for president in 2012?

The comedian made her official presidential announcement that was clearly part publicity stunt and part political farce on "The Tonight Show" Thursday night, drawing inspiration from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"That's kind of what got me to thinking that I too should run for president if she can," Barr told host Jay Leno. "I wanted to edge her out because I feel like she's stealing my act anyway."

_____________________________________________________

:lmao:


----------



## CubaMark

*The political party that wants to ban PowerPoint*





> Switzerland could become the first country to outlaw PowerPoint presentations if a new party runs in the October parliamentary elections. Matthias Poehm, founder of the Anti-PowerPoint Party, claims that €350bn could be saved globally each year by ditching the scourge of public speaking. Poehm believes that the software takes people away from their work and teaches them little. "There is a solution," he says. "A flipchart."


(Guardian UK)

_*One wonders what they'd think of Apple's Keynote?
*_


----------



## Macfury

Honestly, I have seen fewer things more deadening than these presentations, which pack in tons of useless graphs and excess verbiage in a mistaken belief that these represent valuable content. Professional-looking cotton candy. 

"Questions?"


----------



## cap10subtext

I think the one commenter on that article summed it up... 
"A bad presenter is a bad presenter. At least if they use powerpoint there's a chance they'll dim the lights so you can catch a snooze."

I like lightning talks. No shaggy dog stories. What's good, what works, what doesn't, here's my website.... NEXT!


----------



## Macfury

The bane of any presentation entitled "What's new in XXXXXXX" : "Let me begin by telling you how we got to this point...." 

55 minutes of history later: "Looks like we're almost out of time. Any questions?"


----------



## MLeh

This explains BC bureaucracy better than any explanation I can think of.


----------



## SINC

*'My mom saved my life': Mother takes time off to donate kidney to son… and comes back to work to find out she’s been fired*



> A Pennsylvania mother who donated her kidney to save her son's life has been left without a job, after her employer fired her for taking a leave of absence.
> 
> Claudia Rendon received some of the worst news a mother could get when doctors delivered the news her son Alex was in desperate need of a life-saving transplant.
> 
> She had used up her holiday earlier that year, following her mother and her uncle's deaths - and her father's diagnosis with leukemia.


Claudia Rendon fired after taking time off to donate kidney to son Alex | Mail Online


----------



## CubaMark

_I thought about posting this in "Visually Humorous Pic of the Day" *but it's just not funny....*_


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> _I thought about posting this in "Visually Humorous Pic of the Day" *but it's just not funny....*_


Unreal!!!  An unbelievable incident of how justice was certainly not blind. I could see if he pulled out a gun at the teller and fired it or just threatened to kill her, stole a large amount of money and was caught with this money, but to turn yourself in and get this sort of sentence is absurd. tptptptp


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Unreal!!!  An unbelievable incident of how justice was certainly not blind. I could see if he pulled out a gun at the teller and fired it or just threatened to kill her, stole a large amount of money and was caught with this money, but to turn yourself in and get this sort of sentence is absurd. tptptptp


They gotta put someone in those privatized jails their buddies built. Sure ain't gonna be any of their rich buddies. Sadly this incident is hardly isolated just better publicized.


----------



## Guest

If those sentences were reversed then it might have been a little closer to being justice.


----------



## eMacMan

mguertin said:


> If those sentences were reversed then it might have been a little closer to being justice.


Yep toss in all those Banksters who created the 2008 panic as well. Somehow those $multimillion$ bonu$e$ seem completely inappropriate considering how many people were put out of work and even made homeless by their shenanigans.


----------



## Macfury

How about the guy who took $535 million from American taxpayers and gave it to the crooks at Solyndra?


----------



## groovetube

nice deflection


----------



## eMacMan

Macfury said:


> How about the guy who took $535 million from American taxpayers and gave it to the crooks at Solyndra?


Since that all wound up in the pockets of the Banksters the previous Bankster post should cover it.


----------



## CubaMark

*Police seek Amish gang for 'hair-cutting' assaults*












> Gang warfare doesn't always involve drugs, tattoos and disagreements over rap lyrics. Police in Ohio are investigating an outbreak of violence between rival factions of the Amish community suspected of breaking into homes and cutting off each other's hair.


(UK Independent)


----------



## The Doug

BBC News - Sweden snow: Man survives two months trapped in car


----------



## Dr.G.

The Doug said:


> BBC News - Sweden snow: Man survives two months trapped in car


I read this as well on CNN.com and thought it was a misprint. I figured "two days" ...... or even "two weeks" at best. But two months?!? Amazing.


----------



## groovetube

well I certainly couldn't have made this one up.





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## eMacMan

*Bear rescues hiker*



> *A hiker has described how he was attacked by a mountain lion while walking in the US - only to be saved by a bear.*
> 
> Robert Biggs, 69, was walking in north-central California when he spotted a mother bear accompanied by a yearling and a newborn around 40ft away from him.
> 
> 
> He watched the animals for a few minutes before turning to walk back up the trail and then a mountain lion pounced, grabbing his backpack.
> 
> 
> Mr Biggs told the Paradise Post: "It must have been stalking the little bear. It was on me in seconds."
> 
> He tussled with the cat and hit it on the head with a rock pick he had been carrying but it still clung on.
> 
> The walker said he was only saved when the mother bear approached him from behind, grabbed the lion and ripped it from his bag.
> 
> The two animals fought for a few seconds before the cat ran away.
> 
> The bear then also left, leaving Mr Biggs behind with bite marks, scratches and bruises but otherwise unhurt.
> 
> The hiker had walked the same trail several times before and seen the mother bear and its cub twice, even playing "patty-cake" with the youngster.
> 
> He is certain the mother bear that saved him during the attack by the lion is the same as the animal he had seen before because he recognised her markings.


Link:
Bear Saves Hiker In California Attacked By Mountain Lion | Strange News | Sky News


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Batman????????


----------



## javaqueen

that is hilarious


----------



## Dr.G.

javaqueen said:


> that is hilarious


And he got off without a ticket ........   :clap:


----------



## javaqueen

I need to dress up when I am driving


----------



## CubaMark

*EDIT:* I had to re-read the story to catch this - My earlier post was incorrect. Lenny (Batman) was *not* the father of the child who died (Henry). My bad. The Jalopnik article should not be read hastily. As far as I can determine, Lenny is just a businessman who made it good and has a big heart...

_*[strikethrough]The story behind "Lamborghini Batman" is sad and inspiring. He and his wife spent seven years going to hospitals with their terminally-ill child, Henry. As part of their experience, they became involved in doing charitable work with sick kids...[/strikethrough]* the day the cops pulled him over, he was on his way to a hospital gig.

More *[strikethrough]on his personal tragedy[/strikethrough]* here:_ Saving Henry

*'Lamborghini Batman' Unmasked*



> Batman's real name is Lenny Robinson, not Bruce Wayne, and his friends think he's a hero.
> 
> What Batman was doing when he was pulled over by the police earlier this week was traveling to an event for hospitalized kids as part of a "Superhero Celebration" organized by the charity "Hope for Henry."
> 
> "Lenny is a one-man operation and he is amazing and beautiful because he's also doing this for free," says Allen Goldberg, who founded the organization with his wife after the experience with their son Henry, whose rare illness left him hospitalized for long periods of time












(Full story at Jalopnik and a Washington Post profile of Lenny here)


----------



## JCCanuck

The look of the kid's face looking at Lamborghini Batman is priceless. Checking out the stories before and after had me laughing and crying at the same time. Thanks for the story CubaMark.


----------



## Dr.G.

JCCanuck said:


> The look of the kid's face looking at Lamborghini Batman is priceless. Checking out the stories before and after had me laughing and crying at the same time. Thanks for the story CubaMark.


Cool. Thanks for the story behind the story, CM. I agree with JCCanuck -- had me laughing and crying at the same time. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## MacDoc

grrrrrrr









Mother says TSA screeners treated her 4-year-old daughter like a terrorist | Digg Topnews


----------



## BigDL

*This Facebook Thing is Getting Out of Hand*

A news report (in the attached link) of 30 women getting into a brawl over a Facebook post and the brawl was also organized over Facebook.  :yikes:

30 Women fighting over a Facebook post


----------



## eMacMan

MacDoc said:


> grrrrrrr
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mother says TSA screeners treated her 4-year-old daughter like a terrorist | Digg Topnews


Yep the Terror and Sexual Assault team strikes again. I believe that TSA is now considered the world's second biggest terrorist organization. They are of course still well behind the IRS.


----------



## Dr.G.

Just got this email, but I replied back to her and proposed a 60-40% split with me getting the 60%. She refused, so if anyone wants to take my 40% share, be my guest. Caveat emptor ................. 

Did not know that I was the next of kin to Al Fayez ............ All of my distant relatives beyond my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle and two cousins that did not come to America died in the Holocaust. 

"Good Day,

I am Zhang Liu of BEA, (BANK OF EAST ASIA-HONG KONG).I have a business proposal for you.

A transfer of Twenty-six million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars was deposited by one of our late customer who
died without declaring any next of kin before his death in 2003.Against this backdrop, my proposal to you is to
stand as the next of kin to Al Fayez, So you will be able to receive this funds to your own nominated account
we shall share in the ratio of sixty percent for me, forty percent for you. For us to proceed.your full names,
address & phone numbers is needed.

If you intersted get back to me via my personal email me at [email protected]

Regards,


Mr Zhang Liu."


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Not sure if I would have thought of doing what this 6 year old did on the field.


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

Washington (CNN) -- JetBlue Airways is apologizing for a "computer glitch" it blames for a family being told their 18-month-old daughter was on a government no-fly list.

No-fly 'glitch' has toddler removed from plane - CNN.com


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

MazterCBlazter said:


> The world has many intelligent people with good judgement and integrity in it. In the last few posts here, are sad too frequent examples of the opposite.


Sad, but all too true, MB. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## MacDoc

XX)

World News: Boy finds piece of finger in Arby?s sandwich - thestar.com


----------



## CubaMark

*Woman arrested for cheering too loudly at daughter's graduation*



> A woman was arrested at her daughter's high school graduation because she cheered too loudly when her daughter received her diploma. Shannon Cooper said that police handcuffed her, placed her in a police van and transferred her to a detention center.
> Shannon Cooper's daughter, Christin Iesha Cooper, did not know that her mother had been arrested until her friends told her. Cooper said the incident ruined the best day in her life.





> "The police officer pointed his finger at me and said 'Stop right here. The lady right there in white, she's going to jail' The whole time I was thinking in my mind 'Are you all serious? You for real?' I didn't say anything. I was shocked."


(Digital Journal)


----------



## MazterCBlazter

.


----------



## Dr.G.

Teacher who gave zeros won't appeal suspension - Edmonton - CBC News

Sad. He should not have been suspended. tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

Woman in iconic Vietnam War photo honoured - Canada - CBC News

It is amazing that she survived this horrible experience.


----------



## MacDoc

> *Police Wrongly Tell Woman Her Husband Died in Motorcycle Collision*
> By SYDNEY LUPKIN |
> 
> When officers told Melody Halls, 31, that her husband died early Tuesday morning in a motorcycle accident, she went immediately to the first stage of grief: denial.
> 
> And she was right.
> 
> Two Alberta, Canada, police officers and a grief counselor arrived at Halls's Medicine Hat, Canada, home and told her to sit down. Once they asked whether her husband had tattoos, they told her he'd been killed in a 1 a.m. collision, Halls told ABC News.
> 
> "As soon as he said that, I knew something was wrong. ... I'd seen my husband at 7 a.m.," Halls said. "It was instant disbelief because it's the worst thing that anyone can ever say to you -- that your husband has been killed this morning."
> 
> Halls' husband has tattoos on his forearm and calf, but the officers told her the accident victim had tattoos on his stomach and back, strengthening Halls' conviction that her husband was alive.
> 
> Halls led the officers out to the garage.
> 
> "Sure enough, the door to our shed was open and the lock was missing off of it," she said.
> 
> The motorcycle and helmet were gone.
> 
> Police determined the motorcycle had been stolen, and the thief -- whom police have not yet named, but Halls said was a neighbor -- died in the accident.
> 
> "Although efforts were made to identify the victim of the collision based on the information available at the time, the Medicine Hat Police Service sincerely apologizes for the distress that was caused to the family of the motorcycle owner, when they were incorrectly notified," Medicine Hat Police Service Deputy Chief Richard Wigle said in a news release.
> 
> The service will be reviewing its next-of-kin notification practices, according to the police statement.
> 
> With officers in and out all day, Halls had to tell her 9- and 10-year-old children about the mix-up. They were mostly shocked at the thought of losing their father, she said.
> 
> As for her husband?
> 
> "He's really upset about his motorcycle being stolen more than anything," she said. "And that somebody died crashing it."
> 
> Halls said she isn't mad about what happened to her, but she wishes the police asked about the last time she'd seen her husband before doing anything else. She said she accepted the police chief's apology on one condition: "as long as this never happens again."


Police Wrongly Tell Woman Her Husband Died in Motorcycle Collision - Yahoo!
:yikes:


----------



## Dr.G.

KKK chapter wants to adopt stretch of Georgia highway - CNN.com

Atlanta (CNN) -- A North Georgia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan has applied to "adopt" a stretch of highway in Union County, Georgia, according to paperwork obtained by CNN on Monday.

tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

Imagine claiming that you did not know from where this money came???????????????? tptptptp

'Accidental millionaire' pleads guilty to theft - CNN.com


----------



## bryanc

Dr.G. said:


> Teacher who gave zeros won't appeal suspension - Edmonton - CBC News
> 
> Sad. He should not have been suspended. tptptptp


He should've been given a raise. I had Mr. Dorval as my high school physics teacher (yes, I went to Ross Shep), and he is the *only* teacher I remember to this day. He was great; engaging and challenging. He made people think, and was always fair. One of his teaching slogans was "it's better to be wrong than not to try", and I remember him working hard with some of the students who struggled to help them succeed.

The only way to get a zero from Mr. Dorval was to not submit the assignment. And that's what this is about; the asinine policy that no students ever deserve zero. I'm sorry, but zero effort deserves a grade of zero.

The school board is just wrong here.


----------



## SINC

This fight is far from over:

Second Edmonton teacher who gives 'zeros' expects to be disciplined


----------



## bryanc

SINC said:


> This fight is far from over:
> 
> Second Edmonton teacher who gives 'zeros' expects to be disciplined


Good! I hope a few of the trustees on the school board loose their jobs over this. It's probably too much to hope that Mr. Dorval will be re-instated with full pay, back-pay and an apology.


----------



## Macfury

bryanc said:


> Good! I hope a few of the trustees on the school board loose their jobs over this. It's probably too much to hope that Mr. Dorval will be re-instated with full pay, back-pay and an apology.


Agreed!


----------



## Dr.G.

Student brings 35-foot-long cheat sheet into exam, gets expelled ...............   

Student brings 35-foot-long cheat sheet into exam, gets expelled - Your Community


----------



## Dr.G.

Stop stand-up urination for men, Swedish politicians urge - Your Community

It should be interesting to see if this passes in their legislature. We shall see.


----------



## Dr.G.

When my son went to preschool, he was always told "use your words and not your fists".

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## CanadaRAM

Dr.G. said:


> Stop stand-up urination for men, Swedish politicians urge - Your Community
> 
> It should be interesting to see if this passes in their legislature. We shall see.


Oh. Passes.

I misread it the first time.


----------



## CubaMark

*How Aunt Jemima changed trademark law in the United States....*












> To us, the case is a clear-cut trademark violation. At the time, though, the Aunt Jemima Mills Company was really going out on a limb. Prior to this case trademark infringement happened when another company was selling the same product under the same name. Lawyer Harry D. Nims explained it like this in a *1922* issue of advertising magazine _Printer’s Ink_:
> 
> _Perhaps 15 years ago, it would not have occurred to an attorney to attempt to stop such a use of trademark because it would have been said that it was absurd to suppose that a person seeking pancake flour would buy a can of syrup and be satisfied. Recently the business world has come to realize that such an act as that of that syrup company was an attempt to appropriate the goodwill, the popularity, the celebrity of the Aunt Jemima Mills Co. and pay nothing for it, the business world has come to see that the owner of the goodwill in Aunt Jemima pancake flour may be most seriously damaged by the sale of an inferior “Aunt Jemima syrup.”_​


(Mental Floss)

...and for those interested in the woman who personified Aunt Jemima - she was Nancy Greene, a woman born into slavery who became a living trademark.


----------



## Dr.G.

CanadaRAM said:


> Oh. Passes.
> 
> I misread it the first time.


XX):lmao:


----------



## CubaMark

*Seems as though we're all geniuses... we just need a good smack upside the head... * 

*Jason Padgett Sustains Brain Injury in Attack, Becomes Math Genius*



> Jason Padgett, a 41-year-old college dropout who worked at a futon store, sustained a brain injury during a mugging at a karaoke club in Tacoma - the muggers were after his $99 leather jacket. Little did he know that this brain injury would change his life completely. A day or two after the injury, Jason began seeing "bits and pieces of the Pythagorean theorem everywhere." He's currently working with MIT researchers on developing a fractal energy source






+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.






(TechEblog)


----------



## Dr.G.

Slinky science.

The science behind a slow-motion Slinky - CBC News


----------



## Dr.G.

Driver walks away from car-destroying moose collision - Nfld. & Labrador - CBC News

Amazing that he was able to just walk away seeing what happened to his car.


----------



## CubaMark

Dr.G. said:


> Driver walks away from car-destroying moose collision - Nfld. & Labrador - CBC News
> 
> Amazing that he was able to just walk away seeing what happened to his car.


Shivers. Reminds me of the night, back in '96, when I was called to an urgent meeting at 11:30 at night in Placentia (I was working in Clarenville at the time). Coming round a sweeping left curve doing a wee (!) bit more than the speed limit, I missed a moose's rear end by inches. I was a very lucky fellow....


----------



## MacDoc

Shudder.....



> *An Unsung Hero of the Nuclear Age*
> Maj. Harold Hering and the forbidden question that cost him his career.


Nuclear weapons: How Cold War major Harold Hering asked a forbidden question that cost him his career. | Digg Topnews

Long read and scary


----------



## screature

*What moose? Woman can't recall dramatic collision*



Dr.G. said:


> Driver walks away from car-destroying moose collision - Nfld. & Labrador - CBC News
> 
> Amazing that he was able to just walk away seeing what happened to his car.


Reminded me of this story... I'm surprised it hadn't been posted here before:

What moose? Woman can't recall dramatic collision
CBC



> A central Newfoundland woman, who drove about 40 kilometres with her windshield smashed out and her car's roof peeled back like an opened can, says she didn't know she'd hit a moose until she arrived at work in Gander on Monday.
> 
> "I can remember pulling into the driveway and my co-workers came out and asked me if I was okay and I said 'Why?' and they said 'Well Michelle you're bleeding and look at your car. I looked at my car and I was devastated," Michelle Higgins told CBC Friday.
> 
> "The roof was like a sardine can. I thought, 'this is impossible'."
> 
> Cindy Paulson is one of the co-workers who saw Higgins when she arrived at work.
> 
> "I said 'My god Michelle. What happened?' And she looked at me and said 'Nothing, what are you talking about?' I said, 'Michelle you were in an accident.' She said 'No, I was not in an accident.' "
> 
> Paulson was able to convince Higgins that she needed some medical attention.
> 
> "When we went to the hospital, the doctor was asking her questions, just questioning her memory. Like what's your name, your date of birth, where do you live? She knew everything like that. The accident was the only thing gone. Lost," she said. "Whoo. I tell you, I don't know. It's a miracle."
> 
> Higgins, of Norris Arm, said she received head and neck injuries during the collision. Her face is badly bruised and two bones in her neck were fractured. Higgins said her family is still finding bits of glass from her windshield around their home.
> 
> "I know my head did take a good impact and my forehead has a scuff mark that we are thinking may have been caused by the moose's hoof," she said.
> 
> But on Friday Higgins said she still doesn't remember hitting the massive animal after visiting the site where the dead moose was found.
> 
> "For me not to have control over what is happening is unreal and it's driving me crazy," she said....


----------



## Dr.G.

screature said:


> Reminded me of this story... I'm surprised it hadn't been posted here before:
> 
> What moose? Woman can't recall dramatic collision
> CBC


Amazingly, she still can't believe it happened to her or her car.


----------



## CubaMark

*Un-frakkin'-believable. Or not. It is the TSA, after all. I think I would have seriously lost it with this woman...*

*Confrontation With TSA Agent Leaves Grandpa's Ashes On Floor*



> A man's attempt to bring the ashes of his grandfather home to Indianapolis ended with an angry scene in a Florida airport, with the ashes spilled on the terminal floor.





> "They opened up my bag, and I told them, 'Please, be careful. These are my grandpa's ashes,'" Gross told RTV6's Norman Cox. "She picked up the jar. She opened it up.
> "I was told later on that she had no right to even open it,





> "She didn't apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn't pick up all, everything that was lost.





> the agency's own website says human remains are to be opened under, “no circumstances.”


(IndyChannel)


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## eMacMan

Yep, the TSA is attempting to give the IRS a run for it's money in the race to become the world's most feared Terrorist Organization.



CubaMark said:


> *Un-frakkin'-believable. Or not. It is the TSA, after all. I think I would have seriously lost it with this woman...*
> 
> *Confrontation With TSA Agent Leaves Grandpa's Ashes On Floor*
> 
> 
> 
> (IndyChannel)


----------



## MacDoc

> *Hitchiker writing book on 'The Kindness of America' is shot*
> #1 by HomerJay » Jun 12, 2012 4:25 pm
> 
> 
> Hitchhiker writing 'The Kindness of America' is shot in Montana
> 
> The first rule of adventurous traveling: Things are almost never as bad as your mother thinks.
> 
> The second rule of adventurous traveling: The "almost never" exceptions can be pretty bad.
> 
> Further, if you’re writing a book called “The Kindness of America,” as hitchhiker Ray Dolin is, you might be tempting fate. Dolin learned this when a stranger shot him Saturday evening in rural Montana where Dolin was trying to hitch a ride.
> 
> Dolin, a 39-year-old from West Virginia, had been traveling across America to work on his book, a memoir, and was on a highway near the Bakken oil patch, authorities told the Associated Press.
> 
> "He was sitting down to have a little lunch, and this guy drives up,” Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier told the AP. “He thought he was going to give him a ride and as he approached the vehicle, the guy pulls out his weapon and shoots him. It's as simple as that.”
> 
> Dolin, 39, will live; he got hit in the arm and was being treated at Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital in Glasgow, Mont.
> 
> Meanwhile, police told the AP, they tracked down a suspect about four hours later in Culbertson, Mont., and identified him as Lloyd Christopher Danielson III of Washington. He was arrested on suspicion of felony assault with a weapon and driving under the influence. Officials said he had a criminal record in Washington involving intimidation and assault.
> 
> "He [Ray Dolin] was on the way across the country taking pictures," his father, Melvin Dolin, told the Billings Gazette. He had left home in Julian, W.Va., last week and taken the bus to Montana and planned to find his way to Washington from there, his father told the Billings Gazette. "He was going to make up his mind as he travelled along. But he didn't get that far."
> 
> Ray Dolin wasn’t available for comment, so there’s no word on how getting shot will affect his book project.
> 
> 
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nati ... 7804.story
> 
> Who says merkins don't do irony?


 XX)


----------



## SINC

^^

That story above is bunk:

Hitchhiker writing book on kindness actually shot himself - Boing Boing


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Amazing.


----------



## CubaMark

*I have a Doctorate. And a 7-year old is making me feel inadequate*. :yikes:

*Other than being 8, Tanishq Abraham is a typical college student*



> At 8, most kids are learning the names of planets in the solar system. Not Tanishq Abraham. "I like particle physics and contemplating the fate of the universe,"





> "At around 2 and 1/2, I had the feeling he was gifted," Tanishq's mom told News10.
> At first, her husband dismissed the comment.
> Well, of course you do, she remembered him saying, "all moms think their children are the best."





> At age 4 1/2, Tanishq's parents had him tested, and he scored in the 99.9 percentile on the standardized intelligence test





> But Tanishq is still a child. And part of him hungers for more friends his age, as any child would. So his parents try to involve him activities that include other boys his age.





> when asked what he wants to be when he grows up.
> "I really want to be a scientist or a president," Tanishq pauses a beat, then clarifies that he means becoming the "President of the United States."
> What would he do as president?
> "I'll make the United States more healthy for us and more efficient,"






+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.






(DigitalJournal)


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) -- The south Florida lifeguard fired for leaving his post so he could save a swimmer outside his coverage zone said Thursday he has been offered his job back.

But Tomas Lopez told CNN he does not plan to return to work.

"It's another chapter in my life closed and I am just going to continue to get my schooling finished and get on with my career," Lopez told CNN.
Florida lifeguard says he's been offered his job back - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

tptptptptptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

And now, for a little good news ..............

Mac vs. PC gap is the narrowest since '90s - CNN.com


----------



## MacDoc

Krayton Kerns, Republican Montana Legislator, Says Bison Move Could Lead To Higher Gas Prices

 whacked hardly does it justice


----------



## Dr.G.

Survival of injured baby golden eagle in Utah wildfire called 'amazing' - CNN.com

An amazing story of survival.


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> Krayton Kerns, Republican Montana Legislator, Says Bison Move Could Lead To Higher Gas Prices
> 
> whacked hardly does it justice



Considering the Obama Administration's antipathy for fracking, I can almost believe it.


----------



## CubaMark

*As a sociologist, this is fascinating.

As a human being, it's pretty disgusting.*

*Luka Rocco Magnotta Fans Profess Support, 'School-Girl Crush' On Alleged Killer*



> he alleged killer has attracted a group of admirers on the Internet following the widespread circulation of his photo during an international manhunt before his arrest in Germany.
> 
> On Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere, there are pages dedicated to celebrating Magnotta’s “beauty” and personality. Many of the authors use pseudonyms, but a few are not shy about using their real identities.





> "He's a very nice person,” she said. “We talked a lot about fashion design."
> 
> St-Denis said she has watched the video of Jun Lin's murder more than 20 times. Asked why, she said jokingly that she likes the music.
> 
> "I've seen worse in horror films. I really like horror films," she added.





> Magnotta's online fans number in the hundreds. On Facebook, users recount their fascination with his story. Some pen love letters.





> "They are passive obsessions,” he said. “They are living a fantasy. If they were to come face to face with the object of their desire, they would probably be very disappointed."


(HuffingtonPostCanada)


----------



## MacDoc

How to steal food from a pride of 15 hungry lions | Digg Topnews

watch the second video first....:yikes:


----------



## Dr.G.

Century-old cards found in Ohio attic expected to fetch millions - MLB - CBSSports.com News, Rumors, Scores, Stats, Fantasy Advice

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## CubaMark

*Yabba-Dabba-...Don't?*

*Yabba-Dabba-Don't: Flintstones-mobile banned from German roads*





> Sebastian Trager of Germany is mad for the Flintstones. So he took a Volkswagen Polo, ripped off everything but the motor, chassis and wheels, and then covered the rolling bits with a replica that he built of Fred Flintstone's car.





> Trager then wanted to get it approved for road use, and that's where his stone-age tribute clashed with modern regulations, because German authorities would have none of it.


(Metro.Co.UK via Autoblog)


----------



## Dr.G.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-815119?hpt=hp_t2

Up .......... up ............. and away ................


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Ship ahoy .................


----------



## Dr.G.

Wow, talk about detective work!!!

Texas man finds his car 42 years after it was stolen - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

tptptptptptptptp


----------



## MacDoc

Sad and incredible all at once. :-(




> *Jessica Ghawi: Victim of Colorado theatre shooting was also at Eaton Centre shooting*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HANDOUT-JAY MELOFF/THE CANADIAN PRESS Jessica Ghawi is shown with her hockey player boyfriend Jay Meloff in a photo taken from Meloff's Facebook page. Ghawi, who narrowly missed a deadly shooting at Toronto's Eaton Centre last month, was among the victims of a deadly shooting at a Colorado movie theatre on Friday.
> 
> Jessica Ghawi wrote on her blog in June that she had a new-found appreciation for the preciousness of life after surviving the Eaton Centre shooting. Little more than a month later, she would be dead, killed in Colorado by a man wielding a gun, something she had so narrowly avoided in Toronto.
> 
> Ghawi, 24, was one of 12 people killed when a gunman opened fire in a movie theatre in Aurora, just outside of Denver, a little bit after midnight on Friday. The Texan aspiring sports broadcaster, known professionally as Jessica Redfield, had went to see the premiere of the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, with her friend Brent Lowak. She would not make it out alive.
> 
> Lowak, who remains in hospital after he, too, was shot, later told Ghawi’s brother, Jordan, that Jessica had been shot in the leg and head. On his blog, Jordan Ghawi recounted Lowak’s story, writing that Lowak and Jessica were sitting in the middle portion of the theatre, when a device was thrown in their direction “that produced a ‘hissing sound.’”
> 
> Amid the panic and confusion that gripped the theatre, Jessica urged Lowak to call 911. It was while he was attending to her injured leg that he said Jessica received the shot to her head. After that, she could no longer be heard screaming.
> 
> Over 50 people were injured in the shooting, one of the deadliest in recent U.S. memory. Police have arrested 24-year-old medical school dropout James Holmes in connection with the incident.
> 
> Jessica Ghawi’s death sparked an outpouring of condolences through social media on Friday, with both her name and the Eaton Centre trending in Toronto on Twitter, bringing back painful memories for the city’s residents. Tweets also came from several NHL players, as well as Toronto-based The Hockey News.
> 
> Many spoke of how Ghawi’s death by gunshot was a cruel twist of fate, considering just three minutes had separated her between life and possible death in early June at the Eaton Centre when a different gunman shot into a crowd of innocent people.
> 
> Ghawi had been in Toronto to visit her hockey player boyfriend, Jay Meloff. In the last post on her blog, dated June 5, she wrote of having been on a mission at the Eaton Centre to shop and eat sushi. But for some reason, she decided at the last minute to eat a burger instead.
> 
> She wrote that her receipt showed 6:20 p.m. as the time, at which point something led her to go outside in the rain, rather than pursue her shopping expedition. The first shots rang out at 6:23 p.m.
> 
> It was only later she would find out that she was eating in the same spot where the shooter would open fire and that, had she gone for sushi, she would have been in the same place where one of the victims had been.
> 
> “I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath,” she wrote. “I wish I could shake this odd feeling from my chest . . . The feeling that may have potentially saved my life.”
> 
> On Friday, Meloff tweeted that Ghawi “made the world unbelievably better for everyone who got to spend time with her.”
> 
> According to an article posted Friday on the Denver portal of news website SB Nation, Meloff was trying out for the Denver Cutthroats, a minor league hockey team. The article’s author, Cheryl Bradley, wrote that a major reason Meloff wanted to play in Denver was to be closer to Ghawi.
> 
> Among those remembering Ghawi on Friday was Peter Burns, morning show host of Denver’s Mile High Sports, who described Ghawi as a passionate hockey fan who was “vibrant and full of life,” saying she was the kind of person “who would show up at every [Colorado] Avalanche game.”
> 
> Burns knew Ghawi well. She had interned for him in San Antonio, Texas, and she followed him when he moved to Colorado. Other radio stations she worked at include Clear Channel San Antonio and 104.3 The Fan in Denver.
> 
> On air, Burns told a story about how, during dinner with his wife and Ghawi a week ago, she had said she wanted to start a charity for victims of the wildfires that had been raging through the state, particularly to help children who had lost their hockey gear.
> 
> “Even if she could just help three or four families, that would have been great. That was the kind of person she was,” he said.
> 
> She also worked at Denver-based You Can Play, an organization that supports LGBT athletes founded by Patrick Burke, son of Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke. Patrick Burke tweeted “Jessica interned for us for a few months. She was a wonderful, bright, talented woman.” The organization is not commenting further for the time being.
> 
> Ghawi’s friend Jesse Spector, national NHL writer for Sporting News, posted a piece Friday morning saying that Ghawi possessed the kind of enthusiasm and passion for sports and journalism that were needed for success.
> 
> Spector was the last person to receive a tweet from Ghawi on the night she died. She tweeted “Movie doesn’t start for another 20 minutes.”


Jessica Ghawi: Victim of Colorado theatre shooting was also at Eaton Centre shooting - thestar.com


----------



## CubaMark

*German U-Boat May Be At Bottom Of Labrador River*



> An important piece of history from the Second World War may be sitting in a river in Labrador.
> 
> Searchers believe they've found a German U-boat buried in the sand on the bottom of the Churchill River. The discovery has yet to be authenticated.
> 
> Two years ago, searchers scoured the bottom of the Churchill River with side-scanning sonar. They were looking for three men lost over Muskrat Falls.
> 
> When they reviewed the footage from that search, they made an unexpected discovery.





> It's unclear how the sub may have ended up that far inland, more than 100 kilometres from the ocean.
> 
> German reaction
> The German government says it is possible, but added that it would be "sensational and unusual," that a submarine could have ended up so far inland.





> Oddly enough, the story of a U-boat beaching in the Churchill River is the subject of a novel written in the early 1990s.
> 
> In that story, the crew defects. Over the years, many have taken this fictional story to be fact.


CBC Video: Flyover of possible location

View in Google Earth: 53.246683° -60.742616°

(CBC via HuffingtonPost)


----------



## Dr.G.

Who's that girl? Mystery woman crashes Olympics parade - CNN.com

Oops. How many billions were spent on security???


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Who's that girl? Mystery woman crashes Olympics parade - CNN.com
> 
> Oops. How many billions were spent on security???


Sadly the rooftop missile gunner was asleep at the switch. The loss of the entire Indian delegation would have been unfortunate but collateral damage is inevitable in situations such as this.


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan said:


> Sadly the rooftop missile gunner was asleep at the switch. The loss of the entire Indian delegation would have been unfortunate but collateral damage is inevitable in situations such as this.


Luckily, nothing came of this other than some red faces .............


----------



## Dr.G.

Oops ...............

Brazilian judoka breaks Olympic medal in shower - Olympics - CBSSports.com News, Medal Count


----------



## Dr.G.

Teddy Bear Invasion: Stuffed Animal Airdrop in Belarus Gets Two Officials Fired | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Luckily, it was not Mr. Carlson from WKRP.


----------



## CubaMark

*"....as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly...." *





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> *"....as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly...." *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> +
> YouTube Video
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


Oh the HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Dr.G.

Stradivarius Violin Worth Millions Turns Up in Swiss Lost-and-Found | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Talk about forgetful!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## MacDoc

Sailor, nurse from iconic VJ Day photo reunited - CBS News










:clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> Sailor, nurse from iconic VJ Day photo reunited - CBS News
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> :clap:


Cool. A fine love story.


----------



## CubaMark

_*And now on the flip side, a horrible story about evil insurance companies...*_

*Comedian Calls Out Progressive Insurance for Defending His Sister's Killer; Progressive Responds in Heartless Robot Fashion*



> In June of 2010, his sister Katie was killed in a car accident. She had a green light and the other driver ran the red — fault was clear. The other driver's insurance company settled with Katie's estate immediately, but because the driver was underinsured, the payment was not much. Based on the Progressive policy Katie had purchased, Progressive was required to pay the difference.
> 
> At which point we learned the first surprising thing about Progressive: Carrying Progressive insurance and getting into an accident does not entitle you to the value of your insurance policy. It just pisses off Progressive's lawyers.





> Progressive refused to pay, which meant Katie's parents had to pursue legal action. But in Maryland, you can't sue an insurance company for denying compensation. The parents' next move was to sue the other driver — something they did not want to do — just so they could establish his negligence and force Progressive to pay Katie's policy.





> At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive's legal team.
> 
> If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.


(Gawker)


----------



## CubaMark

*Hmm.... the Progressive Insurance story takes a turn for the odd...*

*Flo Suddenly a Problem for Progressive in Its Social-Media Crisis*



> Progressive Insurance is surely longing for the days when the Internet's most pressing question about its spokeswoman Flo was whether she is hot or not.
> Matt Fisher's devastating Tumblr post about the death of his sister, a Progressive customer, in a car accident—and his claim, though the company denies it, that it defended her killer in court in an effort not to pay out the benefit on her policy—have left Flo completely out of her depth.


(AdWeek)


----------



## Macfury

Looks like the progressives blew their wad without checking facts about Progressive. From Progressive's web site:



> I’d like to take this opportunity to explain Progressive’s role in this complex case. First and foremost, our deepest sympathies go out to Kaitlynn Fisher’s family.
> 
> *To be very clear, Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant in this case. He was defended by his insurance company, Nationwide.
> *


Understanding Insurance - Statement on the Fisher Case

I guess you CAN make these things up.


----------



## Dr.G.

Bill Gates launches toilet reinvention crusade - Technology & Science - CBC News

We shall see.


----------



## Dr.G.

Dog stumbles upon 300 million-year-old fossil - Technology & Science - CBC News

Smart ......... or lucky, dog.


----------



## Dr.G.

Oops .................... 

High school valedictorian denied diploma after saying 'hell' in speech - Your Community

High school valedictorian denied diploma after saying 'hell' in speech


----------



## Dr.G.

'Hover bike' prototype thrills sci-fi fans: Would you buy one? - Your Community

It is Luke Skywalker approved .................


----------



## Dr.G.

"The Parti Québécois is clarifying its stance on a controversial announcement it made Tuesday when Leader Pauline Marois said anyone running for office in the province would be subject to a French proficiency test under a PQ government.

In a statement on Wednesday, the party said the rule would only apply to newcomers to the province. They would be obliged to take a test in order to receive Quebec citizenship."

PQ backpedals on French test for election candidates - Montreal - CBC News

Strange, but when I came here to St.John's, NL as a Canadian Landed Immigrant, I was asked if I could speak either of the two official Canadian languages before I could become a landed immigrant, and then a Canadian citizen.


----------



## MacDoc

Right place, right time....talking about timing it and it "dances to the beat"
Watch the video

Wheels.ca – Insider Report: Calgary road sign does a dance before crashing down


----------



## Dr.G.

Oops ..............

Woman ruins Spanish fresco in restoration attempt - CBC News


----------



## CubaMark

Dr.G. said:


> Oops ..............
> 
> Woman ruins Spanish fresco in restoration attempt - CBC News


_Marc, that story really needs an image to drive home how disastrous this was..._


----------



## CubaMark

*After 32,000 Years, an Ice Age Flower Blooms Again *





> Deep in the frozen tundra of northeastern Siberia, a squirrel buried fruits some 32,000 years ago from a plant that bore white flowers. This winter a team of Russian scientists announced that they had unearthed the fruit and brought tissue from it back to life. The fruits are about 30,000 years older than the Israeli date palm seed that previously held the record as the oldest tissue to give life to healthy plants.


(DiscoverMagazine)


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> _Marc, that story really needs an image to drive home how disastrous this was..._


True. Gracias, mi amigo.


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> *After 32,000 Years, an Ice Age Flower Blooms Again *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (DiscoverMagazine)


Wow!!! :clap:


----------



## Macfury

Triffid.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> Triffid.


XX)


----------



## Dr.G.

Singing apes control voice like human sopranos - Technology & Science - CBC News

Next stop, the Metropolitan Opera .................


----------



## Dr.G.

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dog Pees On Electric Fence on MSN Video


----------



## MacDoc

Cute

WATCH: Sleeping Woman Cuddles Stranger On Tube | LBC

and a good sport about it....


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> Cute
> 
> WATCH: Sleeping Woman Cuddles Stranger On Tube | LBC
> 
> and a good sport about it....


:yawn::yawn:


----------



## Dr.G.

Hiker photographs bear just before fatal grizzly attack - CNN.com

A tragic story.


----------



## fellfromtree

Grand Island Preschooler Asked to Change the Sign for His Name in School

Drop that name, kid!


----------



## Dr.G.

fellfromtree said:


> Grand Island Preschooler Asked to Change the Sign for His Name in School
> 
> Drop that name, kid!


I agree. If I was Hunter's parents, I would change his name to Franklin Ulysses, and then just call him FU ................ the sign for that is just one finger .......... the middle finger pointed upwards ............... which does not resemble a gun. Case closed.


----------



## MacDoc

Loud TV ads are over as of tomorrow - thestar.com

_we shall see._...to quote something I read on the interweb


----------



## Macfury

MacDoc said:


> Loud TV ads are over as of tomorrow - thestar.com
> 
> _we shall see._...to quote something I read on the interweb


Agreed. It's hard to believe that we have achieved such a sad state of affairs that the government is involved in regulating something so trivial.


----------



## Kosh

fellfromtree said:


> Grand Island Preschooler Asked to Change the Sign for His Name in School
> 
> Drop that name, kid!


Can't watch the film, right now. I assume this is the kid that signs his name "Hunter" with something like two hands as pistols (crossed fingers). I didn't see a problem with the sign. I agree with his father that someone's making more out of it than they should be. I don't see any problem with it.


----------



## Kosh

MacDoc said:


> Loud TV ads are over as of tomorrow - thestar.com
> 
> _we shall see._...to quote something I read on the interweb


My mom was wondering when this was to take effect. She hates having to turn down the volume all the time.

Now if they could ban automatic phone calls. I hate those.


----------



## Dr.G.

Unprecedented civil union unites Brazilian trio - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

An amazing lost and found story.


----------



## MacDoc

another....



> *iPhone lost in Lake Ontario revived by boy and returned to owner*
> Published on Sunday September 09, 2012
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MATTHEW SHERWOOD FOR THE TORONTO STAR Julian Kelly, 9, found Ryan Abreo's iPhone in Lake Ontario, where it had soaked for three days. “I was really sort of touched by this kid,” Abreo said.
> Michael Woods
> Staff Reporter
> 
> It wasn’t until the end of Ryan Abreo’s Saturday hanging out with friends on the Toronto Islands that he realized his iPhone 4S was missing.
> 
> Abreo, 31, a vice-president at a marketing company, had accidentally taken his phone swimming. After a futile search, he considered the phone lost forever.
> 
> But 10 days later, on Sept. 4, an email landed in his inbox.
> 
> “I am Julian, and I found your iPhone on the 28th of August, in the lake on the other side of Centre Island. I am nine. … The phone is NOT DAMAGED. I’m amazed that it’s not damaged.”
> 
> Abreo was in disbelief; he thought a friend was pranking him. He forwarded the email to a friend, who posted it on Reddit.
> 
> But it wasn’t a joke. Three days after Abreo lost the phone, Julian Kelly was wading through shallow water and picking up stones at Ward’s Island Beach when he found it. It was dripping wet and starting to rust.
> 
> “He was excited about the chance of having an iPhone … but I said to him that it was probably a $600 paperweight,” said his dad, John Kelly, who was with him that day, along with Julian’s younger sister.
> 
> Julian, a Grade 4 student at Clinton Street Junior Public School, didn’t give up. Under his parents’ guidance, he put the iPhone in a container of rice — a known strategy for resurrecting waterlogged phones — and left it there for a week.
> 
> When he plugged it into his mom Tricia’s computer, the phone started charging. Immense excitement followed.
> 
> “I thought that if we couldn’t find the owner, then I thought that I could sell it to my friends for $600,” Julian said.
> 
> But the family easily figured out it was Abreo’s phone an tracked him down.
> 
> When Abreo went to pick it up, Julian gave him a hug first, then the phone. “I was really sort of touched by this kid,” Abreo said. “He's a gentleman at a very young age and I really respect it.”
> 
> Julian’s email has accrued more than 15,000 views on Reddit. In gratitude, Abreo gave him a $50 prepaid credit card, money Julian said he will save or spend on Lego.
> 
> “If I do save it, it’s probably going to be for a castle when I grow up,” he added.
> 
> Although Abreo bought a new phone after his old one drowned, he said he will return it and keep this one.
> 
> “It had a three-day swimming lesson, and I feel like I should hold on to it.”


----------



## MacDoc

gotta love ad libs in space










Behold, the Toothbrush That Just Saved the International Space Station - Megan Garber - The Atlantic


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> gotta love ad libs in space
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Behold, the Toothbrush That Just Saved the International Space Station - Megan Garber - The Atlantic


Ingenuity ................ :clap::clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

Bullied bus monitor collects $703K cheque in Toronto - Canada - CBC News

:clap::clap::clap::clap:


----------



## screature

Shook hands with both the Prime Minister and Governor General today... both very affable gentlemen at the time... 

I have met plenty of "famous"/"powerful" people in my life and so I am not all that easily impressed and not to say that I was impressed that much by either except for their common decency and good will which I was very much appreciative of by both...


----------



## Dr.G.

screature said:


> Shook hands with both the Prime Minister and Governor General today... both very affable gentlemen at the time...
> 
> I have met plenty of "famous"/"powerful" people in my life and so I am not all that easily impressed and not to say that I was impressed that much by either except for their common decency and good will which I was very much appreciative of by both...


:clap::clap::clap: Good for you, screature. It is nice to get that sort of impression about people in the public eye.

I met Stephen Harper in the Calgary Airport once before he was PM. I also met Joe Clark at The Bay in Calgary. We had a grand chat. I was amazed that I could get so close, talk with them in public, and there was no security in sight. My son met former-president Bill Clinton in Toronto, and he said that the Secret Service was watching his every move.


----------



## Sonal

Man pays for $137 traffic ticket with 137 origami pigs, delivered in doughnut boxes.

A Bubble In a Sound Wave


----------



## Dr.G.

Sonal said:


> Man pays for $137 traffic ticket with 137 origami pigs, delivered in doughnut boxes.
> 
> A Bubble In a Sound Wave


Cool ............... much better than 13,700 pennies in canvas sacks.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Book her, Danno.


----------



## Dr.G.

Ooppsssssss ...............

And the 500,000th error in baseball history goes to ... - CBSSports.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Magnotta's extradition expected to cost taxpayers $375K - Canada - CBC News

tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

This is why you don't perform magic for small children on MSN Video

Oops ....................


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> Magnotta's extradition expected to cost taxpayers $375K - Canada - CBC News
> 
> tptptptp


How would you have handled it?


----------



## bryanc

Macfury said:


> How would you have handled it?


It's certainly an extraordinary circumstance, so I'm not sure we should worry about the fact that it cost about 10x more than it ought to have; we're not going to have to do this sort of thing very often, so effort spent to streamline this sort of process isn't going to save us much in the long run.

But I'm not clear on why they couldn't use a military transport. Surely there must be some NATO military planes that would be transporting troops and or supplies to/from Germany that could've been used for this?


----------



## Kosh

bryanc said:


> But I'm not clear on why they couldn't use a military transport. Surely there must be some NATO military planes that would be transporting troops and or supplies to/from Germany that could've been used for this?


 
It is a military transport. If you read below it, one guy says he's rode on those and their not all that extravagant.

Yes, these are one or two of these probably made up for the PM and VIPs, but it's unlikely they used those. I think the journalist just wanted to sensationalize it more.



> Magnotta flew home aboard one of the military's CC-150 Polaris Airbus transport planes, an aircraft that *can be configured* to accommodate prominent passengers such as the prime minister, foreign dignitaries, the Governor General and members of the Royal Family.


The operative words in that sentence is "can be configured". There are more that are not configured that way.


----------



## Kosh

Ok, from Wikipedia, Canada has 5 of those aircraft:


> CC-150
> 1 VIP transport
> 2 strategic airlifters
> 
> CC-150T
> 2 aerial refueling tankers/strategic airlifters


They could have used one of the strategic airlifters as these are made to carry military personnel.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> How would you have handled it?


Do what they do in the US .... three seats in coach with him handcuffed to both agents ........ with him in the middle seat.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## bryanc

Dr.G. said:


> Do what they do in the US .... three seats in coach with him handcuffed to both agents ........ with him in the middle seat.


I think this was the original plan, but no commercial carrier would take him. So it had to be a charter; the only question was did it have to be such an expensive charter?


----------



## eMacMan

I doubt they were really worried about landing in another country and him asking for asylum. As Canada does not have a death penalty and he is not a citizen of any country between Germany and Canada it seems most unlikely. 

Maybe it was the red tape to get the cops guns past German security that made the special mode of transit necessary?


----------



## CubaMark

*A mandatory $180 art school textbook about "prehistory to 1800" with no pictures, thanks to a lack of mysterious "copyright clearances"*





> Students enrolled in the Ontario College of Art and Design's Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800 are required to buy a $180 "custom textbook." Despite exclusively covering material that is, by definition, in the public domain, and despite a Canadian Supreme Court ruling that establishes a broad "fair dealing" exemption for educational materials, this year's textbook contains no pictures, because the school and the copyright holders (whatever that means in the context of material from "prehistory to 1800") can't agree on licensing.
> 
> In other words, *this is a blisteringly expensive art book with no art in it*. It will not serve as any kind of lasting visual reference. It's hard to see how it will serve any use at all. And it's mandatory.


(BoingBoing)


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Not sure if I would be brave enough to do this for one of my doxies.


----------



## CubaMark

*An update to this story...*



CubaMark said:


>


*Woman who botched Spanish fresco of Jesus wants royalties*



> A Spanish woman whose botched restoration of a century-old fresco of Jesus became an international laughingstock now wants a slice of the revenues the work is generating, as thousands of tourists are drawn to the church.





> The church decided to charge a one-euro admission fee for visitors, collecting about 2,000 euros in four days, which prompted the woman’s family to seek royalties for the work.
> 
> The non-profit foundation responsible for the church has hired its own lawyers and is considering a lawsuit over the botched restoration.


(CBC)


----------



## Dr.G.

Crowd lifts car off Toronto boy, 9, after child struck - Toronto - CBC News

An amazing rescue in TO.


----------



## Dr.G.

"ESPN kept Greenberg’s story alive with a couple “OTL” segments. And this year, Liston, the filmmaker, made it his mission to get him a real MLB at-bat.

Liston, a Cubs fan and Chicago native living in California, took up Greenberg’s cause this year, after he and his wife saw “Field of Dreams,” a baseball movie that mentions Moonlight Graham, who never came to bat in his only big-league game in 1905.

“My wife said she felt sorry for him. I said, ‘Moonlight Graham has (nothing) on Adam Greenberg,’” Liston said. “Graham played a couple innings. Adam only got a couple seconds.”

Liston, who didn’t know Greenberg but recalled seeing the plate appearance on TV, decided he wanted to help him get a proper MLB at-bat."


Batter beaned in only MLB appearance getting 2nd shot – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

What happened to good old "holes in the head"???


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Good for her!! :clap::clap::clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger said he blames no one but himself for the breakup of his 25-year marriage to Maria Shriver, whom he described as the only true love of his life.

"It's my fault. There's no one else to blame," the former California governor told CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" in an interview that aired Tuesday. "I ... screwed up badly and I take the full blame for it."

Shriver filed for divorce last year shortly after Schwarzenegger acknowledged that he fathered a child outside marriage with the family's longtime housekeeper. He said he still hopes to win Shriver back.

Schwarzenegger says he 'screwed up,' hopes to win Shriver back - CNN.com

He has even learned to play the piano in hopes of playing some of Maria's best loved classical music to regain her love -- his selected piece "I'll be Bach" by none other than JS Bach.


----------



## SINC

Seems suitable for this thread!


----------



## Sonal

:lmao::lmao::lmao:


----------



## Dr.G.

SINC said:


> Seems suitable for this thread!


"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again ............."


----------



## screature

SINC said:


> Seems suitable for this thread!


That's hilarious.


----------



## Dr.G.

Sasquatch sighting by Nunavik berry pickers - CBC News

You can't make this up ...................... or can you???


----------



## Dr.G.

London (CNN) -- British police have decided not to press any charges against the elderly couple who had been unknowingly cultivating a huge cannabis plant in their garden.

Police stunned by elderly couple's huge cannabis plant - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Well, if you say so .................... 
  
CNN) -- Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who came under fire from his own troops just hours before, took to his country's airwaves Sunday, saying the shooting incident was an accident.

"I want to reassure all citizens of my well-being after the accident committed by an army unit on an unpaved road around Touela. ... Everything is fine," he said in an interview broadcast on official Mauritanian television.

Troops shot the president late Saturday in what the government is calling a case of "friendly fire" -- though others believe it may have been something more sinister. Aziz's convoy mistakenly came under fire as it was heading back toward the capital of Nouakchott, the official AMI news agency reported. The gunshots came from a military unit stationed alongside the road in the west African country.

State news: Mauritania's president mistakenly shot by his nation's troops - CNN.com


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Good for him.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Sounds like a unique idea.


----------



## MacDoc

wow

Witness to Lincoln Shooting: Gotta-See Video : Discovery News


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> wow
> 
> Witness to Lincoln Shooting: Gotta-See Video : Discovery News


Amazing, but would you believe that I saw this on TV??? I was only 7 at the time, but my mom called me in to watch this show. Gary Moore was good but Bill Cullen was better in his guesses which got them going to the event.


----------



## SINC

I too saw this show when it aired. I was 12 at the time and it was discussed the next day in our Social Studies class in the sixth grade. I was one of only three students whose homes had a TV set.


----------



## Dr.G.

SINC said:


> I too saw this show when it aired. I was 12 at the time and it was discussed the next day in our Social Studies class in the sixth grade. I was one of only three students whose homes had a TV set.


Sinc, my second grade teacher did not believe me when I told her that I saw this show and saw this man.


----------



## SINC

Our teacher, Miss Migowsky, lived with her parents who owned a furniture store and had a TV as well. She asked if anyone else had seen it.


----------



## Dr.G.

SINC said:


> Our teacher, Miss Migowsky, lived with her parents who owned a furniture store and had a TV as well. She asked if anyone else had seen it.


My teacher, Miss McKerney, did not believe that my mom would let me stay up that late. Everyone in the class had a TV, but I was lucky to have a mom who knew that I liked history, even at that early age.


----------



## MacDoc

9 degrees and hopefully a nice day ahead with a high of 14 and some sun


----------



## CubaMark

_Looks like somebody's mouse jumped a bit..._ ^^^^ 

*ON today's instalment of "You can't make these things up":*



*Weighty memento: war veteran's secret revealed after his death*



> Ronald Brown stepped on a land mine while on a mission in France in August 1944.
> The blast peppered his left leg with red-hot fragments and he was forced to crawl two miles to safety.
> But because of medical conditions of the day it was thought safer to leave shrapnel in his body.
> He survived the war but only ever told his family the basic story and said the accident had left him with a 'bad knee'.





> But when he died last week aged 94 his family had him cremated and were stunned when staff handed them back a big bag of shrapnel.
> The bag contained a whopping 6oz of bomb shrapnel that he had been carrying around for 60 years.



(Telegraph-UK)


----------



## Dr.G.

Russian bride leaves elderly man with $25K welfare bill - British Columbia - CBC News

She should be deported. tptptptptptptptp


----------



## Kosh

Someone has some terrible eyesight. How can you think a nine year old girl is a skunk?

Costumed girl, 9, shot after being mistaken for skunk outside party, police say


----------



## bryanc

Kosh said:


> Someone has some terrible eyesight. How can you think a nine year old girl is a skunk?


How can you justify shooting at skunks in the dark? How can you justify shooting at anything when you aren't 100% certain of what it is? How is it that these halfwits are the people most likely to think they need to have guns in their houses?


----------



## eMacMan

Kosh said:


> Someone has some terrible eyesight. How can you think a nine year old girl is a skunk?
> 
> Costumed girl, 9, shot after being mistaken for skunk outside party, police say


Thankfully his marksmanship was pretty much at the same level as his intelligence. Sounds like the little girl will be OK with just a shoulder injury.


----------



## MacDoc

Take away .....don't **** off a golden eagle....:yikes: Long memory



> *Eagle attacks villagers in revenge, locals say*
> Updated: 2012-08-14 20:41
> 
> Two villagers in Muling county, Heilongjiang province, were attacked by a golden eagle several times within two years after they ate a young golden eagle, Heilongjiang Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
> 
> A golden eagle attacked a man named Yang for more than 20 minutes when he was harvesting wheat on Saturday morning. After Yang was helped into a police car, the golden eagle continued the attack, diving at the windshield and chasing the car for 700 meters, the report said.
> 
> Yang was badly injured in his face, neck and arms, but it was not the worst time he was injured by golden eagles, according to the report. In April 2011, when he was planting in the mountain, a golden eagle attacked him, cutting his head, and he got 21 stitches.
> 
> A fellow villager named Wu has also been attacked by the golden eagle several times since August 2010. In April 2011, he received gashes in his head and hands in an attack and piece of flesh was ripped from his forehead. Wu received more than 40 stitches to close his wounds from that attack, the report said. He moved out the village to avoid further attacks.
> 
> According to the report, Yang said they had stolen a young golden eagle from its nest and ate it in August 2010, because they heard that eating golden eagles could cure hemorrhoids. Villagers say the golden eagle is seeking revenge.
> 
> For hundreds of years, golden eagles have been famous in China for their ferocity and strength, the report said. In Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Mongolian hunters used to train them to hunt wolves. It is said that one golden eagle caught 14 wolves.


----------



## Dr.G.

"Koshik can reproduce "annyeong" (hello), "anja" (sit down), "aniya" (no), "nuwo" (lie down) and "joa" (good), the paper says. "

Elephant in South Korean zoo imitates human speech - CBC News


----------



## MacDoc

Watch a small plane plow into an SUV -- and still land safely | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

you gotta look at the video and the dialogue


----------



## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> (Telegraph-UK)


You learn something new every day. I always thought shrapnel was a specific sort of metal, not just old cotter pins and screws.


----------



## eMacMan

Macfury said:


> You learn something new every day. I always thought shrapnel was a specific sort of metal, not just old cotter pins and screws.


Nope shrapnel was any sort of scrap metal bit available.


----------



## MacDoc

> *Southfield Twp. voter appears to die, then asks 'Did I vote?'
> *
> * By Tom Greenwood and Rod Beard
> 
> 
> Southfield Township — Sometimes dead men really do get to vote.
> 
> Ty Houston, 48, a home care registered nurse, was toiling on his absentee ballot Monday afternoon when things got strange at township offices on 13 Mile.
> 
> "I was filling out the form as were an elderly couple sitting at a nearby table," said Houston on Tuesday. "His wife, who was helping him fill out the ballot, asked him a couple of questions but he didn't respond. She screamed for help and I went over to see what I could do."
> 
> Houston laid the victim on the floor and went to work.
> 
> "He was dead," Houston said. "He had no heartbeat and he wasn't breathing. I started CPR, and after a few minutes, he revived and started breathing again. He knew his name and his wife's name."
> 
> What happened next astounded Houston and the victim's wife.
> 
> "The first question he asked was 'Did I vote?'"
> 
> Dumbfounded, the man's wife told him that whether he voted was the least of their concerns.
> 
> "She told him 'Your life is my concern,'" Houston said.
> 
> According to Houston, the man — who had a tracheotomy in his throat — gulped down a few more breaths and then told her there are only two things that are important to me: "That I love you and that I finished what I came here to do … vote."
> 
> Which he had done.
> 
> EMS personnel then took the pair to William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, but only after the couple wrapped Houston in thanks and hugs.
> 
> "It was God's divine word that I be there. Originally, I was just going skip the ballot and just go to lunch that day," Houston said.
> 
> Clerk Sharon Tischler confirmed the story Tuesday but said she didn't know the names of the couple. Houston also wasn't able to recall their names.
> 
> "It was definitely a 911 scenario," Tischler said. "It was great there was someone around to render aid."
> 
> From The Detroit News: Southfield Twp. voter appears to die, then asks 'Did I vote?' | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com


:clap:


----------



## CubaMark

*Coded WWII message found on pigeon remains*





> British intelligence agents are working on deciphering a coded message that has remained a secret for nearly 70 years -- attached to the leg of a hero World War II carrier pigeon.
> 
> Found in the chimney of 17th-century home in Bletchingley, Surrey, the bird's skeleton was found in 1982 when the home's current owner David Martin decided to restore the fireplace.





> Almost certainly, the carrier pigeon was dispatched from Nazi-occupied France on June 6 1944, during the D-Day Invasions.





> "The message Mr Martin found must be highly top secret. We have more than 30 messages from WWII carrier pigeons in our exhibition, but not one is in code,"


(Fox News)


----------



## CubaMark

*Michael O'Leary, Ryanair CEO, Says Seatbelts On Planes 'Don't Matter'*



> Ryanair's ever outspoken CEO has raised eyebrows again by asserting that seatbelts on airplanes are pointless, in an attempt to lobby for standing room only sections on his planes -- a move he also tried back in 2009.
> 
> Stating that airplanes are just buses with wings, he asserted that “if there ever was a crash on an aircraft, God forbid, a seatbelt won’t save you,” in an interview with the Telegraph. He added, "You don't need a seatbelt on the London Underground. You don't need a seatbelt on trains which are travelling at 120mph and if they crash you're all dead..."
> 
> O'Leary hopes to get around EU safety regulations that require passengers to be belted in for take-off and landing so that he can remove the last 10 rows of seats from his planes and make them standing room only for a price of £1 ($1.60.)





> "You should be able to choose from a safety perspective," he said. “We don't have heavy landings anymore. If you say to someone, 'look, hang onto the handle there, you're coming in to land', they'll be fine."


(HuffingtonPost)


----------



## MacGuiver

CubaMark said:


> *Michael O'Leary, Ryanair CEO, Says Seatbelts On Planes 'Don't Matter'*
> 
> 
> 
> (HuffingtonPost)


Thats crazy. I wouldn't want to be the guy standing on a plane in severe turbulence.


----------



## Macfury

MacGuiver said:


> Thats crazy. I wouldn't want to be the guy standing on a plane in severe turbulence.


Still if they offered to fly me somewhere for $5...


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Fight hate with humor ............... a great idea.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Good for him ................ an honest man.


----------



## Dr.G.

Canada's then Gov. Gen. Lord Stanley of Preston awarded the Stanley Cup to the people of Canada in 1893. The cup has been the symbol of hockey greatness. Since 1926, it has been exclusively awarded to the NHL team that wins the playoffs each season. 

The Cup's charter says it "shall be awarded yearly to the best team in the Dominion," but in fact, it is managed by two trustees, who have always decided to award it to the NHL's playoff champion.

So, if there is no NHL season, could it be awarded to another team in another league???


----------



## BigDL

*Use it or Lose it*

Use it or lose it!

Sounds good to me.


----------



## Dr.G.

BigDL said:


> Use it or lose it!
> 
> Sounds good to me.


Would be nice to bring the Stanley Cup to St.John's with the St.John's Ice Caps. We shall see.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Very strange ...................


----------



## MacDoc

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...nd-on-bird-s-neck-leads-to-fish-photo-reunion


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> Camera found on bird


What are the odds?????????


----------



## Dr.G.

Janeane Garofalo was married for 20 years and didn't know it – The Marquee Blog - CNN.com Blogs

Who knew????


----------



## MacDoc

> They Cracked This 250 Year-Old Code, And Found a Secret Society Inside
> 
> * By Noah Shachtman
> * 11.16.12
> * 6:30 AM


They Cracked This 250 Year-Old Code, And Found a Secret Society Inside | Danger Room | Wired.com


----------



## Dr.G.

105-year-old woman turns down preschool acceptance - Your Community

Oops ................


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> They Cracked This 250 Year-Old Code, And Found a Secret Society Inside | Danger Room | Wired.com


Very interesting............


----------



## CubaMark

MacDoc said:


> They Cracked This 250 Year-Old Code, And Found a Secret Society Inside | Danger Room | Wired.com


Great read, MacDoc - very interesting


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## partsguy

Dr.G. said:


> Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


It would be helpful if you renamed the link to something other than 'Breaking News Videos from CNN.com'. For instance this one could have been renamed 'Glass Toilet'.

This story is a day late though, because _yesterday_ was World Toilet Day


----------



## Dr.G.

partsguy said:


> It would be helpful if you renamed the link to something other than 'Breaking News Videos from CNN.com'. For instance this one could have been renamed 'Glass Toilet'.
> 
> This story is a day late though, because _yesterday_ was World Toilet Day


True. Mea culpa.


----------



## MacDoc

This one is for the long term record books  Talk about a hot streak.....108 shots in the game!!

Jack Taylor scores 138 points, shattering NCAA scoring record - thestar.com


----------



## Dr.G.

MacDoc said:


> This one is for the long term record books  Talk about a hot streak.....108 shots in the game!!
> 
> Jack Taylor scores 138 points, shattering NCAA scoring record - thestar.com


Amazing, although he shot 48% from the floor, which is OK, but not great. To me, this is still the #1 basketball accomplishment.

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game stands as towering achievement - Richard Rothschild - SI.com


----------



## CubaMark

I know that The Oatmeal is not universally beloved in this forum, but fan or not, these are worth a read:

The Oatmeal is Being Sued by Greeting Cards Company Oatmeal Studios

...and for background (mentioned in the article above):

FunnyJunk is threatening to file a federal lawsuit against me unless I pay $20,000 in damages 

and 

As promised, here's the photo of $211,223 in cash we raised for charity


----------



## SINC

Camera found on bird


----------



## CubaMark

*California Law Criminalizes Sleeping While Homeless*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.








> Nevada City, California will provide a handful of permits to homeless persons if they submit themselves to a police background check. Even if they have done nothing illegal, the small number of permits give the police the power to send anyone else having the audacity to want to shut their eyes and rest their weary head while living in abject poverty moving on down the road to the next town.
> 
> How is it that when your world falls down around you, your basic rights vanish and the police treat you like some vermin that must be eradicated?


(Crooks & Liars)


----------



## Dr.G.

World's most expensive parking places - CNN.com

This is WAY too much for a parking space.


----------



## heavyall

CubaMark said:


> I know that The Oatmeal is not universally beloved in this forum


What? Who doesn't love the Oatmeal? Inman is hilarious.

Lawsuit probably has some merit though. He probably needs to rebrand the cards so they emphasize the Recycled Greetings branding, with a "featuring cartoons from The Oatmeal" sub tag.


----------



## CubaMark

heavyall said:


> What? Who doesn't love the Oatmeal? Inman is hilarious.


I know, right? But some folks just have a ..different... sense of humour...



heavyall said:


> Lawsuit probably has some merit though. He probably needs to rebrand the cards so they emphasize the Recycled Greetings branding, with a "featuring cartoons from The Oatmeal" sub tag.


True - but upon reading the story, I was left asking myself how many people out there know the Oatmeal Studios greeting card company... I'd never heard of it... Took a quick look at their site - kind of a Gary Larson vibe to the artwork, nothing I'd ever confuse with The Oatmeal.


----------



## macintosh doctor

Only in Quebec. 
How a utility pole wound up in the middle of a Quebec highway


----------



## Dr.G.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Apparently, full stomachs after Thanksgiving dinners get people in the mood for some real shopping. 

Customers flocked in to early store openings on Thanksgiving day to scoop up "doorbuster" deals. A record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites in the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday weekend this year, up 9% from 226 million last year, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation released Sunday. 

Individual shoppers also shelled out more money -- spending $423 this weekend, up from $398 last year. Total spending over the four-day weekend reached a record $59.1 billion, a 13% increase from $52.4 billion last year, according to the NRF.

Black Friday: Spending and number of shoppers hit record highs - Nov. 25, 2012

Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Dr.G.

A truly happy ending .........

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## CubaMark




----------



## Dr.G.

Judge OKs bonuses for execs in Hostess liquidation - Nov. 29, 2012

tptptptp


----------



## SINC

Regina fire crews scramble over giant burning TV log



> The Regina Fire Department has simmered down about a burning Yule log displayed at Mosaic Stadium's giant TV screens.
> 
> For weeks, the cheery image of the burning log was displayed on the video scoreboard at the Saskatchewan Roughriders home venue west of the downtown.
> 
> The flaming log was also shown on banner screens across the stands.
> 
> The problem was, from a distance some people thought the stadium was on fire — there were four frantic calls to 911 in the past few weeks.
> 
> Deputy fire chief Gerard Kay said the callers were very descriptive, reporting "a very bright flame. In some cases the smell of smoke."
> 
> Standing in the parking lot at the nearby Regina fieldhouse recently, a CBC journalist saw the televised flames apparently looming over neighbourhood houses.
> 
> "I'm hoping that we can eliminate this and put something a little more appropriate up," Kay said. "I mean, it is appropriate, but it is a public safety concern."
> 
> A fire crew was dispatched to the scene most recently late Wednesday afternoon.
> 
> Trying to snuff out the false alarms, Kay said he called around to get the log video replaced.
> "Maybe some snowflakes or Santa or something like that," he said.
> 
> The Roughriders organization, which is in charge of what appears on the TVs, got the message.
> 
> A spokesperson told CBC Thursday that they've just changed the log to a "thank you" message to fans. The flaming banner TVs have also been switched off.


Regina fire crews scramble over giant burning TV log - Saskatchewan - CBC News


----------



## heavyall

Dr.G. said:


> Judge OKs bonuses for execs in Hostess liquidation - Nov. 29, 2012
> 
> tptptptp


I agree with this decision. The unions may not have wanted their jobs anymore, but these executives still have a lot of work to do sorting out the pieces.


----------



## Dr.G.

B.C. woman may lose home over huge lawyer bill - British Columbia - CBC News

tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

Dogs learning to drive - Canada - CBC News

Not sure how my doxies could master driving.


----------



## partsguy

Dr.G. said:


> B.C. woman may lose home over huge lawyer bill - British Columbia - CBC News


99% of lawyers give the other 1% a bad reputation ...


----------



## partsguy

SINC said:


> Regina fire crews scramble over giant burning TV log
> 
> 
> 
> Regina fire crews scramble over giant burning TV log - Saskatchewan - CBC News


A few years ago our neighbour got a new huge big screen and put it on the Shaw Burning Log channel. We almost called the fire department because from across the street it looked like his living room was on fire.


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> Judge OKs bonuses for execs in Hostess liquidation - Nov. 29, 2012
> 
> tptptptp


The reasoning seems OK.



> He said the liquidation would call for work "significantly beyond the type of jobs that [the executives] were doing at the start of this case," and called the incentive plan "an exercise of proper business judgment."
> 
> *He noted that the over 3,000 rank-and-file employees assisting in the liquidation were also getting paid beyond their regular salaries, and that new Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn had *


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> B.C. woman may lose home over huge lawyer bill - British Columbia - CBC News
> 
> tptptptp


If you seek expensive representation, they will take everything you have. In my one legal dispute, the lawyer explained that the case I was embarking on would take years and that when I won, she would own everything I had. It was less satisfying, but less expensive, to give in somewhat and avoid court.


----------



## eMacMan

Macfury said:


> The reasoning seems OK.


Not really. Out of work execs are a dime a dozen. Especially ones that can run companies into the ground. Keep them on at minimum wage. If they don't want to do the job find someone else.


----------



## Dr.G.

Cops: Man left pit bull to babysit infant while he drank at bar - *News - MSN CA

tptptptp


----------



## CubaMark




----------



## tilt

I am dumbfounded!

Montreal bylaw requires dogs understand commands in both official languages | This is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring | CBC Radio


----------



## Dr.G.

tilt said:


> I am dumbfounded!
> 
> Montreal bylaw requires dogs understand commands in both official languages | This is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring | CBC Radio




My doxies understand commands in English, German and Yiddish ............. but not French.


----------



## bryanc

tilt said:


> I am dumbfounded!
> 
> Montreal bylaw requires dogs understand commands in both official languages | This is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring | CBC Radio


Um, you know _This is That_ is comedy/fiction, right? I don't generally find them very funny, but this is their standard gag; present something that's just over the line of believability as if it's real, and pretend to be outraged.


----------



## Dr.G.

bryanc said:


> Um, you know _This is That_ is comedy/fiction, right? I don't generally find them very funny, but this is their standard gag; present something that's just over the line of believability as if it's real, and pretend to be outraged.




Montreal bylaw requires dogs understand commands in both official languages | This is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring | CBC Radio


----------



## tilt

bryanc said:


> Um, you know _This is That_ is comedy/fiction, right? I don't generally find them very funny, but this is their standard gag; present something that's just over the line of believability as if it's real, and pretend to be outraged.


Oh, I did not know that! My apologies for crying wolf. I saw it was on the CBC website and presumed it to be legitimate.

Cheers


----------



## Dr.G.

(CNN) - Sarah Palin, who's been listed twice as one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People," is taking issue with the publication's decision to name President Barack Obama as its "Person of the Year."

"Time magazine, I think there's some irrelevancy there to tell you the truth. I mean consider their list of the most influential people in the country and in the world. Some who have made that list? Yours truly. That oughta tell ya something right there regarding the credence we should give Time magazine and their list of people," she said Wednesday on Fox News. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does the phrase "sour grapes" come to mind????


----------



## CubaMark

*Dead Spy Locked Himself in Sports Bag: Police - Scotland Yard investigation concludes what inquest rejected*












> Scotland Yard has concluded that MI6 Codebreaker Gareth Williams probably locked himself inside the duffel bag he was found dead in,





> two experts told the jury that Houdini himself "would have struggled" to lock himself inside the sports bag, after trying the trick in vain themselves 400 times. But after those proceedings a retired Army sergeant came forward demonstrating how it could be done, and police detectives were able to repeat his process. Investigators now believe the incident was likely an auto-erotic event gone wrong—a possibility the coroner rejected.


(Newser)


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> (CNN) - Sarah Palin, who's been listed twice as one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People," is taking issue with the publication's decision to name President Barack Obama as its "Person of the Year."
> 
> "Time magazine, I think there's some irrelevancy there to tell you the truth. I mean consider their list of the most influential people in the country and in the world. Some who have made that list? Yours truly. That oughta tell ya something right there regarding the credence we should give Time magazine and their list of people," she said Wednesday on Fox News.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Does the phrase "sour grapes" come to mind????


Dr. G., being Person of the Year is certainly a mixed bag, and must be taken in its own yearly context. The honour has also been bestowed upon Hitler, Stalin, Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, George Bush and Pac Man.


----------



## Dr.G.

Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam luncheon meat, is paying $700 million to buy the Skippy peanut butter brand from consumer products maker Unilever, the companies announced Thursday.

This shall result in peanut flavored Spam .................... or a new chunky Skippy peanut butter with chunks of Spam rather than peanuts. We shall see.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Look ............. up in the sky.


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Who uses their child as bait???????????????????????


----------



## CubaMark

_Interesting!_

*Fences as primitive phone networks*



> Across much of the west, to the west of old US 81 (present I-35) in Texas--and not a small part of it east of that demarcation--there was already a network of wire covering most of the country, in the form of barbed-wire fences. Some unknown genius discovered that if you hooked two Sears or Monkey Ward telephone sets to the top wire on a barbed-wire fence, you could talk between the telephones as easily as between two "town" telephones connected by slick wire through an operator's switchboard. A rural telephone system that had no operators, no bills--and no long-distance charges--was born.


(BoingBoing and Wikipedia)


----------



## Dr.G.

Naked runner streaks by police on frozen N.S. lake - Nova Scotia - CBC News


----------



## Sonal

Canadian couple Allen and Violet Large give away lottery millions


----------



## Dr.G.

Sonal said:


> Canadian couple Allen and Violet Large give away lottery millions


:clap::clap::clap::clap:

Good for them. :clap::clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

Atlantic Lotto taking Oscar bets - Arts & Entertainment - CBC News

I am going to put my money on Daniel Day Lewis in "Lincoln".


----------



## SINC

Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work ? The Register


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

He ran for president in 1988.


----------



## Sonal

Wow.

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine


----------



## CubaMark

Sonal, I read that article today - quite an amazing story. Sad, but engrossing.


----------



## Dr.G.

Sonal said:


> Wow.
> 
> For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine


An amazing story. I remember when I was in high school and some Japanese vets came out of hiding to find out that the war had ended in the Pacific for 20 years.


----------



## groovetube

wow. I couldn't stop reading that one. What a story.


----------



## Dr.G.

groovetube said:


> wow. I couldn't stop reading that one. What a story.


Me too. Sadly, this first contact caused the death of certain of the family members due to illness.


----------



## groovetube

The one thing that stood out to me, was, how did this family survive without access to any doctors, medicines, etc.?

It seems much of what is foisted on us, causes probably most of our diseases.


----------



## Dr.G.

groovetube said:


> The one thing that stood out to me, was, how did this family survive without access to any doctors, medicines, etc.?
> 
> It seems much of what is foisted on us, causes probably most of our diseases.


Possibly, gt. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## mlmummert

Sonal said:


> Wow.
> 
> For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine


Wow. Unaware of WWII. Those people would probably not have known if the Nazis had defeated the Soviets - or if the US and USSR had fought WWIII either.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Dr.G.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Incredible ............... and I do not surf.


----------



## Dr.G.

Dutch 737 pilot locked out of cockpit while co-pilot sleeps - CNN.com
Wow!!!!!!!!!


----------



## SINC

Ran this story today and thought it was pretty unbelievable:

Tortoise's Survival Locked In A Storeroom For 30 Years | St. Albert's Place On The Web


----------



## Dr.G.

Watch People Vs Fitness Video | Break.com

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!! XX)


----------



## FeXL

This may be the worst nanny state crap I've ever come across.

Australian children to be banned from blowing out candles on birthday cakes together because they might spread germs



> Australian children are to be banned from blowing out candles together on birthday cakes – because they could be puffing germs onto one another.
> 
> And in what is seen as an attempt to ‘bubble wrap’ children, youngsters attending birthday parties will be told to take along individual cup cakes on which to place single candles.




Further:



> Turning to sandpits, the council says that children must wash their hands with alcohol sanitiser before and afterwards.


These guys make Bloomberg come across as a genius...

Anybody know anyone unfortunate enough to be moving down under? Oh, wait...


----------



## Lawrence

Waxing our way to the ER

...


----------



## iMouse

I knew a guy who used to brag about re-loading shells for his 38 police special while drinking a few beers.

Then one night on the firing line his gun blew up in his face.

He had double-loaded the casing with cordite.

He was somewhat white, but otherwise unhurt.

Shooting committee gave him 3 months off, to think.


----------



## CubaMark

*I do believe this is cause for war with our southern neighbour....*










*Vermont firm implicated in $20-million maple syrup heist from Quebec warehouse*



> It’s another chapter in the great Maple Syrup Theft Caper, one that now transcends international borders.
> 
> A Vermont maple sugar candy producer is alleged to have been caught with 12 tanker trucks worth of stolen syrup, traced back to the $20-million theft of the golden elixir from a central warehouse in a small Quebec town about 160 kilometres northeast of Montreal.


(Montreal Gazette)


----------



## iMouse

CubaMark said:


> I do believe this is cause for war with our southern neighbour.


Guatemala or Belize??


----------



## Sonal

CubaMark said:


> *I do believe this is cause for war with our southern neighbour....*


I say we invade and burn down their maple trees like we burned down the White House in the War of 1812.


----------



## CubaMark

We can call it "The Great Maple War of 2013" - certainly global conflicts have begun over less compelling reasons (or at least, less honest ones)


----------



## kelman

We could take 'em! Their military is probably over seas somewhere and they wouldn't expect us coming! 200 years later and they would be just as surprised! Besides, they would never admit we whooped their butts!


----------



## Dr.G.

Sonal said:


> I say we invade and burn down their maple trees like we burned down the White House in the War of 1812.


If they set fire to the White House once again, I wonder if Michelle Obama, just like Dolly Madison did in 1814, will save the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington? Let's hope it does not come to that. We shall see.


----------



## javaqueen

Sonal said:


> I say we invade and burn down their maple trees like we burned down the White House in the War of 1812.





kelman said:


> We could take 'em! Their military is probably over seas somewhere and they wouldn't expect us coming! 200 years later and they would be just as surprised! Besides, they would never admit we whooped their butts!


Now that would be a sight to see.............our "little" Canadian army once again beating the "big" USA army - oh yeah, they never did admit that WE beat them


----------



## BigDL

Sonal said:


> I say we invade and burn down their maple trees like we burned down the White House in the War of 1812.


As I recall the British scorched the Presidential Mansion and of course in those Excited States the government in Washington DC covered up the incident with White Wash hence the two terms white washing and White House. Shall we blame Harper for the 1812 Embellishment Action Plan?


----------



## mlmummert

NORAD would be an interesting place...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Dr.G.

Heart Attack Grill's top patron dies of a heart attack – Eatocracy - CNN.com Blogs

The story tells it all. Sad, but all too true.


----------



## iMouse

This just in this morning.

Credibility just left the building.

Woman died from drinking 10 liters of Coke a day, coroner says | Fox News


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Guess the Anne of Green Gables look is not allowed in some schools in Utah.


----------



## Dr.G.

Golf-Hating Kangaroos Delay LPGA Australian Open | Bleacher Report

Fore .....................................


----------



## Dr.G.

Donations pour in for homeless man who returned diamond ring - CNN.com

An amazing story of honesty.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Tumbleweeds are no laughing matter.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Another reason to be grateful that we live in Canada.


----------



## CubaMark

Dr.G. said:


> CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
> 
> Another reason to be grateful that we live in Canada.


Dr. G: The stuff you post here is always interesting (and in this case, shocking), but may I request that you edit the link to include the topic?  Cheers!


----------



## iMouse

*"HA HA!!"* Made ya' look. :lmao:


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> Dr. G: The stuff you post here is always interesting (and in this case, shocking), but may I request that you edit the link to include the topic?  Cheers!


Sorry. Mea culpa. I shall remember that in the future with CNN clips. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Dr.G.

iMouse said:


> *"HA HA!!"* Made ya' look. :lmao:


Just saw the EC radar for the GTA ...................... Oshawa is not even there ......... whiped clean by the hand of God.


----------



## iMouse

We're just Toronto's guest bedroom. We don't count for squat.


----------



## Dr.G.

iMouse said:


> We're just Toronto's guest bedroom. We don't count for squat.


Well, you are just on the outskirts of the center of the know Canadian universe. :clap:


----------



## iMouse

Dr.G. said:


> Well, you are just on the outskirts of the center of the *know* Canadian universe. :clap:


Love your typo. They are that too, and I was even born there. I automatically know everything.


----------



## Dr.G.

iMouse said:


> Love your typo. They are that too, and I was even born there. I automatically know everything.


Oops. Mea culpa. Never having accepted that the GTA is the center of the known Canadian universe, and being learning disabled in spelling, gives me some wiggle room, however. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Sonal

iMouse said:


> We're just Toronto's guest bedroom. We don't count for squat.


Oshawhere?


----------



## CubaMark

_Here's your guaranteed-to-get-you-all-misty-eyed story of the day..._

*We Found Our Son in the Subway*



> The story of how Danny and I were married last July in a Manhattan courtroom, with our son, Kevin, beside us, began 12 years earlier, in a dark, damp subway station.
> 
> Danny called me that day, frantic. “I found a baby!” he shouted. “I called 911, but I don’t think they believed me. No one’s coming. I don’t want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something.” By nature Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I knew I had to run.





> ...after she had signed the official adoption order, I raised my hand. “Your honor, we’ve been wondering why you asked Danny if he was interested in adopting?”
> 
> “I had a hunch,” she just said. “Was I wrong?” And with that she rose from her chair, congratulated us, and exited the courtroom.


(NYTimes)


----------



## javaqueen

CubaMark said:


> _Here's your guaranteed-to-get-you-all-misty-eyed story of the day..._
> 
> *We Found Our Son in the Subway*
> 
> 
> 
> (NYTimes)


that brought tears to my eyes - thanks Mark for sharing


----------



## Dr.G.

Russian solider 'missing' since 1980 found in Afghanistan - CNN.com

A unique story these days.


----------



## Dr.G.

Texas woman has 2 sets of identical twins - CNN.com

What are the odds???????? Imagine the birthday parties ...............


----------



## KC4

Dr.G. said:


> What are the odds???????? ...........


About 1 in 70 Million, said the article.


----------



## Dr.G.

Thunder Fan Sinks Half-Court Shot, Will Use Winnings to Pay Wife's Cancer Bills | Bleacher Report

For a good cause .................


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

A few three-pointers ................... the hard way. Amazing basketball shots.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

I got dizzy just watching the pre-jump.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


Book 'em, Dano.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

No more Zellers chips in the BC chip caper ................


----------



## Dr.G.

Oklahoma HS Basketball Player's Layup Gaffe Gives Playoff Win to Other Team | Bleacher Report

Oops ................ wrong rim.


----------



## Dr.G.

Two enemies discover a 'higher call' in battle - CNN.com

An amazing story .............. reminds me of Snoopy and the Red Baron, except this is a real event. As well, the pilot's name was Charles Brown. 

(CNN) -- The pilot glanced outside his cockpit and froze. He blinked hard and looked again, hoping it was just a mirage. But his co-pilot stared at the same horrible vision.

"My God, this is a nightmare," the co-pilot said.

"He's going to destroy us," the pilot agreed.

The men were looking at a gray German Messerschmitt fighter hovering just three feet off their wingtip. It was five days before Christmas 1943, and the fighter had closed in on their crippled American B-17 bomber for the kill.

The B-17 pilot, Charles Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his first combat mission. His bomber had been shot to pieces by swarming fighters, and his plane was alone in the skies above Germany. Half his crew was wounded, and the tail gunner was dead, his blood frozen in icicles over the machine guns.

But when Brown and his co-pilot, Spencer "Pinky" Luke, looked at the fighter pilot again, something odd happened. The German didn't pull the trigger. He nodded at Brown instead. What happened next was one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World War II. Years later, Brown would track down his would-be executioner for a reunion that reduced both men to tears.


----------



## Dr.G.

A clever use of social media and other approaches to save a library........

Award-winning book-burning hoax saves Troy, MI libraries - Boing Boing


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

This lawsuit has no legs .............. or feet.


----------



## MacDoc

Oops

Ford Apologizes For Offensive Car Ad We Were Never Supposed To See | Business Insider Australia

Big time


----------



## CubaMark

*Springsteen - another reason why he's a fan favourite...*

*Bruce Springsteen invites young fan to sing with him during Brisbane gig*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.






*PS: Is it me, or does Springsteen do a pretty good impression of DeNiro?*

(TelegraphUK)


----------



## iMouse

Maybe they should try round.

Better aerodynamics that way.


----------



## Dr.G.

Woman won't let her car be towed on MSN Video

As it says in the Bible, "Thou shalt not tow" ..............


----------



## fellfromtree

Owner of camera lost on Maui found nearly six years later - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL

Camera lost in Hawaii found six years later in Taiwan


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Such is Life ................


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Lightening does strike twice.


----------



## iMouse

This hawk is/was obviously confused in the pecking order.

Ouch.

Hawk Attacks Bald Eagle Hatching Eggs Part 1 3-24-2013 DF - YouTube


----------



## jamesB

Bath time...


----------



## Dr.G.

Tiny airline makes big waves with weight-based fares ...................

Tiny airline makes big waves with weight-based fares - CNN.com


----------



## MacDoc

Sexism at the border: A personal account | rabble.ca

unreal


----------



## iMouse

Power corrupts, absolutely.


----------



## heavyall

MacDoc said:


> Sexism at the border: A personal account | rabble.ca
> 
> unreal


Quite:

1)


> Clay Nikiforuk is a recent *Creative Writing* graduate


2) Posted *APRIL 1*, 2013.


----------



## Kleles

Dr.G. said:


> Tiny airline makes big waves with weight-based fares ...................
> 
> Tiny airline makes big waves with weight-based fares - CNN.com


Weight is the factor most directly related to fuel costs for airlines. So, we should step on a scale, with our luggage, and pay by total weight.


----------



## heavyall

Kleles said:


> Weight is the factor most directly related to fuel costs for airlines. So, we should step on a scale, with our luggage, and pay by total weight.


That's actually a lot more fair! I like it.


----------



## MacDoc

Straw Hat Riot: Remembering one of the weirdest crime sprees in American history.


----------



## MacDoc

a happy ending but what an ordeal 

Her husband had taken their young daughter to Iran. She was determined to get the child back.


----------



## iMouse

Perhaps the problem will take care of itself? :lmao:


----------



## Kosh

iMouse said:


> Perhaps the problem will take care of itself? :lmao:


Yeah i read that. I'm not sure who's going to trust him as a gun and rifle (safety) instructor.



> He said he’ll draw two lessons for his students about this recent accident: How he did the wrong thing by not checking the chamber. And how he did the right thing—saving his life—by pointing the gun toward the ground, not at his head or chest, as he cleaned it.


To me, he made 2 mistakes, not checking the chamber, and not aiming away from anything you don't want to shoot (while pointing it at the ground) . There can be things on the ground you may not want to hit with a gunshot (an oxygen tank, a gas tank, a stone, a piece of metal, your foot, etc...).


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

I feel sorry for the children .............. regardless of the genders of the couple.


----------



## iMouse

Dr.G. said:


> CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
> 
> I feel sorry for the children .............. regardless of the genders of the couple.


I'm an adult (sometimes), and even I am confused.


----------



## Dr.G.

iMouse said:


> I'm an adult (sometimes), and even I am confused.


My parents divorced when I was young. I went through a divorce when my son was young (I became a single parent overnight). Thus, I feel for the children caught in the middle of a divorce.


----------



## MacDoc

10 Very Costly Typos | Mental Floss


----------



## Dr.G.

Montana man wants refund after dog eats $500 - World - CBC News

My doxies would not leave enough to piece together.   XX)


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

I have heard about "not looking a gift horse in the mouth" ................. but this?????????????


----------



## CubaMark

*Thunderstorms contain "dark lightning," invisible pulses of powerful radiation*











> scientists recently discovered something mind-bending about lightning: Sometimes its flashes are invisible, just sudden pulses of unexpectedly powerful radiation. It’s what Joseph Dwyer, a lightning researcher at the Florida Institute of Technology, has termed dark lightning.
> 
> Unknown to Franklin but now clear to a growing roster of lightning researchers and astronomers is that along with bright thunderbolts, thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays, a form of radiation normally associated with such cosmic spectacles as collapsing stars. The radiation in these invisible blasts can carry a million times as much energy as the radiation in visible lightning, but that energy dissipates quickly in all directions rather than remaining in a stiletto-like lightning bolt.


(Full story at WashingtonPost)


----------



## MacDoc

How the CIA Helped Disney Conquer Florida - The Daily Beast)


----------



## Dr.G.

Ingenious Fan Sues Injured Derrick Rose for Making Him Fat and Depressed | Bleacher Report

Please tell me that no judge will allow this lawsuit to see the light of day .................


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Ingenious Fan Sues Injured Derrick Rose for Making Him Fat and Depressed | Bleacher Report
> 
> Please tell me that no judge will allow this lawsuit to see the light of day .................


Wonder if the original date on that story was April 1?


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan said:


> Wonder if the original date on that story was April 1?


Whatever the date, it is hopefully not true.


----------



## CubaMark

_Man... you watch this, shed a few tears, and at the end of it, all you can do is a long, deep exhale... takes your breath away. Some harsh language. _

*The Crickets Have Arthritis*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.





Koyczan also performed a pretty amazing TED talk about bullying you might like.

(via Upworthy)

*EDIT: * _Guess I'm discovering this fellow quite late - he's been around for years... and Canadian!_


----------



## Dr.G.

Drugs found on Justin Bieber's tour bus - Arts & Entertainment - CBC News

Say it ain't so Joe - 8 Men Out - YouTube


----------



## MacDoc

Hyundai apologizes for


----------



## MacDoc

laugh of the day



> *Woman accidentally swallows $5,000 diamond at charity event: ‘What a dumb thing’*
> 
> TAMPA, FLA.—The idea behind the Tampa Woman's Club charity event was simple. For $20, you could buy a flute of champagne and a chance to win a one-carat, $5,000 diamond.
> 
> Organizers of the Saturday afternoon event placed $10 cubic zirconia stones in the bottom of 399 of the 400 champagne glasses. The prized diamond, donated by Continental Wholesale Diamonds, was placed in the last.
> 
> The problem? Miriam Tucker, 80, accidentally swallowed it.
> 
> Tucker told local media that she didn't want to put her finger in the glass to get the jewel. Instead she took a few sips of champagne. As she was talking and laughing with other women at the table, she realized she swallowed the jewel.
> 
> “What a dumb thing,” she said.
> 
> Meanwhile, organizers and jewelers Joy Pierson and Andy Meyer were puzzled that no one came forward with the diamond.
> 
> “We knew the winner had to be at one of two tables,” Pierson said, who along with Meyer examined each stone with probes and a loupe.
> 
> As they hovered near the table, Tucker eventually spoke up. “She said she swallowed what was in her glass,” Pierson said.
> 
> Event chairwoman Gina Roth insisted that Tucker follow her to a hospital for an X-ray. The diamond didn't show up, but Tucker already had a colonoscopy scheduled for Monday.
> 
> She told Dr. Bruce Edgerton what happened and he retrieved the diamond, put it in a biohazard bag and gave it to Tucker's daughter. After the procedure, they went to a jewelry store and had the diamond cleaned, tested and verified.
> 
> “It's an amazing story,” said Tucker, who hasn't decided on a setting for the diamond. She plans to bequeath it to her 13-year-old granddaughter, where the diamond will “stay in the family with a story to go with it.”
> 
> The jewelers said they've participated in other charity events in which they held a drawing for a diamond. But this was the first time they used a champagne glass.
> 
> “We might change the way we deliver the diamond,” Pierson said. “I don't think we'll put it in a glass again.”


Woman accidentally swallows $5,000 diamond at charity event: ‘What a dumb thing’ | Toronto Star


----------



## BigDL

*Tea Party Video*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xReYMOL8nZY



> The Tea Party makes the most incidentally hilarious movie ever
> 
> With blockbuster movie season just around the corner, Tea Party Patriots – A Movement on Fire is one film you won’t be lining up to see.
> 
> Set in a science-fiction world that would make Philip K. Dick roll over in his grave, the “Development Party” (a bad euphemism for the Democratic Party) rules all. Their big bad policy? ”When WE provide for every need, then YOU are fully developed.” Cue passive people standing in lines, waiting for boxes full of everything they need, stifling individual initiative and FREEDOM ITSELF!
> 
> Our protagonist’s breaking point: “Don’t you see? The more they give us, the more they control us.” So he takes up the torch for “Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.”
> 
> Because young people should rise up against lower tuition fees and provision of basic social services…


Then the filmmakers actually outdid their own crappiness by releasing a music video of the trailer (!).

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22n1wRiUUw&feature=player_embedded]Take Up The Torch Music Video - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## CubaMark

*Brilliant and very sweet...*




_These artful shots of Luka, a 12-year-old with muscular dystrophy, place him in scenes like playing basketball, skateboarding, and swimming, letting him experience the joy of participating in activities that he can’t experience in real life._​_The lack of diversity in the heroes and heroines shown in entertainment for kids has long been an easy target for critics. Disney’s first ever black princess made her debut just four years ago, whereas the 2012 animated film Brave was Pixar’s first to feature a female lead. While kids who aren’t white males have to look harder to find characters who look like them, it’s even more difficult for children with physical disabilities._​
(FastCompany)


----------



## iMouse

BigDL said:


> ..... wow .....


Words fail me.


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

An app for remote sex.


----------



## CubaMark

BigDL said:


> Tea Party Patriots]


Finally took a few minutes to look at this. I really gotta invest in aluminium.... the tin foil crowd is so much larger than even I believed...


----------



## Dr.G.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Good for him ................


----------



## iMouse

Elections must be coming up, and he needs some face time.

"I don't care what you print about me as long as you spell my name right."


----------



## Dr.G.

iMouse said:


> Elections must be coming up, and he needs some face time.
> 
> "I don't care what you print about me as long as you spell my name right."


:lmao::clap::lmao:


----------



## Macfury

I enjoyed the TEA Party video, despite it's poor production values. If you disagree philosophically with it, it's simply because you don't agree with Benjamin Franklin's sentiment that those who give up fredom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security. 


> Because young people should rise up against lower tuition fees and provision of basic social services…


Yes, they really should. If a person is unable through some unfortunate circumstance, to provide for themselves, by all means assist them. The able-minded and able-bodied should not be given either lower tuition fees or free basic social services. They are thieving from the truly needy.


----------



## CubaMark

*Beautiful...*

*Thought for Food*



> _After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
> I heard the announcement:
> If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
> Please come to the gate immediately.
> 
> Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
> An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
> Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
> Help, said the flight service person_.


(Full story.... NoraLeah)


----------



## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> *Beautiful...*
> 
> *Thought for Food*


Is this so rare in people's lives that it's noteworthy?


----------



## iMouse

In the Excited States, yes.


----------



## CubaMark

Are libertarians in general unable to appreciate a nice story about people from different cultures just getting along, or are you somehow _special?_


----------



## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> Are libertarians in general unable to appreciate a nice story about people from different cultures just getting along, or are you somehow _special?_


I'm simply sorry that more people don't have such experiences in their lives.


----------



## SINC

We are most fortunate to live in a neighbourhood with very caring people. As the wife and I have aged and cannot do as much as we used to, our neighbours have been pitching in and helping with snow shovelling and any heavy work they see us struggling with as well. That noted, I enjoyed the story CM, thanks for posting it.


----------



## Macfury

My wife particularly enjoys taking bus trips to various U.S. cities and almo every time returns with a story very much like this one. But this story is certainly very nice.


----------



## CubaMark

*Boy born in jail frees mother Vijay Kumari after 19 years*



> A 50-year-old Indian woman has been released from prison, 19 years after she was granted bail.
> 
> Vijay Kumari was unable to post the necessary amount of about $180 (£120) to secure her release - so she stayed in prison until the son, who she gave birth to while in jail, got her out.
> 
> Sanjoy Majumder reports from Kanpur.


(Video report at BBC)


----------



## CubaMark

_An amazing bit of WWII history - I have never heard of this - and one wonders what a terrorist with today's tech (more reliable delivery system and a GPS trigger) could do.... _:yikes:

*Japan's Secret WWII Weapon: Balloon Bombs*




> Balloon bombs aimed to be the silent assassins of World War II. Hitching a ride on a jet stream, these weapons from Japan could float soundlessly across the Pacific Ocean to their marks in North America.
> 
> Still largely unknown, these armaments were a byproduct of an atmospheric experiment by the Axis power. In the 1940s, the Japanese were mapping out air currents by launching balloons attached with measuring instruments from the western side of Japan and picking them up on the eastern side.
> 
> The researchers noticed that a strong air current traveled across the Pacific at about 30,000 feet.
> 
> Using that knowledge, in 1944 the Japanese military made what many experts consider the first intercontinental weapon system: explosive devices attached to paper balloons that were buoyed across the ocean by a jet stream.





> The first balloon was launched on November 3, 1944. Between then and April 1945, experts estimate about 1,000 of them reached North America; 284 are documented as sighted or found, many as fragments (see map). Records uncovered in Japan after the war indicate that about 9,000 were launched.





> ...a single one achieved its goal.
> 
> On May 5, 1945, five children and local pastor Archie Mitchell's pregnant wife Elsie were killed as they played with the large paper balloon they'd spotted during a Sunday outing in the woods near Bly, Oregon—the only enemy-inflicted casualties on the U.S. mainland in the whole of World War II.


(National Geographic)


----------



## jamesB

Macfury said:


> Is this so rare in people's lives that it's noteworthy?


I know I'm late to the party with this reply but the article impressed me because it is similar, but with opposite results of what happened in Vancouver with a distraught traveller.
Robert Dziekanski


----------



## CubaMark

*Exclusive: The first pictures of blood from a 10,000 year old Siberian woolly mammoth*












> Scientists say they have found both blood and muscle tissue - perfectly preserved in the ice - from a Siberian mammoth.
> 
> The blood had dripped out of the giant animal into a natural ice capsule and it represents a dream discovery for researchers.
> 
> It comes amid a hotly contested debate on whether scientists should try to recreate the extinct species using DNA, though there now seems little doubt that this WILL happen, and the Russian team from Yakutsk that made the find is working in a partnership with South Korean scientists who are actively seeking to bring the mammoth back to life.


(Siberian Times)


----------



## iMouse

Oh bother, this will work-out well.


----------



## Macfury

iMouse said:


> Oh bother, this will work-out well.


As long as you make sure that the resurrected mammoths are kept in some sort of theme park, nothing can go wrong.


----------



## CubaMark

*Cenozoic Park*? Where's Spielberg when you need him?


----------



## CubaMark

*Got a crappy car you need to sell? It's all in the marketing, folks....*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## CubaMark

_A very engaging article about a Brazilian / Parisian inventor at the turn of the century...
_
*This Man Had The Equivalent Of A Teleportation Device In 1901*












> Alberto Santos-Dumont .... was one of the pioneers of early aviation, developing the world's first practical steerable powered dirigible blimps and later moving to heaver-than-air craft, making the first fixed-wing aircraft flight in Europe. These contributions are well-documented, but I want to focus more specifically on his unique personal transportation solutions, which I think represent the absolute best situation of any person in history, and possibly of any person in the foreseeable future.





> He lived in Paris, and in addition to the gas and electric automobiles he owned, he got around town in a small, powered, steerable dirigible of his own design. He did this mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, long before there were any inklings of ideas about air-traffic control laws, so Santos=Dumont had free run to float over the city at rooftop level, stopping in at cafés or even his own apartment, tooling around the Paris airspace like he f****** owned the place.





> He wins a daredevil's prize by the skin of his teeth, after a death-defying mid-race aerial repair, in an airship he designed himself, and he divides his prize money between the poor folks of the city and his own crew and mechanics? The man's made of weaponized class-actium.


(Jalopnik)


----------



## CubaMark

*Teen allegedly bullied for being Canadian quits U.S. school*





> A 15-year-old boy in Upstate New York alleges that two of his teachers teased him so much about being Canadian that he became depressed, prompting his mother to pull him out of school.
> 
> “They’d say things like ‘Canada’s full of communists. They club baby seals. That my opinion doesn’t really matter because I’m a Canadian,’” Noah Kilpatrick said by phone from Watertown, N.Y.


_Those of you who like to slag CBC may recognize the restraint they've used here. Me? I'd rewrite the headline as *"U.S. Christian Schoolteachers Harass Canadian Student"* just to emphasize the hypocrisy..._



> The Grade 10 student said he used to love attending Faith Fellowship Christian School. But last fall two of his teachers began teasing him about his “Canadian heritage,





> After going public with Noah’s story, his mother said the family is thinking of leaving Watertown, a community of about 30,000 residents, and moving back to Ottawa where they have relatives.
> 
> “The backlash has been intense. I didn’t realize I guess how small Watertown is,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s become quite aggressive. I’ve never felt so ostracized or intimidated.”


(CBC)


----------



## iMouse

My first passenger today just would not stop talking about this. She had read it on the front page of The Post this morning.

Sadly, she is the type that takes on the World's troubles, even though she has enough on her plate already.


----------



## Kosh

Macfury said:


> As long as you make sure that the resurrected mammoths are kept in some sort of theme park, nothing can go wrong.


Ooh, I just love that idea... we'll call it Mammoth Island! As you say, what could go wrong.


----------



## Dr.G.

Kosh said:


> Ooh, I just love that idea... we'll call it Mammoth Island! As you say, what could go wrong.


What could go wrong???? Has a wolly mammoth ever seen a mouse??? No, well imagine the panic that they would experience upon seeing a tiny mouse.  Oh the humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## CubaMark

*Bacteria Live At 33,000 Feet*

_Earth’s upper atmosphere—below freezing, nearly without oxygen, flooded by UV radiation—is no place to live. But last winter, scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that billions of bacteria actually thrive up there. Expecting only a smattering of microorganisms, the researchers flew six miles above Earth’s surface in a NASA jet plane. There, they pumped outside air through a filter to collect particles. Back on the ground, they tallied the organisms, and the count was staggering: 20 percent of what they had assumed to be just dust or other particles was alive. Earth, it seems, is surrounded by a bubble of bacteria.
(SNIP)
...they also may be transmitting diseases from one side of the globe to the other. The researchers found E. coli in their samples (which they think hurricanes lifted from cities), and they plan to investigate whether plagues are raining down on us._​
(PopularScience)


----------



## CubaMark

*Ancient Egyptian statue at Manchester Museum moves on its own, stumped curator says*





> A millenia-old, 10-inch-tall statuette has Manchester Museum employees stumped after it did a total 180-degree turn without anyone touching it.
> 
> Part of the English museum’s collection since 1933, the mystery of the Neb-Senu statute’s diurnal movement has curator Campbell Price scratching his head. After first noticing it in February, the Egyptologist set up a video camera to record the statue.
> 
> “I noticed one day that it had turned around,” he told the Manchester Evening News. “I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key. I put it back but then the next day it had moved again. We set up a time-lapse video, and although the naked eye can’t see it, you can clearly see it rotate on the film.”


(NY Daily News)


----------



## winwintoo

CNN has a video of the statue moving. I hope this link works. 

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## CubaMark




----------



## winwintoo

CubaMark said:


>


It would be funny if it wasn't so true.


----------



## CubaMark

*Big Problem for Air Ambulances: Huge Patients - Providers have to upgrade helicopters or reject patients*












> Emergency medical providers across America are being forced to get bigger, stronger helicopters to deal with rising numbers of patients too heavy to be carried in the current helicopters—or too big to fit in the aircraft, NBC reports. Around 1% of patients who need medical air flights, or about 5,000 patients a year, are denied transport because of their size and have to go by ground ambulance instead, significantly raising the risk of death on the way to the hospital.


(NBC via Newser)


----------



## iMouse

Quick, teach the fatties how to fly helicopters.


----------



## Kleles

CubaMark said:


>


Excellent and elegant parody. Eyeglasses do not cost the same in many other 'first-world' countries


----------



## CubaMark




----------



## Sonal

http://gawker.com/woman-missing-for...m_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow


----------



## BigDL

*Surfing The Petitcodiac River*

Twice a day waters from worlds highest tides flow up the Bay of Fundy. 

On the New Brunswick side of the Bay these powerful tides flow up the Petitcodiac River causing the river to run backwards with the flow of the river, traveling towards the head waters. The phenomenon is called the Tidal Bore.

Well today some visitors were surfing the Tidal Bore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdWY3Hw3OnQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8eoway9UJQ


----------



## Dr.G.

An amazing sight, BigDL. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## screature

Australian police bust man driving car with no steering wheel 

 :yikes:












> Police in South Australia arrested a man who was found driving a car with no steering wheel and using a pair of vise grips to steer.
> 
> At about 8:25 a.m. Monday, police saw the driver of a white Holden sedan driving dangerously on two flat tires in the North Eastern suburbs, police say. When cops stopped the car, they found that no steering wheel was attached and the driver was using a pair of vise grips to guide and turn the car.
> 
> The car was unregistered and uninsured and was the subject of a defect notice not to be driven.
> 
> Further investigation revealed the car had been involved in a non-fatal hit and run minutes earlier.
> 
> The driver, 38, was found to be driving while disqualified and tested positive for methylamphetamine and cannabis, police said.
> 
> He was arrested and faces seven charges, including failing to stop at the scene of a crash and driving while disqualified.


----------



## eMacMan

screature said:


> Australian police bust man driving car with no steering wheel
> 
> :yikes:


Interesting that the Aussies can test for meth and Cannabis, but the Cons toss up having no way to test for Cannabis impairment as a reason to not decriminalize the substance.


----------



## screature

eMacMan said:


> Interesting that the Aussies can test for meth and Cannabis, but the Cons toss up having no way to test for Cannabis impairment as a reason to not decriminalize the substance.


You are willing to politicize just about anything aren't you?

I would suspect that you aren't much fun at parties.


----------



## bryanc

screature said:


> You are willing to politicize just about anything aren't you?


Marijuana criminalization/legalization is a highly political issue; indeed it is an exclusively political issue, as there is no scientific, medical, social, economic or other argument to criminalize it in the first place.

The fact that the Conservative government is completely wrong about every aspect of this issue fit's the "you just can't make these things up" theme of this thread perfectly.


----------



## screature

bryanc said:


> Marijuana criminalization/legalization is a highly political issue; indeed it is an exclusively political issue, as there is no scientific, medical, social, economic or other argument to criminalize it in the first place.
> 
> The fact that the Conservative government is completely wrong about every aspect of this issue fit's the "you just can't make these things up" theme of this thread perfectly.


Sigh... 

Another fun guy at a party... NOT!

No discussion relevant to the story at hand, just another post to push your political agenda and bash people over the head with it.

It really is quite tiresome.


----------



## iMouse

Get more sleep.


----------



## screature

iMouse said:


> Get more sleep.


I sleep fine.


----------



## screature

Just to add...



> ...Unlike alcohol, for which impairment can be reasonably measured using a breathalyser (and confirmed with a blood alcohol content measurement), *valid detection for cannabis is time-consuming, and tests cannot determine an approximate degree of impairment. The lack of suitable tests and agreed-upon intoxication levels is an issue in the legality of cannabis debate, especially regarding intoxicated driving*...



Cannabis drug testing

It seems the Aussies are cracking down on the use of Cannabis even more than we are here in Canada if they have an "acceptable" legal definition for what it means to be intoxicated by maryjane and yet the "everything is political" crowd can't see the irony of their own posts.


----------



## CubaMark

_*A fascinating bit of Soviet World War II history....*_

*The Lethal Soviet “Night Witches” of the 588th Night Bomber Unit *



During World War II, American women were put to work; in Russia, women were put to war. In 1941, Operation Barbarossa meant the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi forces, and the Soviets’ foray into an untapped reservoir of strength: female bomber pilots. Though Soviet women were barred from combat at the beginning of the war, a record-breaking aviatrix named Marina Raskova (hailed as the “Soviet Amelia Earhart”) was later called upon by Joseph Stalin to organize a regiment of young female pilots to fight the German invaders, making the Soviet Union the first nation to allow women to fly combat missions.

(SNIP)

The women flew repurposed 1920s biplanes, made of canvas-draped plywood, that were previously used mostly for crop dusting. The primitive planes lacked many basic instruments, including radios—navigation was done with a stopwatch and a map. If hit, the flimsy aircrafts would burn up immediately. The pilots did not carry parachutes.

(SNIP)

Though the planes were slow and obsolete, the resourceful Russians capitalized on the planes’ maneuverability, which allowed them to deftly dodge German bullets. As a stealth technique, the bombers would idle their engines as they approached the target, then glide the rest of the way—leaving only the “whoosh” of their aircrafts in the wind to give them away. The sound reminded German soldiers of a witch’s broomstick, thus dubbing the bombers “Nachthexen,” or “night witches.”​
(More at MentalFloss) and another article at Russia Beyond the Headlines from 2011.


----------



## winwintoo

London Fire Brigade - Number of people trapped in objects like handcuffs and toilet seat rises

Interesting read. 

Advice of the day, if the ring is too small, you will have a red face when the fire brigade comes to rescue you.

I don't even what to think why some would ..................... in a toaster


----------



## iMouse

winwintoo said:


> I don't even what to think why some would ..................... in a toaster


Shocking!!!!


----------



## winwintoo

iMouse said:


> Shocking!!!!


I know


----------



## BigDL

winwintoo said:


> London Fire Brigade - Number of people trapped in objects like handcuffs and toilet seat rises
> 
> Interesting read.
> 
> Advice of the day, if the ring is too small, you will have a red face when the fire brigade comes to rescue you.
> 
> I don't even what to think why some would ..................... in a toaster


Don't ask me. Why would someone make a movie about and called American Pie?


----------



## Sonal

winwintoo said:


> I don't even what to think why some would ..................... in a toaster


Yes, at least the vacuum cleaner makes sense!


----------



## mrjimmy

iMouse said:


> Shocking!!!!


Maybe he was making himself a Pogo.


----------



## iMouse

OK, get the kids off the street, the media has taken-over for parents.

(And some might be relieved.)

Greatest Tampon Ad Ever. Period. | TIME.com


----------



## CubaMark

*Tim Lake Gets Package Stolen, Makes World's Best 'Wanted' Poster*



If you stole an Amazon package of K-Cup coffee pods from Tim Lake, you aren't getting away with it -- at least, not without being mocked relentlessly.

Friday afternoon, a security camera at the 29-year-old's Arcadia, Ariz. home captured an unidentified woman waltzing into his yard and making off with the package. Lake learned about the incident later that night, and got to work making up a flyer that he hoped would help catch the perp.​* * *So far, he hasn't received any helpful tips, but says that his neighbors have been "really supportive" and the flyers have actually led to him making new friends in the neighborhood.

While the theft left Lake out $22, he says that the national attention the flyer has received makes it "worth it for the entertainment," and that Green Mountain Coffee has mailed him a replacement batch.​
(HuffPo)


----------



## CubaMark

*Getting knocked-up.... a bit different in Britain than on this side of the pond...*




_The Knocker-Up (also referred to as a Knocker-Upper) gained prominence during the Industrial Revolution by using a long stick with wire or a knob affixed to the end to rouse customers at a desired time … For a few pence a week, clients could rest assured knowing their Knocker Upper would not leave until he (Knocker Ups were almost always men) was certain a person was awake. Larger Factories and Mills often employed their own Knocker Ups to ensure laborers made it to work on time._

(MentalFloss via MessyNessyChic)


----------



## CubaMark

*...and now, the inevitable outcome of a crazy heist... Hollywood!*

*Quebec maple syrup heist set for Hollywood film
*
_The massive theft of an estimated $18 million worth of maple syrup from a storage facility in Quebec last year is set to become a Hollywood movie.

Sony Pictures has announced plans to make a film based on the theft, with comic actor Jason Segel in line to star.

* * *

On Sept. 17, the final suspect, 42-year-old Jean-François Bédard, was arrested in Montreal after a year of being on the lam.

Deadline Hollywood describes the planned Hollywood movie as a “comedy with dramatic overtones.”_​
(CBC)



CubaMark said:


> *I do believe this is cause for war with our southern neighbour....*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Vermont firm implicated in $20-million maple syrup heist from Quebec warehouse*
> 
> 
> 
> (Montreal Gazette)


----------



## CubaMark

*This is pretty cool....*

There’s a 1,200-year-old Phone in the Smithsonian Collections



_...staffers pushing a rolling cart ushered one of the museum’s greatest treasures into the high-ceilinged room. Nestled in an acid-free corrugated cardboard container was the earliest known example of telephone technology in the Western Hemisphere, evoking a lost civilization—and the anonymous ancient techie who dreamed it up.

The gourd-and-twine device, created 1,200 to 1,400 years ago, remains tantalizingly functional—and too fragile to test out. “This is unique,” NMAI curator Ramiro Matos, an anthropologist and archaeologist who specializes in the study of the central Andes, tells me. “Only one was ever discovered. It comes from the consciousness of an indigenous society with no written language.”

We’ll never know the trial and error that went into its creation. The marvel of acoustic engineering—cunningly constructed of two resin-coated gourd receivers, each three-and-one-half inches long; stretched-hide membranes stitched around the bases of the receivers; and cotton-twine cord extending 75 feet when pulled taut—arose out of the Chimu empire at its height.

The dazzlingly innovative culture was centered in the Río Moche Valley in northern Peru, wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the western Andes. “The Chimu were a skillful, inventive people,” Matos tells me as we don sterile gloves and peer into the hollowed interiors of the gourds. The Chimu, Matos explains, were the first true engineering society in the New World, known as much for their artisanry and metalwork as for the hydraulic canal-irrigation system they introduced, transforming desert into agricultural lands._​
(Smithsonian)


----------



## CubaMark

_*Technology, lost literature... amazing...*_

Truly incredible that something like this can, using CT scanners and other technologies, be brought back to "life".... 












> For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ.





> A blast of furnace-like gas from the volcano at 400C (752F) carbonised the papyrus scrolls, before the town was buried in a fine volcanic ash which later cooled and solidified into rock.
> 
> When excavators and treasure hunters set about exploring the villa in the 18th Century, they mistook the scrolls for lumps of charcoal and burnt logs. Some were used as torches or thrown on to the fire.
> 
> Papyrus
> But once it was realised what they were - possibly because of the umbilicus, the stick at the centre of the scrolls - the challenge was to find a way to open them.
> 
> Some scrolls were simply hacked apart with a butcher's knife - with predictable and lamentable results. Later a conservator from the Vatican, Father Antonio Piaggio (1713-1796), devised a machine to delicately open the scrolls. But it was slow work - the first one took around four years to unroll. And the scrolls tended to go to pieces.





> In 1999, scientists from Brigham Young University in the US examined the papyrus using infrared light. Deep in the infrared range, at a wavelength of 700-900 nanometres, it was possible to achieve a good contrast between the paper and the ink. Letters began to jump out of the ancient papyrus. Instead of black ink on black paper, it was now possible to see black lines on a pale grey background.
> 
> Scholars' ability to reassemble the texts improved massively. "Most of our previous readings were wrong," says Obbink. "We could not believe our eyes. We were 'blinded' by the real readings. The text wasn't what we thought it was and now it made sense."


*Read more at:* BBC and Vice


----------



## CubaMark

Wow. 

Can you imagine Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones?

Kurt Russell as Han Solo?

Branco in James Dean's place as a Rebel without a cause?

Or anyone other than DiCaprio as Jack in the Titanic?

*11 Notable Actors' Screen Tests for Famous Roles*


----------



## CubaMark

*Unbelievable... and tragic.*

*Photographer snaps lightning as it strikes victim dead*


_In the first photograph, a young lady runs through the storm, heading for the water by Guaruja Beach in São Paulo state, Brazil. In the second, a strange, flickering column of light cuts the gloom.

36-year-old Rosangela Biavati was killed by the bolt, reports A Tribuna, turning photojournalist Rogério Soares' sequence into a startling memento mori._

(BoingBoing)


----------



## MacDoc

Could not find the Feel Good thread but this one qualifies here as well......totally unreal story

Sudden sisters: Tulane pals learn they share sperm-donor dad - CNN.com

:clap:


----------



## CubaMark

*American biker buried "riding" Harley-Davidson in clear box*



_An American biker has made his final journey on his beloved Harley-Davidson and been buried astride the motorbike in a clear box.

It was Bill Standley’s wish to share a grave with the 1967 bike, which took him travelling around 49 out of America’s 50 states.

His body was dressed in full riding gear and positioned on the Harley in a see-through box, which was driven to the cemetery on a trailer before being lowered into the extra-large plot._

* * *​
_His daughter, Dorothy Brown, told Sky News the idea came about 18 years ago as he joked about who would inherit his motorcycle.

“He said what am I supposed to do? I've got two sons, only got one bike. My sister just off-handedly said 'oh dad just be buried with it'.

”I think it was about two weeks after that that it really hit him - what a great idea. We all still thought he was kidding. Eighteen years later, guess what?“_

* * *​
_The father-of-four lost his battle with lung cancer on 26 January and was buried on Friday._


(IndependentUK)


----------



## CubaMark

*And then there was the time a lake in Louisiana disappeared into the ground...*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## Macfury

Yowza. You just can't trust those salt mines!


----------



## slipstream

First I'd heard of these critters. Giant virus revived from ancient permafrost - Technology & Science - CBC News


----------



## Macfury

That's cool! A littl bigger and I could walk one with a leash.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> That's cool! A littl bigger and I could walk one with a leash.


:lmao::clap:

When they thaw our, scientists might even try to clone one of them and then you would have two to walk on a leash.


----------



## CubaMark

*Delhi police lost password for complaints portal in 2006, haven't checked it since*










_The Delhi police lost the password for a portal that hosted complaints that had been passed on by the Central Vigilance Commission after an initial vetting. 

667 complaints had been judged serious enough to be passed onto the police since the password was lost in 2006, but none have been acted upon, because no one had the password. Now they have the password. 

Presumably, the 667 unserved complainants believed the police to be either too slow or incompetent to have gotten back to them._

(BoingBoing)


----------



## Dr.G.

Drunk Gambler: Casino to blame for $500K loss - CNN.com Video

A wild weekend in Sin City.


----------



## SINC

Ottawa man arrested for exposing himself in a park | CTV Ottawa News

The park's name? Why Mooney's Bay Park of course.

The guy's name? Why yes, it's Donald Popadick.


----------



## CubaMark

*Has a tech entrepreneur come up with a product to replace our meals?*



(BoingBoing)


----------



## johnp

... the movie said it was 2022 .. we're almost there, eh!!


----------



## CubaMark

*This is what demonizing a particular group of people can lead to in suburban America...*

*White Lunatic Arrested For Terrorizing Kindly Muslim Couple at Gunpoint*












> Majida and Adly Abumayaleh were just driving across their suburban Minneapolis-area neighborhood on a Friday night to get their teen son from a party. Until a self-appointed watchwoman, Nancy Kay Knoble, decided they might be agents of international jihad and grabbed a rifle.
> 
> “She said you are suspicious in this neighborhood. She told me open the window, open the window. We couldn’t do anything. I was frozen,” Majida—who wears a traditional hijab
> 
> (Gawker)


_Knoble forced Adly out of his car at gunpoint. Marched him —with her gun in his back— up to the front door of the house where Adly's son was visiting. When the homeowners confirmed their purpose for being in the neighbourhood, Knoble took her firearm and went home. No apology, just the fear of imminent death in the minds of her victims._

*Here's the muslim couple who struck such terror into Knoble's heart....*


----------



## MacGuiver

CubaMark said:


> *This is what demonizing a particular group of people can lead to in suburban America...*[/IMG]


That and possibly a steady diet of recreational drugs? She looks like a meth user in that photo. I suspect drug use in suburban America is culpable for a lot of this type of behaviour as well.
Another thought. The headline of this story is guilty of what the author is condemning. The author emphasizes that the perp is "White" in what could be interpreted as demonizing white people. Do you think the author would have included the word Black Lunatic, Hispanic Lunatic, Asian Lunatic, etc in the headline if the perp were of one of those ethnic groups? I think not.


----------



## CubaMark

MacGuiver said:


> That and possibly a steady diet of recreational drugs? She looks like a meth user in that photo. I suspect drug use in suburban America is culpable for a lot of this type of behaviour as well.


From what I've read, no prior arrest records. She has lost three court judgements to creditors since 2010, for whatever that's worth. The neighbourhood is a typical middle-class suburban Minneapolis area... large green lawns in front of 3+bedroom houses.

Of course, meth-heads could be anywhere....


----------



## CubaMark

MacGuiver said:


> The headline of this story is guilty of what the author is condemning. The author emphasizes that the perp is "White" in what could be interpreted as demonizing white people. Do you think the author would have included the word Black Lunatic, Hispanic Lunatic, Asian Lunatic, etc in the headline if the perp were of one of those ethnic groups? I think not.


True that. Although I'm guessing that the (subconcious?) decision to include "White" was intended to indicate the racial nature of this act, as the family believes this to be a hate crime, whereas the police, so far, are not describing it as such. It appears to be pretty cut-and-dried on the hate side from where I'm standing. It's not as though the headline reads "White lunatic commits crime", which would be straight-up demonization.


----------



## heavyall

So little to go on. No priors? Vince Li didn't have priors either. It's pretty obvious that the woman is troubled. Be it mental health, street drugs, or both, how did that level of crazy go undetected and/or unreported?

Even the neighborhood doesn't tell us much. Crazy people and tweakers CAN live anywhere, and even trying to track where the "bad" areas of Minneapolis are isn't as easy as it is on other metro areas because it's not actually one big city, but rather a whole bunch of smaller municipalities right next to each other, each with their own municipal governments, and each with their own crime/drug/poverty issues.

That said, there is this to consider: Area police forces consider the north west quadrant of the Twin Cities to be the biggest problem area: 



> According to the Minneapolis Police Department, who publish crime maps of the city, the highest concentration of violent crimes and property crimes are in North Minneapolis, geographically the northwest of the city, the part of Minneapolis north of I-394 and west of the Mississippi River.


Where Are the Dangerous Parts of Minneapolis?

Guess where Maple Grove is? Yep, north west corner. I spend a few weeks a year in the MSP metro area, and Maple Grove gets mentioned a fair bit as a place to stay away from.


----------



## Macfury

Wahhh! You're demonizing Maple Grove!


----------



## heavyall

Macfury said:


> Wahhh! You're demonizing Maple Grove!


LOL! To be fair, it looks pretty nice. Driving through it, it's not some sort of inner city urban blight like you might expect to see in other cities.


----------



## FeXL

PETA wants memorial for chickens killed in Saskatchewan highway crash



> PETA says it is willing to fund a roadside memorial in honour of the hundreds of chickens that died in a recent crash on a Saskatchewan highway.


Wonder how many PETA idiots go home & consider suicide after they run over a gopher...


----------



## bball2

FeXL said:


> PETA wants memorial for chickens killed in Saskatchewan highway crash
> 
> 
> 
> Wonder how many PETA idiots go home & consider suicide after they run over a gopher...


Lol that's hilarious


----------



## CubaMark

+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## CubaMark

*Scientists stunned to see this strange creature tear apart its own mouth*







A joint team of biologists and physicists from the University of California, San Diego has made a stunning discovery about the hydra, a small freshwater creature with distant ties to a sea anemone. According to a report from Phys.org, researchers have witnessed the hydra open and close its mouth using a bizarrely complicated process.

Scientists observed the tiny hydra tearing a hole through its epithelial tissue each time it opened its mouth. Researchers were baffled by the process, which remained a complete mystery at the cellular level.

* * *​
The hydra uses a set of tentacles to latch onto prey and carry it towards the mouth. Scientists found that as it does this, the skin around its own mouth must be ripped apart each time it goes for a bite.

* * *​
The hydra’s unique ability to quickly regenerate lends to quite a bizarre method of eating, but it has provided scientists with a new perspective on the strange creature and what is possible at a cellular level.​(BABWNews)


----------



## CubaMark

*The last name 'Null' breaks everything online*








Having a funny name can sometimes be unfortunate, but one couple is finding it pretty difficult to do anything online because of theirs.

Jennifer Null (and her husband, who warned her it would be a bumpy ride when she took his last name) have trouble booking flights, accessing the IRS website and setting up utilities; just about anything that requires a real name.

The problem is their last name, which — when entered into forms — tricks the database into thinking nothing had been entered. ‘Null’ is a word to indicate there is no value, so the program thinks they’re both trying to go full-on Cher and ditch the last name.​
(TheNextWeb)


----------



## CubaMark

*Comment of the day award goes to some guy named Alex, who posted: "Some people shouldn't leave their trailer park."*

*Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight*

On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.

Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought.

The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over.

* * *​
....the woman began reading her book. Or pretending to read, anyway. Shortly after boarding had finished, she flagged down a flight attendant and handed that crew-member a note....

* * *​
..... for unknown reasons, the plane turned around and headed back to the gate. The woman was soon escorted off the plane.

* * *​
The wait continued.

Finally the pilot came by, and approached the real culprit behind the delay: that darkly-complected foreign man. He was now escorted off the plane, too, and taken to meet some sort of agent, though he wasn’t entirely sure of the agent’s affiliation,....

* * *​
What do know about your seatmate? The agent asked the foreign-sounding man.

Well, she acted a bit funny, he replied, but she didn’t seem visibly ill. Maybe, he thought, they wanted his help in piecing together what was wrong with her.

And then the big reveal: The woman wasn’t really sick at all! Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something.

That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.

* * *​
...those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.

Yes, math. A differential equation, to be exact.

Had the crew or security members perhaps quickly googled this good-natured, bespectacled passenger before waylaying everyone for several hours, they might have learned that he — Guido Menzio — is a young but decorated Ivy League economist.

* * *​
They might even have discovered that last year he was awarded the prestigious Carlo Alberto Medal, given to the best Italian economist under 40. That’s right: He’s Italian, not Middle Eastern, or whatever heritage usually gets ethnically profiled on flights these days.

Menzio had been on the first leg of a connecting flight to Ontario, where he would give a talk at Queen’s University....​






(Washington Post)


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> *Comment of the day award goes to some guy named Alex, who posted: "Some people shouldn't leave their trailer park."*
> 
> *Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight*
> 
> On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.
> 
> Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought.
> 
> The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over.
> 
> * * *​
> ....the woman began reading her book. Or pretending to read, anyway. Shortly after boarding had finished, she flagged down a flight attendant and handed that crew-member a note....
> 
> * * *​
> ..... for unknown reasons, the plane turned around and headed back to the gate. The woman was soon escorted off the plane.
> 
> * * *​
> The wait continued.
> 
> Finally the pilot came by, and approached the real culprit behind the delay: that darkly-complected foreign man. He was now escorted off the plane, too, and taken to meet some sort of agent, though he wasn’t entirely sure of the agent’s affiliation,....
> 
> * * *​
> What do know about your seatmate? The agent asked the foreign-sounding man.
> 
> Well, she acted a bit funny, he replied, but she didn’t seem visibly ill. Maybe, he thought, they wanted his help in piecing together what was wrong with her.
> 
> And then the big reveal: The woman wasn’t really sick at all! Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something.
> 
> That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.
> 
> * * *​
> ...those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.
> 
> Yes, math. A differential equation, to be exact.
> 
> Had the crew or security members perhaps quickly googled this good-natured, bespectacled passenger before waylaying everyone for several hours, they might have learned that he — Guido Menzio — is a young but decorated Ivy League economist.
> 
> * * *​
> They might even have discovered that last year he was awarded the prestigious Carlo Alberto Medal, given to the best Italian economist under 40. That’s right: He’s Italian, not Middle Eastern, or whatever heritage usually gets ethnically profiled on flights these days.
> 
> Menzio had been on the first leg of a connecting flight to Ontario, where he would give a talk at Queen’s University....​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (Washington Post)


A differential equation can get you kicked off of a plane?????? tptptptp


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> A differential equation can get you kicked off of a plane?????? tptptptp


This is an indictment of our educational system--an adult who does not recognize mathematics?


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> This is an indictment of our educational system--an adult who does not recognize mathematics?


Sad, but true for some people, mon ami.


----------



## BReligion

Macfury said:


> This is an indictment of our educational system--an adult who does not recognize mathematics?


Just give it a few years until they see someone writing in cursive... you may have another incident 

BReligion


----------



## Dr.G.

BReligion said:


> Just give it a few years until they see someone writing in cursive... you may have another incident
> 
> BReligion


:lmao::clap::lmao:


----------



## CubaMark

:yikes:

*US nuclear force will phase out floppy disks next year*










_a command and control unit tasked with coordinating "the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces" still uses 8-inch floppy disks and runs on an IBM / Series 1 computer — a model that was first produced in 1976._​
(TheVerge)


----------



## Macfury

I only remember the 5 1/4 inch floppies. I don't think I've ever seen 8"!


----------



## winwintoo

Macfury said:


> I only remember the 5 1/4 inch floppies. I don't think I've ever seen 8"!


In the mid-80s we still used some at work. Kinda scary that a system that old is still doing such a critical job.

......or is it scary that modern computers have such a short best-by cycle?


----------



## Dr.G.

winwintoo said:


> In the mid-80s we still used some at work. Kinda scary that a system that old is still doing such a critical job.
> 
> ......or is it scary that modern computers have such a short best-by cycle?


Even scarier is that they are still using the old LBJ launch codes -- AuH2O Amazing how no one has been able to crack this code.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k[/ame]


----------



## SINC

Macfury said:


> I only remember the 5 1/4 inch floppies. I don't think I've ever seen 8"!


Our entire daily newspaper was housed on four 8" floppies in 1982 in Fort McMurray using our Mycro-Tek system.


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Even scarier is that they are still using the old LBJ launch codes -- AuH2O Amazing how no one has been able to crack this code.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k


Ahh good old Goldwater. I still recall my raised in Canada shock at hearing a sixteen year old girl from St. Louis proclaim: "I am for Goldwater because he would put them **** ****** in their place." 

I think my own "All politicians are evil slime!" attitude was born during that election, and further enhanced by every US and Canadian election since then!


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan said:


> Ahh good old Goldwater. I still recall my raised in Canada shock at hearing a sixteen year old girl from St. Louis proclaim: "I am for Goldwater because he would put them **** ****** in their place."
> 
> I think my own "All politicians are evil slime!" attitude was born during that election, and further enhanced by every US and Canadian election since then!


Sorry to hear this, eMacMan. Guess you have not "felt the Bern" in this US election. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury

I was just a bambino at the time, but Goldwater's platform strikes me as very reasonable.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> I was just a bambino at the time, but Goldwater's platform strikes me as very reasonable.


How do you feel about his views at the end of his career? He did a complete 180 degree turn on many issues which were the hallmark of his conservative foundation. Even he said that his view of strict conservatism back then would not have been good for America, either back then or until the day he died. He gained my respect with that sort of honesty. :clap:


----------



## Rps

Macfury said:


> This is an indictment of our educational system--an adult who does not recognize mathematics?


I get your point but ....OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM?


----------



## Rps

Dr.G. said:


> Even scarier is that they are still using the old LBJ launch codes -- AuH2O Amazing how no one has been able to crack this code.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k


This sounds weird at first, but since there is little evidence these have ever been hacked, maybe it is more secure that our love of modern tech will allow us to accept.

One of the most "secure" system in the world is the internal bank transfer system used by central banks to admin national fund holdings and balance of trade.....hacked twice, by my count, within the last 4 months to the tune of millions if not billions of dollars.....just wondering where the press articles are on this.....


----------



## Rps

Macfury said:


> I was just a bambino at the time, but Goldwater's platform strikes me as very reasonable.


Especially the part about using nuclear warheads in Vietnam?


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> How do you feel about his views at the end of his career? He did a complete 180 degree turn on many issues which were the hallmark of his conservative foundation. Even he said that his view of strict conservatism back then would not have been good for America, either back then or until the day he died. He gained my respect with that sort of honesty. :clap:


I haven't paid much attention to his declining days, just looked at his election platform. 

Which of his "strict" views did you find the most despicable?


----------



## Macfury

Rps said:


> I get your point but ....OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM?


North American education is becoming sadly uncompetitive. However, I'll grant that Canada's education system is not as far gone as its American counterpart.


----------



## Rps

Macfury said:


> North American education is becoming sadly uncompetitive. However, I'll grant that Canada's education system is not as far gone as its American counterpart.


I am wondering if in the U.S. it is because of the number of private colleges and universities which come out of the woodwork. If you drive south on 75 there must be a college or university every second town. We were in Georgia this March and my wife was talking to the president of a small college....the prez didn't know that Ottawa was the Capital of Canada or where it was......that is until she saw it on 60 minutes with the Justin interview. But, to be fair, my daughter had a friend, in university, who thought Israel was in America, because it was ...................the state of Israel.


----------



## Macfury

Rps said:


> I am wondering if in the U.S. it is because of the number of private colleges and universities which come out of the woodwork. If you drive south on 75 there must be a college or university every second town. We were in Georgia this March and my wife was talking to the president of a small college....the prez didn't know that Ottawa was the Capital of Canada or where it was......that is until she saw it on 60 minutes with the Justin interview. But, to be fair, my daughter had a friend, in university, who thought Israel was in America, because it was ...................the state of Israel.


Americans are woefully ignorant, even about America. However, they continue to delude themselves with grade inflation. High school students bring home ludicrously high grades... or their parents threaten to sue. The average mark in US colleges in now A-.

Canadians are also woefully ignorant, but they have a better vocabulary.


----------



## macintosh doctor

Macfury said:


> Americans are woefully ignorant, even about America. However, they continue to delude themselves with grade inflation. High school students bring home ludicrously high grades... or their parents threaten to sue. The average mark in US colleges in now A-.
> 
> Canadians are also woefully ignorant, but they have a better vocabulary.


my son did his EQOA last year - not sure the exact acronym, but basically tests your child's comprehension, progress to that point in time for his education.
I find the testing a comedy routine. 
My son is amazingly gifted with constantly testing out at A and A-.. the standardized Ontario testing is forced upon the child, they may either pass or fail, which will unfairly grade your child and school at that time in point. 

I have some really stupid friends who believe in those tests and results, then will decide whether to enroll the child in that school.. not taking into effect that the particular time in point you may have had a plethora of idiot kids or geniuses that year.


----------



## Dr.G.

Rps said:


> I am wondering if in the U.S. it is because of the number of private colleges and universities which come out of the woodwork. If you drive south on 75 there must be a college or university every second town. We were in Georgia this March and my wife was talking to the president of a small college....the prez didn't know that Ottawa was the Capital of Canada or where it was......that is until she saw it on 60 minutes with the Justin interview. But, to be fair, my daughter had a friend, in university, who thought Israel was in America, because it was ...................the state of Israel.


Next time you go back to Georgia, Rp, hit the president with the various capitals of the State of Georgia in the past. :lmao:

What was Georgia's second capital? Name all five capitals of this US State.


----------



## Rps

Dr.G. said:


> Next time you go back to Georgia, Rp, hit the president with the various capitals of the State of Georgia in the past. :lmao:
> 
> What was Georgia's second capital? Name all five capitals of this US State.


What a great bar trivia question..... I'll never have to buy a beer again! Thanx Dr. G


----------



## Dr.G.

Rps said:


> What a great bar trivia question..... I'll never have to buy a beer again! Thanx Dr. G


I had my students in grade six make up Jeopardy-like questions and answers for me when I taught in Waycross, GA.


----------



## CubaMark

*WHAT IF . . . the Nazis Invaded Canada?*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.




​
_September 03, 2014_

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the declaration of World War Two. And at some point during the six long years that followed, probably every Canadian secretly feared the worst.

On February 19, 1942, they didn’t have to speculate any longer: a fake Nazi invasion of Winnipeg called IF Day fuelled the nightmare.

This chilling photograph of the national flag being replaced with the swastika might have been taken in almost any European city. But it was actually a staged photo, taken at Lower Fort Garry in Winnipeg on IF Day.

* * *​
Capitalizing on Canada’s fears, a wealthy industrialist named Jean Draper Perrin arranged for a fake “invasion” of Winnipeg on February 19, 1942. It was play-acting carried out on a grand scale, and so convincing that some people were terrified.

That was the primary purpose of IF Day: to scare people into forking over their cash for Victory Loans, or Victory Bonds. These were loans to the federal government for increased war spending. Draper was the city’s Victory Loan chairman.​







(Elinor Florence)


----------



## Dr.G.

Wow!! That is an amazing story, Mark.


----------



## CubaMark

*Hatching a chicken, without the shell....*





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## Macfury

Those backwards Japanese called it a chicken embryo, instead of a lump of tissue.


----------



## CubaMark

*Do police in Regina seriously have nothing better to do?*










*Man ticketed after handing change to cop posing as panhandler*

Dane Rusk was driving away from a mall in Regina on Wednesday when he spotted what he thought was a panhandler on the side of the road.

“As I came up to the stop sign, I stopped and looked and I saw this homeless guy holding a sign,” Rusk said. “I instantly felt sorry for him.”

That’s when Rusk said he took off his seatbelt and grabbed $3 from his pocket.

“I reached out – I had to undo my seat belt, hang over and drop the change on the curb,” Rusk told CTV Regina.

Moments after dropping the change, Rusk was pulled over by police and issued a ticket.

“I said, ‘What do you mean? I didn’t talk to any police officer,’ and he said, ‘Well ya, you gave him money,’” Dusk said.

“I said, ‘Oh, the homeless guy?’”

The person Rusk handed change to was an undercover cop, and Rusk received the fine for not wearing a seat belt.

Rusk said he was “pretty shocked” by the incident. “The ticket’s $175 and the three dollars I gave to him – I’m out $178 all because I was trying to help out a homeless guy.”

But Regina police say this is nothing new. It’s part of a project that has police watching for traffic violations at intersections.​
(CTV)


----------



## Macfury

That's really sick.


----------



## SINC

Yep, follow the money every time. Cash grab pure and simple.


----------



## eMacMan

So muggers pretending to be Cops are not limited to the soused side of 49.


----------



## CubaMark

*caveat:* Someone from Regina commented on a Facebook post that this fellow was just one of many drivers who were nabbed at that intersection for various other infractions, such as using their cellphones while driving, etc. Still, that particular infraction one would think could be forgiven with a little discretion.


----------



## CubaMark

*Moron Alert!!!!*

*Suspected 'erratic' motorcycle driver who allegedly flashed handgun turns himself in*








A 25-year-old man turned himself in to police less than a day after investigators issued a public plea for help to identify a motorcyclist who allegedly flashed a handgun at several motorists and drove erratically.

The man turned himself in at about 3 a.m. Friday after tips from the public helped investigators find the motorcycle, Ottawa police said.

He has been charged with two counts of pointing a firearm and two counts of breaching probation.

OPP and Ottawa police had investigated numerous complaints about a motorcyclist driving erratically in traffic, mainly in Ottawa's west end.

"The driver also brandished a handgun to other vehicles that did not give enough room for passing," Ottawa police said in a media release issued early Thursday afternoon.​
(CBC)


----------



## Dr.G.

Smiths Falls, Ont., funeral business dissolves the dead, pours them into town sewers - Ottawa - CBC News

Well, it works for dead gold fish.


----------



## eMacMan

Dr.G. said:


> Smiths Falls, Ont., funeral business dissolves the dead, pours them into town sewers - Ottawa - CBC News
> 
> Well, it works for dead gold fish.


Great potential for an off the books side business. The mob being just one possible customer.


----------



## Dr.G.

eMacMan said:


> Great potential for an off the books side business. The mob being just one possible customer.


XX):clap:


----------



## Dr.G.

Do you have a permit for that? NCC shuts down kids' lemonade stand - Ottawa - CBC News

tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

Tennis balls bounced from Cleveland 'event zone' -- but not guns - CNNPolitics.com

Tennis balls don't kill people .................


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> Tennis balls bounced from Cleveland 'event zone' -- but not guns - CNNPolitics.com
> 
> Tennis balls don't kill people .................


That would also have been true if it were the Democrat convention.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> That would also have been true if it were the Democrat convention.


No, since their convention is not in an open carry state ........... and the Clinton's play tennis.


----------



## Macfury

Dr.G. said:


> No, since their convention is not in an open carry state ........... and the Clinton's play tennis.


It is an open carry state--just not Philly.


----------



## eMacMan

Huge, once-hated fish now seen as weapon against Asian carp - seattlepi.com



> It's a toothy giant that can grow longer than a horse and heavier than a refrigerator, a fearsome-looking prehistoric fish that plied U.S. waters from the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois until it disappeared from many states a half-century ago.
> 
> Persecuted by anglers and deprived of places to spawn, the alligator gar — with a head that resembles an alligator and two rows of needlelike teeth — survived primarily in southern states in the tributaries of Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico after being declared extinct in several states farther north. To many, it was a freak, a "trash fish" that threatened sportfish, something to be exterminated.
> 
> But the once-reviled predator is now being seen as a valuable fish in its own right, and as a potentially potent weapon against a more threatening intruder: the invasive Asian carp, which have swum almost unchecked toward the Great Lakes, with little more than an electric barrier to keep them at bay. Efforts are now underway to reintroduce the alligator gar from Illinois to Tennessee.
> 
> "What else is going to be able to eat those monster carp?" said Allyse Ferrara, an alligator gar expert at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, where the species is relatively common. "We haven't found any other way to control them."
> ....


Be sure to click through the gallery.

Maybe because the carp were introduced to try to control weeds anyways that story reminds me of the old Arthur Godfrey song:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_xO2aN_IA[/ame]


----------



## Dr.G.

Start buying up Air Canada stock. This is going to cause their profits to soar.

"DORVAL, QC—Air Canada announced this morning that as of 2017, passengers will be required to pay an extra fee to transport any emotional baggage they happen to be carrying with them onto their flight.

Jacqueline Villeneuve, head of communications, explains that the exact amount of the fee will depend on the nature of the emotional baggage, how much space it will take up on the flight, and likely it is to interfere with the other passengers.

"When it comes to homophobia, misogyny, and deep-seated racism, we'll be charging $500 per issue," she explains. "That kind of emotional baggage is quite heavy and nearly impossible to store safely. It takes tremendous effort on behalf of the cabin crew to make room for those kinds of issues."

"However," Villeneuve continues, "low-level anxiety, trust issues, fear of commitment, a sense of entitlement, or garden variety anger due to a delayed flight or a lack of gluten-free options in Terminal B – we will be happy to transport those for you for just $250." "  :heybaby: :lmao:


----------



## CubaMark

*This one's for SINC:*

*Stupid Stupid Minnesota Law Says Cars Parked In A Driveway Are A Safety Hazard*

John Krenik lives in St. Paul, Minn. and owns two collector cars that he keeps in his driveway. I’d like to tell you more about the cars, but I can’t because they’re both under tarps. Tarps that were used to “screen” the cars, per Minnesota law. Incredibly, this isn’t enough for Krenik’s neighbors or the state of Minnesota, which has declared these cars a public health hazard. Get ready to get so frustrated you punch your screen.








I saw the story about Krenik’s case on Minnesota Public Radio’s website. Before we go on, I should explain that in Minnesota, part of the state law says that “pioneer, classic, collector vehicles, collector military vehicles, or street rods, licensed or unlicensed, operable or inoperable” can be stored on the owner’s property—if they are “screened from ordinary public view by means of a fence, shrubbery, rapidly growing trees or other appropriate means.”

In other words, you can have an old car on your property, but it must be “screened” from people seeing it. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but there it is.

* * *​
...the city says that, despite Krenik’s efforts at screening the cars, a person can still tell that they are cars, and so that’s, incredibly, not good enough. Krenik actually invokes the Schrodinger’s Cat idea by saying that if the cars are tarped, nobody can tell if they’re concurs-level restorations or piles of rust. That is, the car is both ****box and creampuff under that tarp, just like the cat is both alive and dead.

It’s an interesting argument from a cosmological perspective, but, sadly, the three-judge panel wasn’t buying it, saying the aesthetic condition of the car doesn’t matter. It’s as much a safety issue as an aesthetic one, a judge ruled.

* * *​
Keep in mind, this is a state law, not some oppressive HOA from a gated community of dip****s who’ll never change a tire. This is statewide.

The law clearly requires that “collector vehicles,” regardless of condition or objective aesthetic value, must be “screened from ordinary public view.” Why? They’re cars. Minnesota is positively full of them already—I know, I’ve been there, I’ve checked.

(Jalopnik)


----------



## SINC

That's incredible.


----------



## CubaMark

*This is horrible... what a way to go *

*Truckload Of Airbag Parts Explodes En Route To Takata Plant, Killing Woman Inside Her Home*










A woman was killed in her home by an explosion Monday morning involving a truckload of airbag detonation triggers which was on its way to a Takata automotive parts plant, according to multiple reports.

According to Conexion Del Rio, 69 year-old Lucila Robles was killed in her home by the explosion of a truckload of airbag detonators...



> According to authorities the woman, who lived alone at her home located on U.S. Highway 277, near the intersection with FM 1666, was alone Monday morning, when the truck came off the road, caught on fire and exploded just in front of the structure.


The woman was initially reported missing, but the two-day search for her ended when dental pieces found at the scene of the explosion were discovered to be Roberts.

Takata, the company now infamous for an airbag defect cover-up that led to the deaths of 13 confirmed people, the injuries of hundreds more and one of the largest recalls in history involving nearly 100 million vehicles, operates a plant in Eagle Pass, Texas which is where the truck involved in the explosion was reportedly headed.

(Jalopnik)


----------



## CubaMark

*Dog owners, take a breath before viewing...*










(Video a the link Jalopnik)


----------



## Dr.G.

That was too close for comfort, Mark.


----------



## Macfury

Sadly, this looks as though it's been set up as a stunt in the video version, putting the dog's life in jeopardy for the sake of going viral. The camera person is well aware of the dog and the crowd on the hill is also watching both the dog and the car. Freeze frame at 18 and 19 seconds and you can see two photographers set up at the side of the road to catch the stunt. One of those photos is the still capture used for the YouTube video. In that photo you can see a third photographer on the other side of the road, also trying to catch the scene.





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury, it is still a close call.


----------



## Macfury

It's a close call. But one in which the dog was first put in harm's way.


----------



## Kami

I don't think that you can classify this as a stunt. 

That car is in a rally race and cameras are always set up on the side of the road where cars get airborne.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> It's a close call. But one in which the dog was first put in harm's way.


True. tptptptp


----------



## Dr.G.

Salisbury Elementary welcomes 5 sets of twins to kindergarten - New Brunswick - CBC News

Interesting. Wonder what the odds might be for this to happen?


----------



## CubaMark

*Canada: Devil statue with giant erection appears in Vancouver*










The giant red horned figure, which is approximately nine foot tall, appeared overnight on Tuesday outside the Clark Drive SkyTrain station, on a vacant pedestal previously occupied by a statue of Christopher Columbus.

The city council took down the well-endowed figure later the same day, but no groups have come forward to claim responsibility – and detectives have so far been unable to find its source.

However, word of the statue had already spread by the time it was removed, and so far nearly 2000 people have signed a petition calling for the “Giant Beelzebub-With-a-Boner” statue to be put back in place “as a piece of public art [to] serve as a reminder that art is in the eye of the beholder”.​
(Pink News UK)


----------



## macintosh doctor

CubaMark said:


> *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *


*
that belongs in front of queens park in toronto - as to remind us who is in charge in our province.. lol*


----------



## eMacMan

Don't recall this when I lived in the area, but even if it's fairly new still a cool idea.

Emma Crawford Coffin Race returns this weekend | Colorado Springs Gazette, News



> The event commemorates Crawford, who died of tuberculosis in the late 1800s and was once buried on Red Mountain. Years of rain and harsh weather unearthed her coffin, which slid down the mountain into the canyon below, where it was found by two boys.


----------



## CubaMark

*Ex-'Star Trek' actor to run for office as Mark Twain*










Stop us if you've heard this one before: A former Klingon actor is running for Congress as Mark Twain.

J.G. Hertzler, who played Klingon General Martok on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” is throwing his extraterrestrial humanoid warrior hat in the House race against Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.).










The performer filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission to run as a Democrat for Reed’s House seat.

“I disagree with everything Reed supports, including his unrelenting support of the Trumpster,” Hertzler wrote in a recent Facebook post.

Reed served as a vice chair on President Trump’s transition team.

But Hertzler, 67, says this is no ordinary political bid, as he’s adding a “twist” to the 2018 congressional race.

“I am running in the persona of Mark Twain,”
(Read more at The Hill)​
*Ex-Klingon actor J.G. Hertzler running for Congress... as Mark Twain*

Hertzler says he’ll be “making appearances thoughout [sic] the district of 11 counties, sometimes in my birth persona as JG Hertzler and at other times I will endeavor to present my ideas and policies through the brilliant humorist for all ages, Citizen Twain.” 

Indeed, Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens) used to live in Elmira, which is located in the 23rd Congressional District. Hertzler also says his campaign is a “valentine” to both Twain and to actor Hal Holbrook, who portrayed Clemens for over 60 years in a one-act show and also played Clemens in a two-parter on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

(DailyKOS)​


----------



## Macfury

He'd get more votes campaigning as the Klingon.


----------



## Dr.G.

Macfury said:


> He'd get more votes campaigning as the Klingon.


NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep in mind where he lives ................... 22 Twain Street.


----------



## CubaMark

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7cHb_LGS6Q[/ame]


----------



## CubaMark

*Creationist Ken Ham blames atheists and ‘fake news’ for failing Ark Encounter theme park*










The organization behind a tax-payer subsidized “replica” of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky is blaming atheists for tax-payers getting fleeced by the project.

Creationist Ken Ham built the $92 million Ark Encounter project in Williamstown, Kentucky. The “dismal failure” of the project has backers lashing out at “intolerant atheists” for mocking the return on investment taxpayers have received.

“Sadly, they are influencing business investors and others in such a negative way that they may prevent Grant County, Kentucky, from achieving the economic recovery that its officials and residents have been seeking,” complained Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis.

** * *​*...Ark Encounter received, “$18 million in state tax incentives to offset the cost of the park’s construction; a 75 percent property tax break over 30 years from the City of Williamstown (a town of about 3,000 near where the park will be located); an $11-million road upgrade in a rural area that would almost exclusively facilitate traffic going to and from the park; a $200,000 gift from the Grant County Industrial Development Authority to make sure the project stays in that county; 100 acres of reduced-price land and, finally $62 million municipal bond issue from Williamstown that Ham claims has kept the project from sinking.”
(RawStory)​


----------



## CubaMark

*All of these are interesting, but in particular check out #5:*

*11 Twisted Facts About "The Far Side"*










(Mental Floss)


----------



## SINC

Good for Larson, that Dino name stuff is way cool! :clap:


----------



## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> *Creationist Ken Ham blames atheists and ‘fake news’ for failing Ark Encounter theme park*


I have to say it's more impressive than I had imagined. 


Condos?


----------



## Dr.G.

CubaMark said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7cHb_LGS6Q


:clap::clap:


----------



## CubaMark

_The utter stupidity of some human beings...._

*Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded*










Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.

To gain admission, they were required to give their recruiter — or “master,” as she was called — naked photographs or other compromising material and were warned that such “collateral” might be publicly released if the group’s existence were disclosed.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.

Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.

Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their “master,” a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”

According to Mr. Raniere members had to overcome weaknesses 'common to women' such as 'an embrace of the role of victim', and the way to...

A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.

(Read the rest, if you dare, at NYTimes)​


----------



## Kleles

CubaMark said:


> _The utter stupidity of some human beings...._
> 
> *Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.
> 
> To gain admission, they were required to give their recruiter — or “master,” as she was called — naked photographs or other compromising material and were warned that such “collateral” might be publicly released if the group’s existence were disclosed.
> 
> The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.
> 
> Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.
> 
> Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their “master,” a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”
> 
> According to Mr. Raniere members had to overcome weaknesses 'common to women' such as 'an embrace of the role of victim', and the way to...
> 
> A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.
> 
> (Read the rest, if you dare, at NYTimes)​



I read this article earlier today. It is shocking in its context, and reminds us that the cult phenomenon is extant. Sane people can be ‘ruled’ by coercion and threats. Try to think of a circumstance in which you supply potentially embarrassing information about yourself, just to learn a secret.


----------



## CubaMark

*Man loses sight in one eye after vigorous orgasm*

:yikes:​
*....our parents warned us this would happen....*​


----------



## Dr.G.

This lawyer is one of the last people alive who still uses an iron lung - Home | As It Happens | CBC Radio

Amazing person.


----------



## CubaMark

*WOW*

*'This is a major discovery': Explorers find massive ice-age cavern beneath Montreal*










Explorers have just discovered a new underground passage, complete with stalactites and a lake, all buried beneath the city of Montreal — and they don't know where it ends yet.

Until a couple months ago, no one had ever set foot inside.

CBC crews were among the first people who had the chance to explore the cathedral-like chamber, which was formed more than 15,000 years ago during the ice age.

The spectacular find is connected to Montreal's Saint-Léonard Cavern, which lies underneath Parc Pie XII, not far from Highway 40.

The main portion of the cavern has been open to members of the public for decades, but tour guides had no idea there had been a massive section hidden behind a limestone wall.

The passageway, formed more than 15,000 years ago during the last ice age, runs at least 200 metres long, six metres high, and about three metres wide.

"This is a major discovery we made. This doesn't happen many times in a lifetime," said Luc Le Blanc, who found the passageway along with his friend Daniel Caron.

The chamber is so deep that it reaches the aquifer.

The explorers waded through as much of it as possible, before using an inflatable canoe to navigate the five-metre-deep water. 

"It keeps going. We haven't reached the end yet," Le Blanc said.

(CBC)​


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## FeXL

The jokes just write themselves...

Demand for anal bleaching soars by 23% as women follow in the footsteps of celebrities including Sophie Kasaei, Charlotte Crosby and Kourtney Kardashian



> * Anal bleaching hit the headlines when Marnie Simpson bleached Sophie Kasaei's bottom on Geordie Shore back in April
> * Now a leading aesthetic clinic in London has reported a large increase in cases
> * Anal bleaching involves lightening the colour of the skin around the anus
> * This is for cosmetic purposes, to make it more uniform with surrounding area
> * Anal bleaching can be achieved through laser therapy and by using creams


I never even knew this was a thing until just now. Aren't the intertoobs wunnerful?


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## SINC

FeXL said:


> The jokes just write themselves...
> 
> Demand for anal bleaching soars by 23% as women follow in the footsteps of celebrities including Sophie Kasaei, Charlotte Crosby and Kourtney Kardashian
> 
> 
> 
> I never even knew this was a thing until just now. Aren't the intertoobs wunnerful?


How could it possibly matter?


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## CubaMark

Somebody needs to re-watch that epic YouTube series, "You Suck at Photoshop" :lmao:

*Pam Dave Zaring* added 6 new photos.
January 12 at 2:41pm · 

Ok. This is NOT a joke. We paid a photographer, who claimed to be a professional, $2-250 for a family photo shoot. Please see these FOR REAL photos she delivered to us....She said the shadows were really bad on the beautiful, clear, sunny day and that her professor never taught her to retouch photos. Feel free to share 😂😂😂 I literally have not laughed this hard in YEARS!!!!! You can't make this stuff up.....again, this is NOT a joke - final product.​









*(Follow the link above to see the rest of the photos)*​
*NOTE* that some folks are calling this a clever marketing ploy.... so take it with a grain of salt.


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## CubaMark

Somebody needs to learn about boundaries... oh, _and his job!_

*Judge Jack Robison says God told him to speak up for defendant*










A state district judge in Comal County said God told him to intervene in jury deliberations to sway jurors to return a not guilty verdict in the trial of a Buda woman accused of trafficking a teen girl for sex.

Judge Jack Robison apologized to jurors for the interruption, but defended his actions by telling them “when God tells me I gotta do something, I gotta do it,” according to the Herald-Zeitung in New Braunfels.

The jury went against the judge’s wishes, finding Gloria Romero-Perez guilty of continuous trafficking of a person and later sentenced her to 25 years in prison. They found her not guilty of a separate charge of sale or purchase of a child.

(Statesman)​


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## Macfury

What if he had said that his conscience dictated it?


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## CubaMark

Macfury said:


> What if he had said that his conscience dictated it?


I would expect in the case of one's conscience being involved, that the intervention would be based upon some evidence or point of law, rather than "a feeling".

By declaring that some magical sky being informed him, in the face of the evidence which ultimately led to conviction, well... he certainly left himself open to not simply ridicule, but one would expect, censure.


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## Macfury

Neither would necessarily be based on evidence, but a belief that the person should not be indicted. It's like wanting people to spend billions of dollars on "global warming" fixes when you don't even understand the science--can barely articulate the issues. 

In the judge's case, the intervention was also illegal.



CubaMark said:


> I would expect in the case of one's conscience being involved, that the intervention would be based upon some evidence or point of law, rather than "a feeling".
> 
> By declaring that some magical sky being informed him, in the face of the evidence which ultimately led to conviction, well... he certainly left himself open to not simply ridicule, but one would expect, censure.


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## CubaMark

Macfury said:


> Neither would necessarily be based on evidence, but a belief that the person should not be indicted.


Not following you. On what basis, then, would a person feel that they could / should intervene? That kind of position doesn't come out of thin air, unless you're claiming voices in your head told you so...


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## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> Not following you. On what basis, then, would a person feel that they could / should intervene? That kind of position doesn't come out of thin air, unless you're claiming voices in your head told you so...



Perhaps you've never met someone whom you liked or disliked on meeting them. The feeling doesn't come out of thin air, but it's based on cues that you may find difficult to analyze or easily rationalize.


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## CubaMark

Macfury said:


> Perhaps you've never met someone whom you liked or disliked on meeting them. The feeling doesn't come out of thin air, but it's based on cues that you may find difficult to analyze or easily rationalize.


Well... a social setting is a wee bit removed from a court of justice, would you not agree? The motivation to express one's beliefs (founded in some kind of evidence or pulled out of their ass / thin air) in that context, one would think, would be of a different degree.


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## Macfury

CubaMark said:


> Well... a social setting is a wee bit removed from a court of justice, would you not agree? The motivation to express one's beliefs (founded in some kind of evidence or pulled out of their ass / thin air) in that context, one would think, would be of a different degree.


It's wrong for a judge to sway the jury that way regardless. He might have felt that in the state in which he lives, attributing it to God carried more weight--and sidestepped the notion that he was intervening as a judge. 

I used to read transcripts of court cases that never made the news, and some of it is incredible... including the lawyer who loudly passed gas (transcript: "an audible rumble") every time the prosecution was about to make a good point.


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## eMacMan

Macfury said:


> It's wrong for a judge to sway the jury that way regardless. He might have felt that in the state in which he lives, attributing it to God carried more weight--and sidestepped the notion that he was intervening as a judge.
> 
> I used to read transcripts of court cases that never made the news, and some of it is incredible... including the lawyer who loudly passed gas (transcript: "an audible rumble") every time the prosecution was about to make a good point.


Anyone who followed the earlier Bunkerville trials had to wonder how the Soviet Union managed to set-up court in Nevada.


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## TiltAgain

CubaMark said:


> Somebody needs to learn about boundaries... oh, _and his job!_
> 
> *Judge Jack Robison says God told him to speak up for defendant**SNIP*


Well, the judge, after saying what he did, recused himself from this case because of what he said; and the case proceeded under a different judge; so I have to give him credit for realising that.

Cheers


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## CubaMark

*Hackers stole a casino's database through a thermometer in the lobby fish tank*

_one memorable anecdote about a case Darktrace worked on where an unnamed casino was hacked via a thermometer in a lobby aquarium.

"The attackers used that to get a foothold in the network. They then found the high-roller database and then pulled that back across the network, out the thermostat, and up to the cloud,"_

(Business Insider)​


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## CubaMark

Here's an entertaining little video...

*Guardian News*
Published on Jun 29, 2018

_A 29-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man wrestled a police officer to the ground in an attempt to escape arrest at a convenience store in Spruce Grove in Canada. While the officer struggled to arrest the man, the woman ran into the store's back room and scaled a ladder. She then clambered into the space above the ceiling tiles. As more officers arrived, the woman crashed through the ceiling onto a row of metal shelving in the store. She and her partner were arrested without further incident_

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6VrUShp09c[/ame]


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## pm-r

> Here's an entertaining little video...


And here's the link and the Benny Hill theme music is appropriate…

https://www.facebook.com/StAlbertCrime/videos/883386155178677/


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## CubaMark

pm-r said:


> And here's the link and the Benny Hill theme music is appropriate…
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/StAlbertCrime/videos/883386155178677/


My link didn't work for you?


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## pm-r

CubaMark said:


> My link didn't work for you?



Nope, mainly because there wasn't one, at least not showing for me. And neither with Safari or Firefox with Mavericks.

I have no idea if others had the same problem or not.


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## CubaMark

pm-r said:


> Nope, mainly because there wasn't one, at least not showing for me. And neither with Safari or Firefox with Mavericks.
> 
> I have no idea if others had the same problem or not.


Dude. Weird. Shows up for me as an embedded video.

We had a chat about this last year (?) - between putting YouTube links within the YouTube tags, or just dropping the link into the text (only in the Advanced editing window), in which case it became embedded.


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## pm-r

pm-r said:


> Nope, mainly because there wasn't one, at least not showing for me. And neither with Safari or Firefox with Mavericks.
> 
> _*I have no idea if others had the same problem or not*_.





CubaMark said:


> Dude. Weird. Shows up for me as an embedded video.
> 
> We had a chat about this last year (?) - between putting YouTube links within the YouTube tags, or just dropping the link into the text (only in the Advanced editing window), in which case it became embedded.



I guess we'll never know if others could or couldn't see any video, embedded or linked, in your post unless they post with a reply.

Oh well, not the only goofy thing with this forum lately!!


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## TiltAgain

pm-r said:


> I guess we'll never know if others could or couldn't see any video, embedded or linked, in your post unless they post with a reply.
> 
> Oh well, not the only goofy thing with this forum lately!!


OK, I see it as an embedded video in CM's post.

Cheers


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## pm-r

TiltAgain said:


> OK, I see it as an embedded video in CM's post.
> 
> Cheers



Thanks Tilt,
What OS and browser are you using?


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## TiltAgain

pm-r said:


> Thanks Tilt,
> What OS and browser are you using?


Oh, just Safari on High Sierra.

Cheers


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## pm-r

TiltAgain said:


> Oh, just Safari on High Sierra.
> 
> Cheers




Thanks Tilt and that sounds like you're on some wilderness adventure.

I wouldn't be surprised if the newer Safari includes more stuff for such viewing capabilities. Maybe even another "_*New and improved Standard*_" eh??? 



- Patrick
======


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## TiltAgain

pm-r said:


> Thanks Tilt and that sounds like you're on some wilderness adventure. *SNIP*


LOL, it took me a second to figure out what you meant 

Cheers


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## CubaMark

_How fragile our digital world can be...._ 

*THE UNTOLD STORY OF NOTPETYA, THE MOST DEVASTATING CYBERATTACK IN HISTORY*
*Crippled ports. Paralyzed corporations. Frozen government agencies. How a single piece of code crashed the world.*

[...]
He quietly swore under his breath. Jensen assumed the unplanned reboot was a typically brusque move by Maersk’s central IT department, a little-loved entity in England that oversaw most of the corporate empire, whose eight business units ranged from ports to logistics to oil drilling, in 574 offices in 130 countries around the globe.

Jensen looked up to ask if anyone else in his open-plan office of IT staffers had been so rudely interrupted. And as he craned his head, he watched every other computer screen around the room blink out in rapid succession.

“I saw a wave of screens turning black. Black, black, black. Black black black black black,” he says. The PCs, Jensen and his neighbors quickly discovered, were irreversibly locked. Restarting only returned them to the same black screen.

All across Maersk headquarters, the full scale of the crisis was starting to become clear. Within half an hour, Maersk employees were running down hallways, yelling to their colleagues to turn off computers or disconnect them from Maersk’s network before the malicious software could infect them, as it dawned on them that every minute could mean dozens or hundreds more corrupted PCs. Tech workers ran into conference rooms and unplugged machines in the middle of meetings. Soon staffers were hurdling over locked key-card gates, which had been paralyzed by the still-mysterious malware, to spread the warning to other sections of the building.

Disconnecting Maersk’s entire global network took the company’s IT staff more than two panicky hours. 

* * *​
For the past four and a half years, Ukraine has been locked in a grinding, undeclared war with Russia that has killed more than 10,000 Ukrainians and displaced millions more. The conflict has also seen Ukraine become a scorched-earth testing ground for Russian cyberwar tactics. In 2015 and 2016, while the Kremlin-linked hackers known as Fancy Bear were busy breaking into the US Democratic National Committee’s servers, another group of agents known as Sandworm was hacking into dozens of Ukrainian governmental organizations and companies. They penetrated the networks of victims ranging from media outlets to railway firms, detonating logic bombs that destroyed terabytes of data. The attacks followed a sadistic seasonal cadence. In the winters of both years, the saboteurs capped off their destructive sprees by causing widespread power outages—the first confirmed blackouts induced by hackers.

But those attacks still weren’t Sandworm’s grand finale. In the spring of 2017, unbeknownst to anyone at Linkos Group, Russian military hackers hijacked the company’s update servers to allow them a hidden back door into the thousands of PCs around the country and the world that have M.E.Doc installed. Then, in June 2017, the saboteurs used that back door to release a piece of malware called *NotPetya, their most vicious cyberweapon yet.

* * *​
NotPetya was propelled by two powerful hacker exploits working in tandem: One was a penetration tool known as EternalBlue, created by the US National Security Agency but leaked in a disastrous breach of the agency’s ultrasecret files earlier in 2017. EternalBlue takes advantage of a vulnerability in a particular Windows protocol, allowing hackers free rein to remotely run their own code on any unpatched machine.

NotPetya’s architects combined that digital skeleton key with an older invention known as Mimikatz, created as a proof of concept by French security researcher Benjamin Delpy in 2011. Delpy had originally released Mimikatz to demonstrate that Windows left users’ passwords lingering in computers’ memory. Once hackers gained initial access to a computer, Mimikatz could pull those passwords out of RAM and use them to hack into other machines accessible with the same credentials. On networks with multiuser computers, it could even allow an automated attack to hopscotch from one machine to the next.

* * *​
....the story of NotPetya isn’t truly about Maersk, or even about Ukraine. It’s the story of a nation-state’s weapon of war released in a medium where national borders have no meaning, and where collateral damage travels via a cruel and unexpected logic: Where an attack aimed at Ukraine strikes Maersk, and an attack on Maersk strikes everywhere at once.

(Read the (much) longer story here: Wired)​


----------



## Macfury

Restore from backup.


----------



## FeXL

The iron...



CubaMark said:


> ...where national borders have no meaning...


----------



## CubaMark

*An interesting and pretty funny story...*

*How a hole drilled by Canadians may have led to a baby boom in rural Iceland*










Forty years after researchers from Halifax helped drill a hole nearly two kilometres into the ground in rural Iceland, locals still remember the project, not so much for its geological findings, but for the spout of hot water it unexpectedly unleashed — and the midnight hot tub parties it brought to their isolated fishing village.
(Read more at CBC)​


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## CubaMark

_Photoshop was bad enough - now that the technology has reached a point where video can also be so easily faked, well... who do you trust?_

*A new 'arms race': How the U.S. military is spending millions to fight fake images*

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0[/ame]

It's a video that looks convincing — former U.S. president Barack Obama speaking directly to a camera and calling current U.S. President Donald Trump "a total and complete dip****."

But it never actually happened.

The video was produced and voiced by director Jordan Peele and Buzzfeed to warn people of an emerging technology that can make it seem as though people are saying or doing things they never did.

(CBC)​


----------



## pm-r

> But it never actually happened.



That's too bad, it should have!!!

But it's not too late.


----------



## Dr.G.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Wayne Dyer.


----------



## TiltAgain

CubaMark said:


> _Photoshop was bad enough - now that the technology has reached a point where video can also be so easily faked, well... who do you trust?_
> 
> *A new 'arms race': How the U.S. military is spending millions to fight fake images*
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0
> 
> It's a video that looks convincing — former U.S. president Barack Obama speaking directly to a camera and calling current U.S. President Donald Trump "a total and complete dip****."
> 
> But it never actually happened.
> 
> The video was produced and voiced by director Jordan Peele and Buzzfeed to warn people of an emerging technology that can make it seem as though people are saying or doing things they never did.
> 
> (CBC)​


Yeah, this is not new. It has been happening for a while. See here for reference on how it's done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

Cheers


----------



## Beej

I spent too much time on the internet and stumbled onto "breatharians". 

Put another way, eating is a social construct.


----------



## pm-r

Beej said:


> I spent too much time on the internet and stumbled onto "breatharians".
> 
> Put another way, eating is a social construct.




It's actually built-in to my iMac's dictionary when I checked:



> breatharian |breTHˈe(ə)rēən| noun
> a person who believes that it is possible, through meditation, to reach a level of consciousness where one can obtain all sustenance from the air or sunlight.


At least their grocery bill will be awfully low, if it even exists, at least for a short time!!!


----------



## Beej

pm-r said:


> It's actually built-in to my iMac's dictionary when I checked:
> 
> 
> 
> At least their grocery bill will be awfully low, if it even exists, at least for a short time!!!


Traditional religion makes a lot more sense from the perspective of what people are willing to believe.


----------

