BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 03:38 PM

Orangutan prefers tattooed blondes

Sibu pesters keepers who hoped primate would breed with his own species

Reuters
Updated: 9:55 p.m. CT Oct 5, 2007

AMSTERDAM - Sibu the Orangutan has miffed his Dutch keepers by refusing to mate with females and showing sexual interest only in tattooed human blondes.

Apenheul Primate Park hoped Sibu would become its breeding male when he arrived two years ago, but orangutans aren't his type.

"He chases them, or ignores them, but he doesn't do what he should do," said a spokeswoman for the park.

Instead, Sibu has fancied his female keepers — especially blondes. The spokeswoman said Sibu also has a fetish for tattoos, harking back to a heavily tattooed keeper who reared him.

"Orangutans have special interests in special subjects. Sibu happens to like tattoos," she said.

The park hasn't given up on Sibu. The primate once showed an amorous interest in a female orangutan while living in England, and keepers hope he will find love when reunited with her in a new enclosure in Chester, England.

© 2007 Reuters Limited

A new argument when your female kid wants to get a tattoo?

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 06:20 PM

The neighbors timed their early Halloween perfectly. I see in the coroner's report today that Trinity Bright died this morning at 6am.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 10:40 AM

A slice of life in rural America. . .

Tractor driver booked for DUI

Arlington man's rig allegedly was all over the road

The Herald link

ARLINGTON -- It's a story that started with cars, bikes and planes. It ended Thursday when an Arlington man was arrested for allegedly driving a tractor while drunk. The man, 59, was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of driving under the influence, Washington State Patrol trooper Kirk Rudeen said. "This is the first time I've been working that we've had a DUI on a tractor," the 18-year veteran trooper said.

The whole thing started when a man flagged down a trooper to say he thought someone was driving drunk. He told the trooper he'd helped a man pull his car out of a ditch. About an hour later, he saw the same man with the same car in a different ditch. Police dispatched a State Patrol airplane to look for the suspected drunken driver and troopers in the air quickly zeroed in on the Kubota tractor, Rudeen said.

The tractor was swerving all over the road, he said. "The guy almost went into the ditch again driving the tractor," Rudeen said. By the time troopers caught up with the man about 12:45 p.m. near Rose Road and 288th Street NW, he had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, Rudeen said.

Police think this is what happened. The man drove his car into a ditch for the second time that morning. He walked home. He got his tractor and used it to pull the car out of the ditch. After driving his car home, the man hopped on a bicycle and pedaled back to retrieve the tractor.

The man was at the wheel of the tractor, swerving along a country road, when troopers found him, Rudeen said. Driving a huge piece of farm machinery while drunk is no laughing matter, Rudeen said.
n accident between a car and the tractor likely would have been catastrophic, he said.

"A front-end loader is not going to give like a car would. It's going to peel the car open like a can opener, not to mention what's going to happen to the occupant," Rudeen said.

The man was cited and booked into the county jail Thursday afternoon. He was being held on $5,000 bail. "This is a person we definitively needed to get off the roadway," Rudeen said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 11:53 AM

My in-laws live just south of Atlanta. They told us the other day that if the drought doesn't let up soon there will be no water when they turn on the tap.

Mayor Begs Residents To Conserve Water

ATLANTA -- The commissioner of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management made a plea for conservation today because of the severe drought that has forced restrictions on 61 counties in north Georgia.

Robert J. Hunter called it a drought "of historic magnitude." He said everyone must come together to protect and conserve limited water resources.

The storage for Atlanta's water supply is Lake Lanier, located north of the city. Hunter said it provides water for one-third of the residents of Georgia.

He said that now there is enough water in Lanier to serve the area for 121 days.

Hunter joined Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin at a news conference at City Hall to urge citizens in Atlanta and the surrounding area to do everything possible to conserve water.
The 61 counties were placed under Drought Restriction Level Four on September 28 by the director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which essentially is a ban on all outdoor watering. Hunter said a level four is called "exceptional, which is beyond extreme."

Both Hunter and Franklin strongly endorsed better use of water in the home, such as having a plumber check for leaks. Franklin said the city is steadily making improvements on an outdated city water system, averaging about 700 repaired leaks a month.

U.S. Drought Monitor Survey Released

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor survey released today shows the drought is getting worse. Basically, the eastern half of Alabama remains under the worst drought conditions on the scale -- that's approximately 58 percent of the state under D-4 condition. All the state is under D-1 status or worse.

61 percent of Tennessee is under D-4 or exceptional condition. In Georgia, 27 percent of that state is under the worse category. Other states under D-4 classification includes parts of Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Virginia.

The long range forecast calls for the drought to persist in much of the region through December.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 09:38 PM

Tip to copper wire thieves:


          Not the live ones

10,000-volt shock leaves cable thief to be ID'd by prints from severed hand

Reuters
Updated: 4:32 p.m. CT Oct 8, 2007

BERLIN - A thief in Germany was charred beyond recognition by a 10,000-volt electric shock when he tried to steal a live copper cable, authorities said Monday.

Police in the western city of Duisburg found the 32-year-old man's blackened remains by a set of cable cutters and a pile of cables he had already stolen.

Only because one of his hands survived incineration were officers able to identify the man as a German of Kazakh origin.

"His fingerprints were already logged on police files," a local police spokesman said. "The force of the shock was so great that the hand was severed from his body."

© 2007 Reuters Limited.


John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 09:12 PM

Blood-Spattered Yacht Tells Few Tales

The Associated Press
Sunday, October 14, 2007
link

MIAMI -- Unlike most boats returning from the high seas, the sport fisher Joe Cool had no tales to tell. Three days earlier, the 47-foot boat had departed for the island of Bimini, four crew members and two passengers aboard. A day earlier, it had been found, doing circles and dragging anchor, on a lonely stretch of the Florida Straits about 30 miles north of Cuba.

With no crew.

And no passengers.

As a Coast Guard cutter towed it slowly back into Biscayne Bay, a hush fell over its home, the Miami Beach Marina.

In the slips, men ceased buffing the pearly hulls of multimillion-dollar yachts. Dock boys stopped zipping about in EZGO carts. Even the Shih Tzu-walkers in their Gucci sunglasses and clogs paused as the white vessel glided without a murmur up the channel.

Along the docks and the palm-lined pier, "Everyone stood there and followed the boat with their eyes," Valerie Kevorkian, a dive shop operator and scuba instructor, recalled, "and then there was only emptiness ... a ghostly feeling."

Indeed, the Joe Cool had returned with no souls or story _ only clues, tantalizing to be sure, to a high-seas mystery full of twists, discrepancies, revelations and contradictions.

As on an episode of "CSI," investigators would pluck from the vessel some valuable evidence: four 9 mm shell casings; a tiny key that might or might not unlock handcuffs; splotches of human blood, inside and outside the cabin.

They would also find, drifting in an orange life raft 12 miles north of the ghost ship, two seemingly incongruous men who had chartered the Joe Cool _ a 35-year-old, suspected thief on the run from police in Arkansas, and a clean-cut, 19-year-old Cuban-American training to become a private security guard.

They would interrogate these survivors, take down a story that three pirates had hijacked the boat and coldly shot each crew member, and then, for some reason, let these two go in a life raft with their luggage and about $2,200 in cash.

Investigators didn't buy the story. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged the suspects with first-degree murder in the high-seas killing of the Joe Cool's young, four-member crew: the captain, Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley, 30; Jake's half-brother, Scott Gamble, 35, and their friend and first mate, Samuel Kairy, 27.

What law enforcement would not immediately provide _ may never fully provide, perhaps _ are what the relatives and friends of the four most desire: Answers and, by extension, closure.

For a week after its return, the Joe Cool sat in dock at a Coast Guard station directly across the channel from the marina. No one was allowed near the vessel _ except the forensics experts who combed it for clues _ but the boat's graceful hull and vaulting flybridge were visible, and haunting, to all.

"This could have happened to any one of us, and whenever you looked at that boat over there, it reminded of you of that," said Greg Love, 51, who runs Club Nautico South Beach, one of the marina's five charter businesses.

Kevorkian, whose dive shop is next door, caught herself many times that week, gazing beyond the boat lifts at the tied-up Joe Cool.

"It just looked empty. Like a shell," she said. "There was no feeling, no soul in it anymore."

___

As with many sea mysteries, this one starts on land _ in central Arkansas, to be precise.

It features a fellow named Kirby Logan Archer, who, by the age of 35, had been described as a loner, a romantic, a sensitive son, a vindictive husband, a loving father, a gay man.

According to a WANTED flier from the Independence County sheriff's office, Archer stands 6 feet tall and weighs 190 pounds. His mugshot reveals a no-nonsense squint and a grown-out crewcut _ a throwback, maybe, to his Army days. (He had been a Military Police investigator at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during the Cuban Rafter Crisis, which began in 1994. He went AWOL four years ago, receiving an "other-than-honorable" discharge, court records show.)

Arkansas prosecutors have accused Archer of robbing the Wal-Mart in Batesville, where he worked for less than a year as a customer service manager.

On a Friday night this January, they allege, Archer used a cart to collect the money trays from cash registers, part of his normal duties, and wheeled it to a back room.

Next, they say, he stashed $92,620.66 in cash and checks in a microwave oven and re-sealed the box. A surveillance video showed that Archer strolled out the front doors with the box at 10:25 p.m., after paying for the microwave at the front checkout counter.

"He even used his employee discount," Keith Bowers, sheriff of Independence County, said in a phone interview.

By the time a court had issued a warrant for his arrest the following morning, Archer had fled the state.

He left behind a wife, two children and, apparently, a troubled home life. Though his current wife, Michelle, has described him as a "wonderful father," his previous wife, Michelle Rowe, says Archer was quite the opposite.

Allegations leveled during the couple's divorce and child custody proceedings paint a lurid picture: that Rowe was sexually involved with another woman; that Archer had a gay lover; that Rowe suffered an "accidental overdose" of migraine medication; that Archer once gave Rowe a black eye; and more.

At the time Archer went on the lam, he was the subject of a child molestation investigation _ and still is, though no charges have been filed, says Sgt. David Huffmaster of the Sharp County, Ark., sheriff's office. (In 1993, while living in Tucson, Ariz., Archer was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of "contributing to the delinquency or dependency of a minor.")

Allan Kaiser, a lawyer appointed to defend Archer in Miami, says the allegations come mainly "from an ex-wife who is pretty unbalanced."

A little more than an hour after leaving Wal-Mart for good, Archer was stopped by police in Bono, Ark., 90 miles away, because one headlight of his 1991 Dodge Caravan was out. He was cited and sent on his way since the all-points bulletin on him hadn't yet been posted.

"It's a shame," says Lance Suttles, Bono's police chief. "We could have stopped this whole mess right there, if only we'd have known about him."

___

For nearly eight months, Archer lay low. When next he surfaced, he was in the Miami area, spending time with a 19-year-old Cuban immigrant with a weight lifter's torso and a close-cropped, dark beard: Guillermo Zarabozo.

To his neighbors in Hialeah, Zarabozo was sociable, respectful, well-behaved. He lived with his mother, sister, stepfather and pet dog in a second-floor walkup.

Did he drink, smoke, use drugs? No, the neighbors say. Was he in trouble with the law? Never, they insist.

Gaby Lopez, 19, a Hialeah High School classmate, knew him as "an easygoing" student who excelled in science and math and was in the school's Junior ROTC.

"Guillermo worked out a lot, was a sports nut," says Nelson Palenzuela, 60, a downstairs neighbor. "He had a Cuban girlfriend, but he never came home late."

"He's a boy any mother would want to have," said another neighbor, Belkis Diaz, 38.

Until recently, Zarabozo worked for private investigation and security companies and held a state permit to carry three types of handguns.

But if Zarabozo got along so well with his neighbors, why did he install a video surveillance camera in the hall outside of his family's apartment? And if, as Zarabozo's neighbors and friends attest, Archer never visited Zarabozo at home, school, or work, how and when did they meet?

Archer's attorney, Allan Kaiser, said the two were introduced in Florida six months ago by "people they knew mutually."

Zarabozo's mother, Francisca Alonso, said in a TV interview that her son's father had been stationed at Guantanamo in 1995, when Archer was an MP officer there. (Archer briefly mentioned "a boy from Cuba whose family he apparently befriended while stationed in Cuba," according to his ex-wife, Rowe.)

Zarabozo came to the United States in 1999, after winning a visa lottery in Cuba, said his mother.

"I believe in my son. I trust him completely," she told The Associated Press.

However the pair came together, Archer and Zarabozo shared a number of traits: Both spoke fluent Spanish and had lived in Cuba; both were fastidious, very attentive to their physiques, and well-trained in the use of handguns.

And, on a breezy Saturday, the last day of summer, both boarded the Joe Cool.

___

The travelers initially approached the charter boat's first mate, Sammy Kairy.

They wanted a ride to Bimini. They'd met a couple of lovely young ladies and were supposed to rendezvous with them in the Bahamas. It would be a one-way trip.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about the two men, according to people at the marina that day and the next. The pair seemed polite. One spoke in a slow, Southern drawl. He seemed friendly. He was willing to pay cash.

It was still the slow season for chartering. The snowbirds, the corporate types, they wouldn't start flocking to Florida to fish the Gulf Stream for another month or two. A charter a week was good money that time of year.

Kairy gave them the business number of the boat's owner.

The next afternoon, Saturday, Sept. 21, Archer and Zarabozo turned up at slip D-30, where the Joe Cool was docked. They had six black bags. The vessel's owner, Jeff Branam, a stout man with sun-bleached gray hair, helped carry their luggage aboard.

Archer told him they worked for a survey company, had finished early, and were off to the Big Game Resort and Yacht Club on Bimini. Branam said a boat trip would set them back $4,000. The crew, after all, would have to sail back to Miami, and gas cost money.

With little more than a nod, Archer pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket, peeled off 40 $100 notes, and held them out.

Why didn't they just take a plane? Branam asked. A one-way ticket would cost $150, tops.

Haven't got my passport, Archer told him. Girlfriend packed it in her luggage and went on ahead. She's going to meet us at the dock.

Branam took the money.

There was no reason to feel funny about it. Another outfit in the marina charged $3,500-$4,900 for a full day fishing on yachts about the size of the Joe Cool. Miami Beach was a rich man's playground. Some of these folks garaged their Ferraris to go grocery shopping in their Mercedes.

About 4:30 p.m., under sunny skies, the Joe Cool sailed into the light chop of Biscayne Bay, on its first-ever charter to the Bahamas.

The captain, Jake Branam, with a $1,000 share and plans to fish for yellowfin tuna on the return, couldn't have been happier. His wife, Kelley, an "outdoor girl" who nurtured a pet raccoon at home, didn't usually tag along; she had a 3-year-old daughter, Taylor, and an infant son, Morgan, to look after.

But this time, she was able to leave the kids with Jake's grandfather. Besides, it was the weekend and this was only a one-way job.

___

What happened next, according to criminal complaints filed in federal court against Archer and Zarabozo, is this:

The Joe Cool was expected to return the following noon to prepare for a Monday charter. By 4 p.m. that Sunday, with no word from his nephew, Jeff Branam contacted the Coast Guard. Within two hours, the sport fisher was spotted, drifting.

But it was 160 miles south of Bimini, on the Cay Sal Banks _ just a short sail from Cuba.

Coast Guard officers boarded the vessel, finding it "in disarray." Investigators discovered six marijuana cigarettes, a cellular telephone, luggage, cameras, a laptop computer, Zarabozo's Florida ID card, a small key, four spent shell casings _ and blood, in the stern and cabin.

They noted the boat's navigational equipment and electronics had been left untouched, along with some expensive fishing gear. But they found no life raft, no guns, no bullets or slugs.

And no bodies.

The boat's Global Positioning System indicated the Joe Cool had started off heading due east toward Bimini. Then, halfway to its destination, it had veered 190 degrees south. Why the drastic change in course, which pointed straight toward Cuba?

Two cutters, a C-130 plane, a P-3 Orion patrol plane and helicopters swept the Gulf Stream, searching more than 10,000 square miles. On foot, searchers checked out dozens of small, uninhabited cays.

Still they found no crew.

They did, however, spot a life raft, drifting northward with the Gulf Stream current. In it were Archer and Zarabozo, with a supply of water, their luggage, and some other curious objects: a blow gun, darts, several knives, and 22 $100 bills.

What were they doing out there?

During the trip back, Zarabozo told investigators that pirates had hijacked the Joe Cool. They shot the captain dead, he recounted, and then killed his wife the same way "because she was hysterical." The hijackers then ordered the remaining crew to throw the bodies overboard, shooting them, too, when they refused, he said.

When the pirates told him to dump the bodies, Zarabozo said he complied and, at gunpoint, cleaned the boat. Then, he claimed, the invaders commandeered the vessel and sailed it south until it ran out of fuel. Ultimately, a third boat picked up the hijackers, who spared him and Archer the crew's fate.

___

The survivors' version of what happened appeared highly suspicious to prosecutors.

They say:

_No radio transmissions or maydays about a hijacking came from the boat. There was a "distress" button on the VHF radio, which, when pressed, would send the Coast Guard the sport fisher's position.

_Four spent shell casings had stamps matching ammunition purchased by Zarabozo in February.

_There were no scratches or marks on the Joe Cool's hull, typically left by a boarding vessel.

_Though Archer and Zarabozo say they were going to rendezvous with girlfriends on Bimini, no women have come forward.

_Although the survivors told investigators the killings occurred on the boat's exterior deck, human blood and three of the four shell casings were found inside, in the main cabin.

_Cuba, just beyond where the men were picked up, has no extradition treaty with the U.S.; that fact led Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Tsai to say in court that Archer and Zarabozo were attempting "a one-way trip out of the country."

Still, without a murder weapon, a confession, bodies, bullets _ or any witnesses beyond the accused _ proving that Archer and Zarabozo plotted and committed first-degree murder won't be easy, veteran defense lawyers say.

"That's a fairly thin case," says James Cohen, a criminal law professor at Fordham University. Proceeding without bodies can be done but "it's much more difficult," he said.

Indeed, without the victims' bodies, what can DNA evidence on the Joe Cool prove?

It doesn't have eyes, or ears, or memory.

And it doesn't tell secrets.

___

At the Miami Beach Marina, the news of murder charges brought no elation from those who knew the crew of the Joe Cool. Relief, perhaps. And hope that the crime would not go unpunished.

Wayne Conn, 57, a boat captain who's a fixture at the marina, met Jake Branam 15 years ago, when he was just an adolescent with floppy hair and dreams of skippering a boat. Conn showed him the ropes. He knew that they shared an attachment to their vessels and to the sea.

Now Conn knows something else.

"Grieving takes a long time to get through."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 11:26 PM

Seems to me this "agency" is a bit high and mighty in the dog adoption business. This isn't a child they're talking about, and DeGeneres found a good alternate home after hers didn't work. If the agency is truly interested in the welfare of the dog they should know that children that age are not a hazard to a dog and should be grateful that it had a good home.

Sounds like they're hoping to get some press out of it--but it isn't turning out the way they hoped.

---

Agency Wants to Keep DeGeneres' Dog
October 16, 2007 (AP)

LOS ANGELES - Ellen DeGeneres' doggy drama intensified Tuesday when the agency that took the talk show host's adopted dog back said they were keeping it. The dog adopted by DeGeneres and later given to her hairstylist's family in violation of an animal rescue agency's rules will not be going back to the family, a spokesman said, amid threats of violence against the agency.

DeGeneres made a tearful plea on her talk show that aired Tuesday for the owners of Mutts and Moms to give Iggy, a Brussels Griffon mix terrier, back to her hairstylist's family.

The dog was removed from the hairstylist's home Sunday. The owners of Mutts and Moms claimed that DeGeneres violated the adoption agreement by not informing them that she was giving the dog away. Mutts and Moms owners Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun were in possession of the dog and will not be giving it back, attorney Keith A. Fink told The Associated Press. "She (Marina) is not going to give them the dog," said Fink, who is not legally representing the owners but is authorized to speak on their behalf.

"She doesn't think this is the type of family that should have the dog. She is adamant that she is not going to be bullied around by the Ellen DeGenereses of the world ... They are using their power, position and wealth to try to get what it is they want." DeGeneres' attorney, Kevin Yorn, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

However, on her talk show taped Tuesday and airing Wednesday, a serious DeGeneres reiterated to her audience that "the dog needs to go to the family." It "just needs to be in a good home," she continued, according to a transcript given to the AP. "All that you're supposed to do is put a dog in a loving home."

Fink said DeGeneres' partner, actress Portia de Rossi, signed the agreement. DeGeneres originally said on her show that she (DeGeneres) had signed it. DeGeneres' publicist Kelly Bush confirmed De Rossi signed the agreement, although DeGeneres' name also was listed. "She (Ellen) was wrong by not reading the agreement," Bush told the AP in a phone interview. "She thought she was doing a good thing. She's notorious for rescuing animals and finding them good homes. She found the dog a wonderful, wonderful home."

Fink asserted that DeGeneres and De Rossi breached the agreement. "If you adopt a dog and you no longer want the dog, you can't unilaterally decide who you want to give the dog to," he said. "She's trying to tell a story to make herself look good."

As a result of the ensuing publicity, Fink said Batkis and Chekroun had received voice- and e-mail threats of death and arson, and their Paws Boutique store in Pasadena was besieged by media Tuesday, disrupting business. The women handle the volunteer, nonprofit Mutts and Moms rescue agency out of the store. "It's very upsetting to hear that someone is getting those kind of calls," Bush said. "Ellen just wants the dog reunited with the family."

DeGeneres had said her hairdresser's daughters, ages 11 and 12, had bonded with Iggy and were heartbroken when the dog was taken away. Fink said Moms and Mutts has a rule that families with children under 14 are not allowed to adopt small dogs. "It's for the protection of the dog," he said.

DeGeneres said on her Tuesday show that she spent $3,000 having the dog neutered and trained to be with her cats, but Iggy did not mix well with the cats so she gave him away. "She got rid of the dog not because it didn't get along with the cats," Fink said. "She didn't like the dog."

Not true, according to Bush."She loved the dog," the publicist said. Four-month-old Iggy was trained by Zack Grey at his UrbanTales pet store in Los Angeles. "Ellen and Portia followed the process every single day," he said. "It just didn't work. It had nothing to do with not loving the puppy."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 12:01 PM

Comedian Colbert joins race for White House
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post
Article Launched: 10/17/2007 01:33:10 AM PDT

WASHINGTON - It has become something of a cliche: politicians launching their electoral campaigns on late-night talk shows, in a calculated attempt at hipness.

But a late-night comic announcing his presidential candidacy on a late-night talk show - now that is a hall-of-mirrors maneuver worthy of Stephen Colbert. The man known to viewers for his portrayal of a fulminating right-wing blowhard said on Comedy Central on Tuesday night that he will be a candidate in his native South Carolina.

Asked if he plans to give up his show, Colbert said: "Do you think I'm a fool? Now that I'm a candidate, you people are going to be gunning for me, like you do for everybody." Not only will the program enable him to bite back at the press, he pointed out, but "you know what it pays to be a presidential candidate? Not well."

As for the inconvenient truth that he hasn't lived in the Palmetto State for years, the host of "The Colbert Report" went negative, daring the other candidates to match his appeal back home: "John Edwards left South Carolina when he was 1 year old. He had his chance. Saying his parents moved him - that's the easy answer."

Colbert told Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" that he planned to announce soon on a more prestigious program - and minutes later, on his own show, said he was taking the plunge, triggering a big balloon drop.

Colbert, who in real life is a Democrat, said he would file papers to run in both parties' primaries.

He seems to have an unorthodox fundraising strategy: "I'd really like to get some corporate sponsorship. Some sort of salty snack."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 04:48 PM

He has tough competition from a dead man: will he come close to what Pat Paulson was able to do with his "campaigns" over the years?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 10:11 AM

A 10-week-old kitten used up one of its nine lives when it survived a 20-minute ordeal in a washing machine.

Molly was saved when 11-year-old owner Bethany Hall saw the helpless animal clawing at the inside of the washing machine door at her County Durham home.

The pet, which had crawled into the machine at the Hall family home in Meadomsley, near Consett, suffered eye damage and had breathing difficulties.

But after a course of antibiotics and physiotherapy, Molly recovered.

Bethany's mother Sonia Hall, said: "I was in a state of panic when I saw her, but thankfully we have one of those machines that switches off easily.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 10:17 AM

A woman posing as Lady Godiva swapped a white horse for a mobility scooter to protest at plans to close care homes.
Simone Christiaan went almost naked to pretend to be an elderly version of the Anglo-Saxon campaigner at Stafford's county council building.

Ms Christiaan, 41, is the guardian of a resident in Springhill Home in Leek, one of the homes under threat.

The council said no decision has been made and it is still consulting those affected.

Ms Christiaan, who only had two plasters to cover her modesty, said that during the protest on Wednesday morning she was nearly arrested by a police officer.

She said: "They said just covering the nipple part was not good enough, it had to cover the whole breast. I said that if I was wearing a bikini I would've shown more.

"I nearly got slightly arrested and had to cover up a bit."

'Meaningful discussions'

According to legend, Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry in protest at her husband's heavy taxes.

Ms Christiaan said she hoped her re-enactment would raise awareness of her campaign.

She said: "If this is what's needed to help change the council's minds it's worth it.

"The council is trying to take everything

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 10:20 AM

In the "Not Doing it Quite Right..." department:

Mumbai, India (AHN) -- Doctors in India have removed a 3-inch toothbrush lodged inside the nose of a 31-year old woman, a local paper reported.

The report said that the housewife went to a hospital in Mumbai two months ago suffering from severe pain.

During a CT scan, doctors were shocked to find the broken toothbrush prompting them to order an immediate surgery.

"I was brushing my teeth, my husband accidentally pushed me and the toothbrush in my hand broke,"| said the woman. "I was left holding the lower portion of the brush but couldn't locate the rest of it."

"Soon after, I started bleeding profusely from the nose," she added. "But since that day, I began getting breathless and a foul-smelling discharge began to come out of my nose."

"The odor from her nose was so bad that it could be smelt from a distance of two feet," said Kaushal Sheth, the doctor who performed the surgery. "If the object had fallen into her windpipe, she could have choked to death."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 12:31 PM

Man swipes pug in Largo, pushes puppy down his pants

LARGO (FLA) -– In the annals of puppy theft, is there any technique more crafty than stuffing a brown pug puppy down your pants?

That's exactly what a man did in a Largo pet store Monday -– in front of a surveillance camera.

According to Largo police, three or four men, a woman, and a child walked into All About Puppies pet store at 7190 Ulmerton Road. They hovered around the puppy-filled cages. Then one man grabbed hold of the brown pug.

Retail value: $900.

He put it in his shirt at first, according to police, but then he looked for a better place to conceal it.

The unnamed man tried farther south, stowing the dog in the front of his pants.

Then he left the store. The group followed.

All told, the theft took six minutes.

But the puppy is implanted with a tracking chip, according to police, so next time it goes to the vet it will be recognized as stolen.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:58 AM

Whacky Notes from All Over:

Hospital gives man drip-feed of vodka
From the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 10, 2007
BRISBANE, Australia -- Doctors plugged an Italian tourist into a drip-feed of vodka to save him at a hospital in Australia that ran out of the medicinal alcohol it would normally have used for treatment.

The 24-year-old Italian, who was not further identified, was brought to Mackay Base Hospital in northeastern Queesland state and was diagnosed as having ingested a large quantity of ethylene glycol, a common ingredient of antifreeze that can cause renal failure.

Dog saves family from fire blamed on cat

From the Associated Press
October 11, 2007
GREENVILLE, Maine -- Thumper, a black Labrador retriever, is getting credit for saving a Greenville man when a fire swept through his home.

Roland Cote said his wife and their 7-year-old grandson were away when the blaze started early Sunday in a converted two-story garage. He said Thumper grabbed him by the arm to wake him, leaving just enough time for him to dial 911 before fleeing the fast-moving fire.

While the dog is the hero, a cat is the bad guy in this story.

Cote said the fire marshal investigator believes the blaze was started when Princess, the family cat, tipped over a kerosene lantern. Cote says he and his pets escaped safely, but he says Princess did get her tail singed by the flames.

Cambodian police take cow in to custody for causing traffic accidents

From the Associated Press
October 9, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- A Cambodian cow was taken into police custody for causing traffic accidents that resulted in the deaths of at least six people this year, a police official said Tuesday.

The cow's owner could also face a six-month prison term under a new traffic law that holds people responsible for accidents caused by their animals, said Pin Doman, a police chief on the outskirts of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.


The white, 1.5-meter (5-foot) tall cow was standing in the middle of a main road Monday night when a 66-year-old motorcyclist crashed into the animal and died. Most Cambodian roads are dark at night.

Earlier this year, the same cow was responsible for another traffic accident that resulted in the death of five people and several injuries, when a truck veered off the road and crashed as its driver tried to avoid the animal.

Pin Doman said he was holding the cow at his police station.

He said the cow's owner had been warned four times in the past to keep his cattle leashed and could face prison time if relatives of those who died initiate legal proceedings.

(Note -- the cow has seen been butchered.)


Man jailed for trying to pass $1M bill


From the Associated Press
6:44 AM PDT, October 9, 2007
PITTSBURGH -- Change for a million? That's what a man was seeking Saturday when he handed a $1 million bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket. But when the Giant Eagle employee refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said.

The man slammed an electronic funds-transfer machine into the counter and reached for a scanner gun, police said.

Police arrested the man, who was not carrying identification and has refused to give his name to authorities. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.

Since 1969, the $100 bill is the largest note in circulation.

Police believe the $1 million note seized at the supermarket may have originated at a Dallas-based ministry. Last year, the ministry distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Grover Cleveland on a $1 million bill.


Actor Cage confronts naked intruder

Robert Dennis Furo, who was arrested on suspicion of residential burglary. Police said he was found naked inside actor Nicolas Cage's Newport Beach home early Monday.
By Dave McKibben, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 4, 2007

A naked tailor allegedly found inside actor Nicolas Cage's Newport Beach home has pleaded not guilty to felony burglary.

Police said Cage discovered Robert Dennis Furo, 45, of San Pedro in a bathroom doorway at 1:30 a.m. Monday, wearing only a leather jacket belonging to the actor.

Police said Furo removed the jacket and Cage escorted him outside, where he was arrested.

Lt. Craig Fox of the Newport Beach Police Department said Cage did not know Furo, who was not carrying a weapon.

"There was no assault to Mr. Cage," and the suspect "didn't resist him or the officers," Fox said.

(My only question: when a man is naked, how do you know he is a tailor?)

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:41 AM

At least you can be sure he isn't carrying a concealed weapon (mostly sure anyway, I'd rather not go there).

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 11:49 PM

        Hit 'Em One for Me, Granny!

Woman, 75, fined for hammering Comcast office

Her fury with cable company led to attacks on keyboard, monitor, phone

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:29 p.m. CT Oct 19, 2007

BRISTOW, Virginia - She was fined and got a suspended jail sentence, but Mona Shaw says she has no regrets about using a hammer to vent her frustration at a cable company.

"I stand by my actions even more so after getting all these telephone calls and hearing other people's complaints," she told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

Shaw, 75, and her husband, Don, say they had an appointment in August for a Comcast technician to come to their Bristow home to install the company's heavily advertised Triple Play phone, Internet and cable service.

The Shaws say no one came all day, and the technician who showed up two days later left without finishing the setup. Two days after that, Comcast cut off all their service.

At the Comcast office in Manassas later that day, they waited for a manager for two hours before being told the manager had left for the day, the Shaws say.

Shaw, a churchgoing secretary of the local AARP branch, returned the next Monday _ with a hammer.

"I smashed a keyboard, knocked over a monitor ... and I went to hit the telephone," Shaw said. "I figured, 'Hey, my telephone is screwed up, so is yours.'"

Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, disputes Shaw's version of its customer service record and calls Shaw's hammer fit on Aug. 20 an "inappropriate situation."

"Nothing justifies this sort of dangerous behavior," Comcast spokeswoman Beth Bacha said.

Police arrested Shaw for disorderly conduct. She received a three-month suspended sentence, was fined $345 and and is barred from going near the Comcast offices for a year.

The Shaws did eventually get phone and television service _ with Verizon and DirecTV.

She said many people have called her a hero. "But no, I'm just an old lady who got mad. I had a hissy fit," she said.

© 2007 The Associated Press

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 12:02 AM

Sorry, but this is a rather long article:

Comcast blocks some Internet traffic

Tests confirm data discrimination by number 2 U.S. service provider

By Peter Svensson
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:36 a.m. CT Oct 19, 2007

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.
The principle of equal treatment of traffic, called "Net Neutrality" by proponents, is not enshrined in law but supported by some regulations. Most of the debate around the issue has centered on tentative plans, now postponed, by large Internet carriers to offer preferential treatment of traffic from certain content providers for a fee.

Comcast's interference, on the other hand, appears to be an aggressive way of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV operator and No. 2 Internet provider, would not specifically address the practice, but spokesman Charlie Douglas confirmed that it uses sophisticated methods to keep Net connections running smoothly.

"Comcast does not block access to any applications, including BitTorrent," he said.

Douglas would not specify what the company means by "access" — Comcast subscribers can download BitTorrent files without hindrance. Only uploads of complete files are blocked or delayed by the company, as indicated by AP tests.

But with "peer-to-peer" technology, users exchange files with each other, and one person's upload is another's download. That means Comcast's blocking of certain uploads has repercussions in the global network of file sharers.

Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user.
Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: "Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye." [highlight added - isn't this "identity theft" when a user is impersonated by the ISP?]

Matthew Elvey, a Comcast subscriber in the San Francisco area who has noticed BitTorrent uploads being stifled, acknowledged that the company has the right to manage its network, but disapproves of the method, saying it appears to be deceptive.

"There's the wrong way of going about that and the right way," said Elvey, who is a computer consultant.

Comcast's interference affects all types of content, meaning that, for instance, an independent movie producer who wanted to distribute his work using BitTorrent and his Comcast connection could find that difficult or impossible — as would someone pirating music.

Internet service providers have long complained about the vast amounts of traffic generated by a small number of subscribers who are avid users of file-sharing programs. Peer-to-peer applications account for between 50 percent and 90 percent of overall Internet traffic, according to a survey this year by ipoque GmbH, a German vendor of traffic-management equipment.

"We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure all our customers have the best broadband experience possible," Douglas said. "This means we use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality experience for all Comcast subscribers."
The practice of managing the flow of Internet data is known as "traffic shaping," and is already widespread among Internet service providers. It usually involves slowing down some forms of traffic, like file-sharing, while giving others priority. Other ISPs have attempted to block some file-sharing application by so-called "port filtering," but that method is easily circumvented and now largely ineffective.

Comcast's approach to traffic shaping is different because of the drastic effect it has on one type of traffic — in some cases blocking it rather than slowing it down — and the method used, which is difficult to circumvent and involves the company falsifying network traffic.

The "Net Neutrality" debate erupted in 2005, when AT&T Inc. suggested it would like to charge some Web companies more for preferential treatment of their traffic. Consumer advocates and Web heavyweights like Google Inc. and Amazon Inc. cried foul, saying it's a bedrock principle of the Internet that all traffic be treated equally.

To get its acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved by the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T agreed in late 2006 not to implement such plans or prioritize traffic based on its origin for two and a half years. However, it did not make any commitments not to prioritize traffic based on its type, which is what Comcast is doing.
The FCC's stance on traffic shaping is not clear. A 2005 policy statement says that "consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice," but that principle is "subject to reasonable network management." Spokeswoman Mary Diamond would not elaborate.

Free Press, a Washington-based public interest group that advocates Net Neutrality, opposes the kind of filtering applied by Comcast.
"We don't believe that any Internet provider should be able to discriminate, block or impair their consumers ability to send or receive legal content over the Internet," said Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard.

Paul "Tony" Watson, a network security engineer at Google Inc. who has previously studied ways hackers could disrupt Internet traffic in manner similar to the method Comcast is using, said the cable company was probably acting within its legal rights.

"It's their network and they can do what they want," said Watson. "My concern is the precedent. In the past, when people got an ISP connection, they were getting a connection to the Internet. The only determination was price and bandwidth. Now they're going to have to make much more complicated decisions such as price, bandwidth, and what services I can get over the Internet."

Several companies have sprung up that rely on peer-to-peer technology, including BitTorrent Inc., founded by the creator of the BitTorrent software (which exists in several versions freely distributed by different groups and companies).

Ashwin Navin, the company's president and co-founder, confirmed that it has noticed interference from Comcast, in addition to some Canadian Internet service providers.

"They're using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use that money to improve service," Navin said, noting that BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer applications are a major reason consumers sign up for broadband.

BitTorrent Inc. announced Oct. 9 that it was teaming up with online video companies to use its technology to distribute legal content.
Affecting others

Other companies that rely on peer-to-peer technology, and could be affected if Comcast decides to expand the range of applications it filters, include Internet TV service Joost, eBay Inc.'s Skype video-conferencing program and movie download appliance Vudu. There is no sign that Comcast is hampering those services.

Comcast subscriber Robb Topolski, a former software quality engineer at Intel Corp., started noticing the interference when trying to upload with file-sharing programs Gnutella and eDonkey early this year.

In August, Topolski began to see reports on Internet forum DSLreports.com from other Comcast users with the same problem. He now believes that his home town of Hillsboro, Ore., was a test market for the technology that was later widely applied in other Comcast service areas.

Topolski agrees that Comcast has a right to manage its network and slow down traffic that affects other subscribers, but disapproves of their method.

"By Comcast not acknowledging that they do this at all, there's no way to report any problems with it," Topolski said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 01:49 AM

On a lighter note:

Let turtles be roadkill, lawmaker says

He opposes $318,000 fence aimed at protecting species, avoiding crashes

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:57 a.m. CT Oct 19, 2007

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A congressman disputes the state's contention that it's worth $318,000 in federal money to keep turtles from becoming roadkill.

Installation is expected to begin this week on a 2-mile-long fence along both sides of U.S. 31 in Muskegon, in west-central Michigan. It is intended to prevent hundreds of turtles, some of them protected species, from being killed as they migrate to nesting sites along the Muskegon River, which the highway crosses.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., questions why the Michigan Department of Transportation did not consider using the money on other projects "more related to the movement of people and products."
"Serious times require a serious approach to the very real problems Michigan faces," Hoekstra said in a news release.

The 4-foot-high chain-link fence has been planned for two years. State officials consider it a relatively inexpensive solution to a problem that affects traffic safety and the environment of rare turtle species.

The fence will cover a stretch of road that is Michigan's deadliest for turtles and one of the nation's worst for the reptiles, Tim Judge, manager of a Transportation Department service center in Muskegon, said Thursday.

Two state-protected species — the wood turtle and Blanding's turtle — are common traffic victims, as are snapper, painted, box and map turtles.

Department spokeswoman Dawn Garner didn't know whether any drivers swerving to avoid turtles have gotten into crashes, but said: "There is definitely the potential for improving the safety of motorists."

The barrier is being financed through the federal government's transportation-enhancement program. Money from the program must be used to improve the public's traveling experience but cannot be spent on building or repairing roads.

Hoekstra, who has questioned the fence project since it was proposed, said the state should have petitioned federal officials to use the money for road construction.

"The state has not requested greater flexibility in how to spend federal highway dollars, and Lansing bureaucrats need to begin to think more creatively in how they address our state's problems," he said.

© 2007 The Associated Press

In a GAO study [.pdf] of highway construction costs by state, the Fed agency lamented that "the states don't tell us so we don't know" but reported results of a survey of "comparable states" done by Washington state, in which Michigan reported a median highway construction cost, 'way back in 2002, of $1,454,000 per lane mile.

So the $318,000 that this legislator is quibbling over would build 1,154.77 feet of one lane of "median quality" road. (That's 0.22 mile, or about two city blocks of one-lane street in most US cities?)

Can we all pucker up and say "STUPID" – or is the word just "politics."

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:04 PM

SUNCION (Reuters) - A bereaved widow's story about her husband being devoured by a boa constrictor made headlines in Paraguay on Thursday, but it turned out to be a tall tale by a woman who felt abandoned.

Maria Estela Lima, a housewife in the small town of Puerto Piasco, 370 miles north of Paraguay's capital, Asuncion, on Wednesday told a local radio station how a giant boa had eaten her husband.

She said a 10-yard-long (10-meter-long) snake had grabbed her husband from a boat on the Paraguay river, and wrapped him up before swallowing him.

She said two local men killed the boa to remove her husband's remains, and she asked the community for help to maintain her three small children.

The story spread quickly and was on the front covers of Paraguay's newspapers, but Pedro Palacio, a state prosecutor who looked into the case told reporters the husband had been found in perfect health working on a ranch.

Palacio said Lima made up the story to get attention and because she felt abandoned.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 06:46 PM

NASA refuses to disclose air safety survey

[Small snips below from the longer article at the link]

The Associated Press
Updated: 3:41 p.m. CT Oct 22, 2007

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. Luedtke acknowledged that the survey results "present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the U.S. commercial aviation industry."

The AP sought to obtain the survey data over 14 months under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

"Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey," Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP. NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.

Among other results, the pilots reported at least twice as many bird strikes, near mid-air collisions and runway incursions as other government monitoring systems show, according to a person familiar with the results who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.
The survey also revealed higher-than-expected numbers of pilots who experienced "in-close approach changes" — potentially dangerous, last-minute instructions to alter landing plans.

"If the airlines aren't safe I want to know about it," said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairman of the House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee. "I would rather not feel a false sense of security because they don't tell us." Discussing NASA's decision not to release the survey data, the congressman said: "There is a faint odor about it all."

Miller asked NASA last week to provide his oversight committee with information on the survey and the decision to withhold data.
"The data appears to have great value to aviation safety, but not on a shelf at NASA," he wrote to NASA's administrator Michael Griffin.

NASA directed its contractor Battelle Memorial Institute, along with subcontractors, on Thursday to return any project information and then purge it from their computers before Oct. 30.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 06:30 PM

US people may be interested in the separate thread:

BS: US Do Not Call List

The topic seemed to deserve its own thread, but people may look here for "old news."

The report is that the FTC has announced that numbers registered on the US Do Not Call List will NOT be deleted after five years as originally planned.

Deletions would have begun ca. June 2008, with the requirement that everyone re-register.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 12:16 AM

Couple gets photos 27 years later

Photographer finds album, tracks down bride who couldn't pay for it in 1980

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:54 p.m. CT Oct 23, 2007

MANSFIELD, Ohio - A couple won't mark their 27th anniversary until Thursday, but they've already received the perfect gift: the wedding pictures they couldn't afford when they married as teenagers.

Their photographer showed up last week at the diner where Karen Cline works and surprised her with a photo album from her big day in 1980.
"About a month ago, I was just cleaning out some of my old things and I found it," said photographer Jim Wagner, who's now 80. "I knew she didn't have any money back then, and I just thought she might like to have it."

"I just stood there and cried and cried and hugged him," Cline said afterward, tearing up again.

She recalled being a new bride at 18 and admiring the pictures but feeling heartsick because she and her husband, Mark, who was 19 at the time, didn't have $150 to pay for them.

All these years, the Clines have had just one wedding picture that someone else took, of her walking down the aisle.

Wagner said he was able to track down Karen Cline after running into her stepfather a few weeks ago.

When the photographer showed up in the diner, she wrote him a check for the long-awaited $150 — and that's when he cried, she said.

© 2007 The Associated Press

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 11:11 PM

I heard that story about the photos on the news this morning.

What are the odds, not only that he'd find them, but that they're still married?!

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 06:35 AM

Stilly -

If he is - or was - a pro photographer, odds he'd find the album should have been very good, assuming he got sentimental enough and had the time to "reflect on his career" by going through the older stuff.

Odds that they'd still be married probably a little less.

Odds that he'd bother to look for them, close to zero - except for the mention that he "was reminded by a chance meeting" with one of their relatives. (?)

But with all the odds stacked against them, it's still a very happy little story.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 02:07 PM

This kid sounds like a delusional trust fund baby zealot. I've watched candidates here in Texas do the juggle between working and campaigning--it's a difficult job, and at the end of the campaign if they don't win they have all the more need for their regular employment.

Student Hounds Prof Running for Office
October 25, 2007

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - A politically conservative student armed with a video camera and a Web site is trying to force a Democratic congressional candidate out of his teaching job at Central Michigan University. Dennis Lennox, a 23-year-old junior, has posted videos on YouTube of himself questioning assistant professor Gary Peters about campaigning for office while holding a prestigious position at the university.

Some say Lennox is persistent. Others accuse him of pandering for attention.

"What I'm doing isn't about getting media attention," said Lennox, a political science major. "I'm speaking for the hundreds of students, alumni, taxpayers and even legislators who have complained because Gary Peters won't pick between Congress and campus."

In one video Lennox posted online, Peters is seen walking to his car while Lennox asks him several questions, including whether he is angry about his campaign not getting "positive press." Peters doesn't respond.

Peters said in an interview this week with The Associated Press that his university position is part-time and privately funded. "The bottom line is that people who run for public office still need to pay the bills and still need to work," he said. He drives 130 miles from a Detroit suburb to Mount Pleasant to teach class once a week.

Peters, 48, is seeking the Democratic nomination to face Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg in Oakland County, one of the top congressional targets for Democrats nationally in 2008. "If I was running for Congress in a seat where I had no chance of winning, I probably wouldn't have any attention put on me at all," said Peters, a former state senator who lost a close race for Michigan attorney general in 2002.

He acknowledges it would be difficult to keep his $65,000-a-year job at the university if he gets elected to Congress, but says he will worry about that if he wins. Peters holds the Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government - named for a former Republican U.S. senator and Michigan Supreme Court justice. Lennox helped start the group Students Against Gary Peters and created a Web site for what he calls "Petersgate." He insists that he isn't targeting Peters because he's a Democrat.

But some see it differently.

"Basically, he's just an extreme partisan. Anybody that's a Democrat, he's going to try to get at," said fellow political science major Eric Schulz. Lennox's anti-Peters campaign shows no sign of slowing down, though his tactics have generated complaints.

Both Lennox and college Dean Pamela Gates filed police complaints against each other after Lennox requested Peters' e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act. At one point in the brief video, also posted online, Gates it seen gesturing into the camera at close range, and it then goes out of focus, as if it has been struck. Lennox is heard saying, "Don't touch my camera," suggesting that Gates either touched it or attempted to.

Lennox said he started videotaping Gates after she refused to take the request and ordered him out of her office. "She accosted, assaulted and battered me," Lennox said. "Whether you're a liberal or conservative, we all have to live and play by the same rules. I seemed to learn something in first grade that you keep your hands to yourself."

No charges have been filed and the university is investigating the incident. But spokesman Steve Smith said that "people get very uncomfortable when a camera is shoved in their face. Employees and students have a reasonable expectation to privacy." When the school told Lennox he couldn't record employees or students without their permission, he filed a censorship complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is reviewing it.

Peters says requiring permission before filming is reasonable when it involves students' privacy, though he stops short of saying it should apply to public figures such as himself. "When you run for public office, you've got to have a thick skin," he said.

Peters says somewhat ruefully that he has fulfilled his job description of bringing practical politics to campus. "Students are definitely seeing what happens when somebody runs for public office in a high-profile race, the types of things they have to confront," he said.

---

On the Net:

Gary Peters for Congress: http://www.petersforcongress.com

The Peters Report: http://petersreport.blogspot.com

Central Michigan University: http://www.cmich.edu

YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v3mzS4oxp6KY; http://www.youtube.com/watch?vVi0Np7RHMKM; http://www.youtube.com/watch?vs_3l64luOiQ

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:30 AM

"When the school told Lennox he couldn't record employees or students without their permission, he filed a censorship complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union"

I could be wrong about this but I would expect Lennox to have an extremely unfavorable opinion of the ACLU, until he decides they might be able to help him out. And they might, which is why I think they provide an invaluable service, even though I don't always agree with what they do.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:32 AM

2 Arguing On Ramp To Highway Fatally Struck By Car

DAVIE, Fla. -- Authorities say two people standing and arguing on a highway ramp in Davie were fatally struck by a car.

Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Mark Wysocky says the man and woman were hit on the State Road 7 northbound ramp to Interstate 595.
FHP says 20-year-old Ramon Perez, of Port St. Lucie, and 36-year-old Marie Mary, of Lauderdale Lakes, got out of their car and fell to the ground in a violent struggle.

A northbound 2007 Toyota entering the highway from State Road 7 struck the pair.

Both victims died at the scene.

The driver of the Toyota, 20-year-old Amanda Dumont, of Plantation, wasn't injured.

It's not clear what the two were fighting about.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 03:34 AM

FEMA can't even fake it right?

FEMA workers masquerade as reporters

Employees asked questions at last-minute California wildfire briefing

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:00 p.m. CT Oct 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.

The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.

The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from an agency employee.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.

"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California," Perino said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they — I'm sure — will not do it again."

She said the agency was just trying to provide information to the public, through the press, because there were so many questions.
"I don't think that there was any mal-intent," Perino said "It was just a bad way to handle it, and they know that."

FEMA gave real reporters only 15 minutes notice about Tuesday's news conference . But because there was so little advance notice, the agency made available an 800 number so reporters could call in. And many did, although it was a listen-only arrangement.

On Tuesday, FEMA employees had played the part of reporters. Johnson issued a statement Friday, saying that FEMA's goal was "to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment."

"Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received," he said. "We can and must do better."

Officials at the Homeland Security Department, which includes FEMA, expressed their concern.

"This is simply inexcusable and offensive to the secretary that such a mistake could be made," Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said Friday, referring to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. "Stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated."

Keehner said senior leadership is considering whether a punishment is necessary.

© 2007 The Associated Press

????????

John
John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 11:19 PM

Many Teens Don't Know the Law About Sex
link
October 29, 2007

ATLANTA - The tough Georgia law that sent Genarlow Wilson to prison for having oral sex with a fellow teenager has been watered down. But in Georgia - and in many other states - it's still a crime for teenagers to have sex, even if they're close in age. Legal experts say it's rare for prosecutors to seek charges. But, as the Wilson case illustrates, they can and sometimes do.

And the rising popularity of sex offender registries can often mean that a teen nabbed for nonviolent contact with someone a year or two younger might face the same public stigma as a dangerous sexual predator. "It's ludicrous," Wilson's lawyer B.J. Bernstein said. "In order to look tough on crime they (lawmakers) are criminalizing teen sex."

Wilson was freed Friday after the Georgia Supreme Court found that the 10-year mandatory sentence he received for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year's Eve party in 2003 when he was 17 was cruel and unusual punishment. He had served almost three years in prison. Georgia's law has since been rewritten to make the same act a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.

Across the country, ages of consent range from 14 to 18. Lawyers and health educators say most teens - and even many parents - are unaware that even consensual teenage sex is often a crime. The patchwork of laws and ages from state to state leaves many confused and critics say more education is badly needed. "We do a disgraceful job of educating kids about the very real consequences that they face," said J. Tom Morgan, a former DeKalb County district attorney who has a new book coming out called Ignorance Is No Defense: A Teenagers Guide to Georgia Law. "If society is going to punish them as adults," said Morgan, "then society ought to educate them."

What schools teach in sex-education classes varies from district to district, but Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, said those that receive federal funds for abstinence-from-sex education programs are encouraged to teach age of consent laws as part of their classes.

Trudy Higgins-Edison is one such teacher. She began asking a police officer to teach a class on sex and the law to high schoolers at her Sugar Land, Texas, school two years ago. She said it's probably her most popular class. "The kids are really engaged and ask a lot of questions," Higgins-Edison said. "And most of them are completely amazed that they could actually be arrested."

Some states have moved in recent months to craft so-called Romeo and Juliet exceptions to prevent sexually active teenagers from being lumped together with child molesters. Indiana changed its law so that teens in "dating relationships" would not be prosecuted. Exactly what that means is unclear, said Larry Landis, executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council. "I think there is a view now that 'hey, maybe we overdid it on the sex offender registry,'" Landis said.

Connecticut changed its law to stop prosecuting teens if the age gap is three years or less. And Texas has changed the way it classifies sex offenders so that some low-risk teens will no longer have to register. Wilson said in an interview Monday that he hopes to use his newfound celebrity to raise awareness among high school and college students. He said sex education classes are lacking.

"Most of the time they just tell kids, 'Use condoms,'" Wilson told The Associated Press. "That's not the only thing they need to know about sex. They need to know that they can actually go to jail."

Wilson will appear on behalf of an organization set up by his lawyer to help teens learn their rights.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 01:07 PM

British cop says pack of vicious cows almost killed him

British media claim that a pack of vicious cows attacked a British police officer while he was walking his golden retriever, Zak, across a field earlier this month.

Yes, you read that right, the perps were cows.

"Suddenly, one cow started mooing and then others began running towards me. There were about 50 of them, some were cows with calves but all were fully grown," Chris Poole, 50, tells The Worthing Herald. "We were surrounded but I wasn't scared and waved and shooed them away as they came close. They were focused on Zak and became more agitated as they got nearer and nearer. Then I felt this cow butt me hard in the back. I fell to the ground and let go of Zak's lead. There were hooves all around me and I was being repeatedly head butted as I lay there."

Poole spent 11 days in the hospital, were the Beeb says doctors treated him for broken ribs, a punctured lung and severed artery.

"It was unlucky the cows attacked... it is very rare but obviously it can happen," Poole tells BBC news.

The Daily Mail says cows are blamed for killing at least eight people in the last 10 years.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Oct 07 - 01:52 PM

Couple dead serious about selling house

Fed up with no offers, will refund entire purchase price upon their deaths

The Associated Press
updated 2:53 p.m. CT, Tues., Oct. 30, 2007

WEXFORD, Pa. - It could be the deal of a lifetime.

A Pittsburgh-area couple, Bob and Ricki Husick, are offering anyone who buys their home full cash-back upon their death and even their full inheritance, currently worth at least $500,000.

The Husicks have been trying to sell their home for almost a year, but have failed to do so in the current shaky market.

Bob Husick said he's asking $399,900 for the four-bedroom, three and a half bath home about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh.

According to the Husicks' offer, the buyer would get the money back when the couple dies. And if the buyer agrees to care for them in old age, they could also inherit their retirement home in Arizona, bringing the estate's current value to about $500,000.

© 2007 The Associated Press

[Doesn't say how old they are?]

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Oct 07 - 02:00 PM

Judge: Speeding not 'as bad' in miles

Court lowers sentence for driver going 180 kph — it was only 112 mph

The Associated Press
updated 9:24 a.m. CT, Wed., Oct. 31, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland - When police caught driver David Clarke flying down a road at 180 kilometers per hour this month, he looked likely to lose his license.

But a country judge reduced the charge and let the 31-year-old information technology worker stay on the road after concluding the speed did not look as bad when converted into miles, or 112 mph.

"I am not excusing his driving. He should not have been traveling at that speed," District Court Judge Denis McLoughlin said in his verdict, delivered Tuesday in County Donegal, northwest Ireland.
McLoughlin suggested it was relatively safe to have shattered the legal road limit at the time, citing good weather, light traffic and the road's unusual straightness.

McLoughlin was quoted as saying the speed seemed "very excessive," but did not look "as bad" when converted into miles. He lowered the charge from to driving carelessly, and fined him 1,000 euros ($1,450); if convicted of the tougher charge of driving dangerously, Clarke would have lost his license.

The episode underscored Ireland's slow mental conversion to metric. Ireland switched its speed limits from miles to kilometers in January 2005, but most cars still display speeds principally in miles.
Clarke, a Dubliner, had been traveling to a Donegal wedding Oct. 13 when he was clocked by a police checkpoint going 180 kph (112 mph) in a 100 kph (62 mph) zone.

Law enforcement on Ireland's roads is notoriously lax, and judges frequently acquit offending drivers because of loopholes and vagaries in the law.

Over the past week, the government has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn over its plan to close the biggest loophole of all — a law that allows people to fail a first driving test but still receive a license and drive unsupervised.

The government had made Tuesday a deadline for police to begin citing some 150,000 people for driving alone despite failing the test, but pushed the deadline back to mid-2008 after test-flunkers complained they would lose their jobs if barred from the roads.

One in six Irish drivers has never passed an on-the-road test, according to Transport Department statistics.

© 2007 The Associated Press

?????

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Oct 07 - 02:02 PM

Apologies for my speeding. The last post above failed due to a "collision" on first attempt. I had to clear the wreckage and repost.

And I'm not really "all that Irish."

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Nov 07 - 02:16 PM

Prairie Dog Problem Deliciously Resolved-
Prairie Dog Guinea Pig Kebabs
Editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the Dept. Transportation has delayed work on the Rail Runner commuter route until a colony of Gunnison's prairie dogs comes out of hibernation.
At that time they will be removed to another loation.

The Rail Runner project cost is in the hundreds of millions. One way Secretary of Transportation Faught planned to make up her department's shortfall was the sale of prairie-dog kebabs to train passengers.
Objections to the sale of the cuddly critters caused her to come up with a solution that is a combination of civil, social and genetic engineering.
Her solution- a cuy (guinea pig)- prairie dog hybrid; "easily fitted on a bamboo skewer, yet far more al gusto" than the rather stringy (and ratty) pure Prairie dog.
"They will be bred and raised in the comfort of southern New Mexico, and prepared for the palate by chefs famed for Santa Fe dining. And they'll command premium prices from train customers bored out of their minds by the snail pace of a conveyance that's anything but the bullet train former Gov. Anaya envisioned,..."

Editorial from the always reliable Santa Fe New Mexican (Nov. 3, 2007).

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:07 PM

Posted on Tue, Nov. 06, 2007
Flier appears to be attempt to lower Hispanic turnout

Star-Telegram link
A bogus election flier that gives the wrong day for Election Day raised alarm bells among local officials Monday. Featuring the county logo and the county Elections Office "Tarrant Votes" logo, the flier urges voters in English and Spanish to vote on Saturday, Nov. 10. Election Day is today.

The flier is marked "Official Notice" across the top and specifically mentions the state's constitutional amendments and the Fort Worth City Council District 9 race. The flier has been distributed to voters in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods of Rosemont and Worth Heights in south Fort Worth, county officials said. Both neighborhoods are in District 9.

Six candidates are running to represent District 9 in a special election. Councilwoman Wendy Davis resigned over the summer to pursue a state Senate seat.

The Tarrant County district attorney's office has assigned two investigators to collect information on who distributed the flier, said Marvin Collins, chief of the office's civil division. So far, county officials have very little information. "If the intent was to confuse people, then that was a despicable thing to do," Tarrant County Elections Administrator Steve Raborn said.

The city of Fort Worth is contacting the neighborhoods' homeowners associations and encouraging them to notify voters that Election Day is today.

For years, reports of the use of fliers with inaccurate information to suppress voter turnout have cropped up around the country. In 2002, a flier distributed in African-American neighborhoods in Baltimore reportedly gave the wrong Election Day date and said voters must pay any parking tickets and overdue rent before voting. "To my knowledge, this is a first in Tarrant County," Raborn said.

Alonzo Aguilar of Worth Heights found the flier in his yard Sunday morning. He was instantly confused by what he read, he said, and wondered whether it was possible that the election date had changed.

Collins urged anyone with information on who made or distributed the flier to call the economic crimes section of the district attorney's office at 817-884-1661.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 07:26 PM

LOS ANGELES — A pregnant woman was killed and two others injured after a brawl broke out involving as many as 30 young women, authorities said.

The fight began about 2:30 p.m. Monday in South Los Angeles. Police said one of the women jumped into her car and struck the three victims. The woman killed was eight months pregnant and another victim was in critical condition and expected to lose her leg, authorities said. None of the victims' identities were released.

Unique Bishop, 21, fled but turned herself into authorities and was booked for investigation of murder, police said. She is being held on $1 million bail.

Police said the cause of the dispute is unclear, but was part of a planned confrontation between two groups of women in their early 20s. Witnesses told police they saw women shout at each other and fighting at a parking lot for a discount store. The fight then moved its way onto the street and into a gas station.

Dozens gathered at the gas station and watched as Bishop get into her convertible vehicle and drive it into the group. One of the victims was pinned against another car, police said.


"It was totally an intentional act to kill the woman. It was the driver's way of settling the dispute. It was a horrific act," said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck.

Police believe the fight involved only women, which was "very unusual," said police Cmdr. Pat Gannon.

"We have seen women around gangs before, but we haven't seen anything like this event before," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 12:12 AM

So it's not just the LEAD any more?

Toys linked to date-rape drug recalled

Chinese-made beads for children metabolize into GHB when ingested
The Associated Press

updated 5:47 p.m. CT, Wed., Nov. 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - Millions of Chinese-made children's toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found it contained a chemical that converts into a powerful "date rape" drug when ingested.

Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads. In the United States, the toy goes by the name Aqua Dots, which are distributed by Spin Master Toys based in Toronto.

The beads are sold in general merchandise stores for use in arts and crafts projects. They can be arranged into designs and fuse together when sprayed with water.

Scientists say the beads contain a chemical that the human body metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate. When eaten, the compound — made from common and easily available ingredients — can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

The recall was announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Friday several hours after it was announced in Australia.

© 2007 The Associated Press

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:00 AM

Couple Rescues Driver From Train Tracks
November 09, 2007

MINEOLA, N.Y. - An off-duty police officer and her husband, a volunteer fire chief, rescued a woman from her stalled car seconds before a train smashed into it, police said. The 63-year-old driver apparently mistook the Long Island Rail Road tracks for a road Thursday evening, authorities said. Her car became stuck on the rails with a train fast approaching. She screamed that she couldn't get out of the car and needed help, said witness Jennifer Freiermuth, 28.

Randi LoCicero, off duty from her job at the New York Police Department, and Anthony LoCicero ran to the car as the crossing gates came down, Randi LoCicero said. As the train's horn blared, the couple yanked open the door and pulled out the driver, who needed crutches to walk, Randi LoCicero said.

Moments later, a train plowed into the car, overturning it and dragging it a short distance. Neither the woman nor anyone on the train was hurt, authorities said. "She was a little mad we didn't get her pocketbook, but you know, that's life," Randi LoCicero said. The driver wasn't identified.

LoCicero, 34, has been a New York police officer for nearly 10 years, the NYPD said. Her husband, 33, is a chief in the volunteer fire department in Franklin Square on Long Island.

"We are very grateful for the quick thinking and fast actions of these two heroes," LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:53 PM

I referred to this story in another thread, but I don't want to hijack that obit, so I'll post the whole story here. The Star-Telegram shifts stories over to a fee status after a little while.

Starmaker on Center Street

By DAVID CASSTEVENS
Star-Telegram

Marvin Blum's spirits sank when he drove up to the Arlington Music Hall.

Johnnie High's Country Music Revue was staging an open audition that weekend morning, eight years ago, and hundreds of hopeful performers -- many of them youngsters, in Western costume -- formed a line that snaked around the building.

The Fort Worth tax attorney turned to his 13-year-old.

Elizabeth Blum wasn't a country singer. She knew Tchaikovsky, not Tammy Wynette. Twice monthly she and her parents and grandparents attended the Fort Worth Symphony. At home her dad listened to classical music and Broadway show tunes. But the child desperately wanted to sing -- to entertain -- and her father had told Elizabeth, promised, that once she completed her Hebrew studies in preparation for her bat mitzvah he would help her pursue her dream.

Even so, the elder Blum knew this was a bad idea.

"Lizzie, this isn't your world," he said as they sat in the car. "You don't belong here ... Let's go home."

"Dad, we're already here," she replied. "Let me try."

And so, reluctantly, he parked among the pickups and trailers, some with performers' names spelled out on the sides. Father and daughter took their place at the end of the line. Inside the hall, Marvin Blum's apprehension grew as he listened to the voices, a roll call of talented, accomplished singers belting out country songs. The sound of a steel guitar was as foreign to him as cowboy boots.

At noon, Elizabeth still was waiting her turn, so they went to a fast-food restaurant, where over lunch Blum again tried to dissuade his child. "I just don't want you to be hurt ... You're going to leave in tears."

Finally, late in the day, the determined child stood nervously before the judges.

She sang one of her favorites, Tomorrow, from the musical Annie, with a taped accompaniment.

After the final note, she waited to hear what every performer before her had heard, a polite "Thank you, we'll be back in touch."

Instead, Johnnie High wanted to hear the song again, without accompaniment.

The founder and host of the weekly show -- now in its 34th consecutive year -- is blessed with an eye and ear for talent. He put LeAnn Rimes onstage when she was 6. High's 21-year-old granddaughter, Ashley Smith, sang You Are My Sunshine on the show at age 4. She still performs and now co-hosts the show.

High is a people person, gracious, generous, empathetic, nurturing. He can't watch American Idol. "They tear 'em down for entertainment purposes," he said of the harsh judging. "There's no way of knowing how many kids' lives [Simon Cowell] has screwed up."

High won't berate auditioners. He offers words of encouragement, and his show has opened doors to future stars, such as Rimes, Lee Ann Womack, Linda Davis, Gary Morris and Steve Holy. Gutsiness and perseverance are qualities High admires.

That afternoon Johnnie smiled at Elizabeth and asked, "Do you know any country songs?"

"No," she told him, "but I can learn one."

High gave her the title of a number to practice and, to her surprise, invited her to return and appear on his show.

The protective father was right about Lizzie's tears.

"I was crying," his daughter, now 22, said, reliving what she calls the happiest and most important day in her life.

A month later, the teen walked out and bravely faced an audience in the 1,200-seat music hall. As the closing act, she sang an old Brenda Lee song, Sweet Nothin's. As she turned to leave the stage, washed in applause, High pulled her back and together they stepped forward, hand in hand, and happily told the crowd goodnight.

Blum regularly appeared on High's show until she finished high school. Now a senior at New York University, she studies music and sings country music, and jazz, at Manhattan nightclubs. Part of her heart remains in Texas and belongs to the person who provided her a safe training ground and helped her believe in herself.

"There's no one better," she said. "Johnnie High changed my life. And I'm just one of many stories."

Country to the core

In his mind he can see Lizzie Blum's debut, as clearly as if May 1999 were yesterday.

"It's amazing -- he remembers everything,"marveled his daughter, Luanne Dorman.

"Except what I had for breakfast," High joked and flashed his bright smile.

A child of the Depression, High grew up in the 1930s in rural Central Texas, near McGregor. His family, High is fond of saying, was what the poor people called poor. Their home had no electricity. For entertainment Johnnie sat next to a battery-operated radio on Saturday nights and drew a mental picture of Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff and the "fiddle bands" of that era as they performed live from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The lively, heartfelt music -- such as Acuff's songs The Wabash Cannonball and The Great Speckled Bird -- became part of the common bond that united rural folks across the country.

When High was about 12, he spotted a used guitar at a Waco pawn shop. Price: $6.50.

The boy had $6 cash, earned the hard way, in the farmland fields chopping cotton for $1 a day.

"You really want that guitar, don't you?" his dad said, after they had left the shop.

His father fished into his pocket and loaned Johnnie 50 cents.

At 14, High began singing and picking as host of a 15-minute morning radio show in Waco, earning $25 a week.

After an Army stint, he worked two decades as a sales manager for a hand-lotion company, but country music remained as dear to him as his teenage sweetheart, Wanda. The couple has been married 60 years.

In 1974 he started his country show in Grapevine, thanks largely to the generosity of a benefactor, Susie Slaughter (known as "Aunt" Susie). High's revue, which showcases local talent of all ages and offers an evening of family entertainment, moved to Fort Worth's Will Rogers Auditorium and later to Haltom City before reopening in 1995 at its current location, a remodeled 1950s-era movie theater in downtown Arlington, near Center and Division streets.

Many years, High lost money producing the show. To stay afloat, he sold his home. He sold his office space. He sold his stocks -- "Exxon, would you believe."

The singer/musician/songwriter and businessman could have quit, but determination and resiliency are part of his DNA.

High never considered giving up, not even after he received a phone call on the morning of a scheduled Friday-night show informing him that Will Rogers had closed. A worker, he was told, had discovered asbestos in the building. After leasing the venue for 15 years, High was given no warning. When he drove to the auditorium, he grew angry. All his sound equipment had been dumped in the parking lot.

High set up chairs next door, at the coliseum. Staff members telephoned every season-ticket holder informing them of the venue change.

A way of life

High's life and career are testimony to the old theatrical credo that the show must go on.

In 1983, High was introducing an act when he felt a burning sensation in his chest. After he left the stage, High's doctor, seated in the audience, was summoned. The host was having a heart attack and needed hospital care.

Dressed in a rhinestone-crusted, Western-cut suit, his lanky 6-foot-3 frame stretched out atop a grand piano backstage, High said he didn't want the ambulance to pull away with lights flashing and siren wailing. Don't tell the crowd, he insisted. Ticket holders weren't informed of the medical emergency until the end of the performance.

The outpouring of concern from audience members helped High recognize that his wealth far exceeds his bank account. He considers himself blessed by the incalculable riches of friendship, people like Patsy Seeton of Arlington, who has attended every show.

"I just loved it from the start," Seeton said. "Getting to know Johnnie and Wanda, going to the show every week, has become part of my life. I can't imagine Saturday night without Johnnie High. It's like family."

That family includes the host's seven-member band and a popular cast of regulars.

Singer Mike Stewart joined High's group 20 years ago and can't say enough about his friend's selflessness.

"People have walked up and said, 'Johnnie, I sure like your shirt,'" Stewart said. "I've seen him take it off and give it to them."

After an evening show at Six Flags Over Texas, High and some of his cast met at a restaurant for a late dinner. The place was packed. Stewart stuck a fake set of buck teeth into his mouth, buttoned his collar and put on a ball cap. High asked to speak with the maitre d'.

"I want you to meet someone," High told the headwaiter.

Keeping a straight face, he turned toward Stewart.

"This here is ... Earl," High said, picking a name. "He only gets out twice a year, for his birthday and Christmas. This is his birthday, and he's gotta be back in by midnight."

"They felt real sorry for me," Stewart recalled.

The restaurant set up tables for the group, tied party balloons to Earl's chair and brought him dessert.

That's how Stewart's comic persona -- Earl makes a brief appearance during most shows -- was created.

The jokes, with High as straight man, are hokey but in keeping with the host's pledge to provide G-rated entertainment.

"You've got to set boundaries and stick to 'em, or your reputation and credibility aren't worth a flip," High said. "I have a ground rule. I tell [first-time performers], 'As best I know, my grandmother never said 'hell' in her life. She certainly never said 'damn.' I want you to assume my little grandmother is sittin' in the audience. Keep that in mind. Don't embarrass me.'"

Lecil Martin, performing as hobo singer Boxcar Willie, once told an off-color joke onstage. High interrupted the act.

"Nobody apologizes for me," Boxcar told High.

"Well, I do," the host shot back. High's close friend didn't speak to him for two years.

In the 1980s, High booked singer Engelbert Humperdinck and a 40-piece orchestra for a sold-out show at the Tarrant County Convention Center. Beforehand, he issued a very clear warning to the 1960s pop-music star and his manager. This wasn't to be a Las Vegas act. No alcohol onstage. No women onstage. No offensive language.

"I guess he decided he was going to show me something," High said, picking up the story. "He started telling off-color jokes. He had someone bring him a glass of whatever it was. Then he got a lady onstage. He put a scarf in his pants and asked her to take it out. That's when I stopped the show."

From the wings, High walked out, apologized to the audience and restated his commitment to offering a clean show.

Humperdinck left town -- that night.

"Madder," High said, "than two wet hens."

Big plans

At age 78, he has survived three heart surgeries. Four years ago he was flown to Houston and underwent a life-saving operation to repair an aneurysm.

High opened a show last month by informing his audience that he had been to his doctor. A severe pain in his big toe was a new ailment.

"I got the gout," he announced.

Ashley Smith knows her grandfather doesn't feel good some nights, but no one would know it by his cheerfulness.

On Saturdays, he arrives at the music hall hours before the 5 p.m. rehearsal, as high-spirited as the show's mascot, a tiny white Maltese dog, Sammy, that prances along the building's hallways behind him.

High says he wants to keep working for as long as he is able, and he has never felt more optimistic, more enthusiastic, about the show's future.

As a teenager in the 1940s, he thought anyone who owned a Cadillac was rich. He often introduced himself to people who drove the luxury sedans and asked them for a moment of their time. He wanted to know what made them successful. What he learned -- the importance of persistence and determination -- finally is paying off in his own life.

"The worm," High said, "is starting to turn."

This fall, High's country show is being telecast nationally on RFD, a 24-hour satellite and cable network. He also is partnering with longtime friend Burk Collins, a commercial real-estate developer and country-music fan. Collins is planning a $30 million project that includes remodeling the downtown music hall and enlarging the stage to accommodate Symphony Arlington. A Babe's Chicken Dinner House restaurant will open next door and is expected to help attract showgoers.

"I'm really proud for him," said Ashley, who one day will assume High's role and host the show that, she says, will continue to bear her grandfather's name.

On this evening, as 7:30 neared, the master of ceremonies changed shirts and slipped into a white sports coat.

He headed down a flight of stairs, past a row of autographed photos of Rimes.

On one, the Grammy-winning star had written, "You will forever hold a special place in my heart!"

The band members were seated, the technicians and singers in place.

"Are we ready?" he asked backstage.

Parting a red velvet curtain, High and his granddaughter stepped into the circular spotlight, all smiles.

Ashley gazed admiringly at her "Pa-Paw" as he turned on his charm and primed the audience, telling the folks, "Y'all please be enthusiastic tonight, 'cause that's what we thrive on!"

If you go

Johnnie High's Country Music Revue

224 N. Center St., Arlington

817-226-4400 or 888-544-2686

Tickets $13-$16, $8 for children 11 and younger

Christmas show tickets $20 for adults, $10 for children 11 and younger

Memorable performances

Joey Floyd -- "He was about 5 years old. His grandpa brought him in for an audition. I asked to hear something, and he started singing, 'This old highway she's hotter'n nine kinds of hell ...' I stopped him and told him he can't use that word on our show. We're like church. He said, 'What's wrong with hail? It's just ice.' He thought 'hell' was 'hail.'

"Joey later played Willie Nelson's son in Honeysuckle Rose. Now he's a guitar player and backup singer for Toby Keith."

Merle Travis -- "Merle had a stroke. They said he'd never play again. I said, 'Merle, make me a promise. When you think you can do it, and I know you're going to, I want to be the first one to book you.' We were at Tarrant County Convention Center theater that night. It was incredible to see him perform again. He died later of a heart attack."

Danny Cooksey -- "A guy from Oklahoma I knew and trusted called me and said there's a boy he wanted to have sing on the show. I asked how old he was. He said 4. I said, 'You gotta be kidding?' He was a little red-headed turkey. I've been doing this 34 years, and no one has gotten the ovation Danny Cooksey did that night. He sang Old Chunk of Coal. The audience just exploded. Next thing you know he was making commercials and got the part of Sam on the TV show Diff'rent Strokes."

LeAnn Rimes -- "To me, on a scale of 1 to 10, she was an 8 1/2. I didn't realize how good she was until she'd been on four or five times. I realized then the kid had something special. When she was 7 or 8 we lined up in the lobby to greet people after the show. A little old lady patted LeAnn on the head and said, 'Honey, what you want be when you grow up?' LeAnn looked shocked. She said, 'I'm gonna be a star.' She knew it from dadgum day one. That's the attitude you've got to have."

Boxcar Willie -- "His name was Lecil Martin. I first met him in Nashville. He said he lived in Grand Prairie. I told him we had a show in Grapevine. I told him I only could pay him $30. He said, 'I don't care, I just want to sing.' He did train songs. I had him on pretty regularly. I got him a gig singing and playing in England for 30 days, making $100 a night. He was an immediate success. Later he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry and bought his own theater in Branson [Missouri]. So I guess I had a little bit to do with his success."

Shoji Tabuchi -- "He's a Japanese fiddler. Shoji had a pickup with a camper. He would pull up behind our building and ask, 'Johnnie, can I plug in?' I told him, 'No, you come and sleep at my house.' He had $500 in his pocket and was living off hot dogs. We had him on and he was incredible. Absolutely magic. To give you an idea of where he stands today, he's doing 100 Christmas shows in Branson. Every one is sold out, at $47 a ticket. He's by far the biggest success there."

Johnnie High's advice for young performers

1. "If you really want to do it, don't listen to anybody else. You're going to get put down, maybe by your own parents, I'm sorry to say. You've got to have tunnel vision, like a racehorse with blinders on. That's LeAnn Rimes exactly. She never gave up."

2. "Practice. Say you're a banjo player. While you're practicing an hour a day, remember there's someone in Kansas practicing two hours a day. You've got to consider that. This ain't a little circle here. It's the whole country. You've got to get better than they are. Nothing comes easily."

3. "If you're hired to sing some place, whether you're paid or not, ask some questions first. No. 1, who are the people I'm singing for? What age are they? What percentage are women? What percentage are men? If they're all over 50, you can't go wrong singing Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, people like that. It's very, very important to know your audience."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 01:09 PM

<3>Blair 'converting to Catholicism'
Press Association
Friday November 9, 2007 5:48 PM


Tony Blair is to convert to Roman Catholicism within weeks, it has been claimed.

The former prime minister, whose wife Cherie and four children are Catholic, has long been expected to join the church after quitting Downing Street.

According to The Tablet, a Catholic magazine, he is to be received into the church shortly by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster.

Mr Blair is thought to have delayed converting until after leaving Number 10 because of the potential constitutional complications of a Catholic prime minister.

He was also advised to avoid religion in public by his former chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who famously commented: "We don't do God."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 06:54 AM

Is that you, Shane?

Man uses shotgun to loosen lug nut

Wash. state man uses shotgun to loosen lug nut; effort does not go well

MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 2:44 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov. 12, 2007

SOUTHWORTH, Wash. - A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, sheriff's deputies said.

The 66-year-old man had been repairing a Lincoln Continental for two weeks at his home in Kitsap County northwest of Southworth, about 10 miles southwest of Seattle, and had gotten all but one of the lug nuts off the right rear wheel by Saturday afternoon, Kitsap County Deputy Scott Wilson said.

"He's bound and determined to get that lug nut off," Wilson said.

From about arm's length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was "peppered" in both legs with buckshot and debris, with some injuries as high as his chin, according to a sheriff's office report.

"Nobody else was there, and he wasn't intoxicated," Wilson said.

The man was taken to Tacoma General Hospital with injuries Wilson described as severe but not life-threatening.

The deputies did not take a statement from the man beyond what they were able to gather while he was being treated by medics, The Kitsap Sun reported on its Web site.

"I don't think he was in any condition to say anything," Wilson said, according to The Sun. "The pain was so severe, and the shock."

It was not immediately clear whether the shotgun blast loosened the lug nut.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[I'd bet on that nut (on the lug) still bein' quite firmly attached, although the nut with the shotgun maybe shouldn't be runnin' 'round loose.]

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:08 PM

MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least 30 members of a Russian doomsday cult have barricaded themselves in a remote cave to await the end of the world and are threatening to commit suicide if police intervene, officials and media said Thursday.

"They have covered the entrance and refuse to come out and are threatening to blow themselves up," an official in the local prosecutor's office told Reuters by telephone. "They threaten to detonate a gas tank and blow themselves up."

The cult members, who include 29 adults and four children, are hidden inside a snow-covered hillside in the Penza region of central Russia. A Penza police spokeswoman said they had moved into the dug-out on November 7.

"No one wants to take on the responsibility of provoking them ... because our information is that there are children among them," said the official.

They are thought to have taken food and fuel supplies in with them and Russian television pictures from the scene showed smoke or steam coming out of a hole in the snow-covered ravine where it was built.

A police patrol was guarding the area to prevent anyone provoking them.

"They are simple Christians," a local priest, Father Georgy, told NTV television station. "They say: 'The church is doing a bad job, the end of the world is coming soon and we are all saving ourselves'."

Media reports said the cult members believed the world would end sometime in May next year. Police expected them to emerge when their supplies ran out

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 08:17 PM

Mel Brooks Starts Nonprofit Foundation To Save Word 'Schmuck'

November 2, 2007 |
NEW YORK—Saying he could no longer stand idly by while a vital part of American culture is lost forever, activist and Broadway producer Mel Brooks has founded a private nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the word "schmuck."


An emotional Brooks stopped short of kvetching at a schmuck fundraiser Monday.

"Schmuck is dying," a sobe r Brooks said during a 2,000-person rally held in his hometown of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Monday. "For many of us, saying 'schmuck' is a way of life. Yet when I walk down the street and see people behaving in foolish, pathetic, or otherwise schmucky ways, I hear only the words 'prick' and 'douche bag.' I just shake my head and think, 'I don't want to live in a world like this.'"

The nonprofit, Schmucks For Schmuck, has compiled schmuck-related data from the past 80 years and conducted its own independent research on contemporary "schmuck" usage. According to Brooks, the statistics are frightening: Utterances of the word "schmuck" have declined every year since its peak in 1951, and in 2006, the word was spoken a mere 28 times—17 of these times by Brooks himself. The study indicates that today, when faced with a situation in which one can use a targeted or self-deprecating insult to convey a general feeling of disgust, people are 50 times more likely to use the word "jerk" tha n "schmuck," 100 times more likely to use "dick," and 15,000 times more likely to use "fucking asshole."

Perhaps more startling, only 23 percent of men know what schmuck means, and only 1.2 percent of these men are under the age of 78. If such trends continue, Brooks estimates that by 2011, such lesser-used terms as "imbecile," "dummy," "schlub," and "contemptible ne'er-do-well" will all surpass schmuck, which is projected to completely disappear by the year 2020 or whenever Brooks dies.

"We must save this word!" Brooks said to thunderous applause as those in attendance began chanting "Schmuck! Schmuck! Schmuck!" "How will we be able to charmingly describe someone who acts in an inappropriate manner? Especially given the tragic loss of the word 'schmegeggie' in 2001. So I urge you: Tonight, when you get home, please, call up your family, your friends, your loved ones, and tell them they're a bunch of schmucks."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 08:56 PM

old news that will never go away
Chernobyl http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essays/chernobyl.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:53 AM

Washington Post article about grazing dinosaurs:

The Dinosaur That Peacefully Grazed
Perfectly Adapted Creature Kept Its Head Down, Got New Teeth Once a Month

Friday, November 16, 2007; Page A15

Could an elephant-size dinosaur with a skull so thin that a karate chop would have split it in two, teeth it shed once a month and a brain that, yes, was the size of a walnut, ever be considered one of evolution's success stories?

Paul C. Sereno thinks so.

The University of Chicago paleontologist yesterday unveiled Nigersaurus taqueti, a strange creature that is helping rewrite theories about how long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs looked and behaved.

Nigersaurus appears to have spent a lifetime with its head in a hangdog position. Using a broad, tooth-filled mouth, it grazed on ferns and horsetails growing at most a couple of feet high. It couldn't even raise its head to horizontal. Getting at trees was out of the question.

Many other dinosaurs -- including the more famous and less bizarre Diplodocus -- probably behaved similarly, using their long necks as ground-mowing booms, not treetop cherry pickers, Sereno believes.

"It took an extreme dinosaur to open our eyes to this cow-like behavior," he said yesterday at the National Geographic Society's headquarters in the District, where a reconstruction of Nigersaurus was mounted. "It is sort of silly to think that something wasn't doing this. But we had missed the cows of the Mesozoic."

Other paleontologists agreed that the new dinosaur will further dispel the notion that long-necked dinosaurs were the prehistoric equivalent of giraffes, holding their heads high overhead.

"It would be hard to imagine a more compelling argument against" that view, said Kent A. Stevens, a computer scientist at the University of Oregon who has done extensive research on dinosaur posture.

(see the rest by following the link)

There is a major argument against a dinosaur that kept its head down to graze on grass. GRASS is a quite modern plant, and hadn't evolved at the time of the dinos. Maybe this dino ate sphagnum moss or ferns, but it wasn't grazing on grass.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Janie
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:12 PM

Chesapeake Bay's crab population ebbs
By DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON | The Chesapeake Bay's famous blue crabs — feisty crustaceans that are both a regional symbol and a multimillion-dollar catch — are hovering at historically low population levels, scientists say, as pollution, climate change and overfishing threaten the bay's ultimate survivor.

This fall, a committee of federal and state scientists found that the crab's population was at its second-lowest level in the past 17 years, having fallen to about one-third the population of 1993. They forecast that the current crabbing season, which ends Dec. 15 in Maryland, will produce one of the lowest harvests since 1945.

This year's numbers are particularly distressing, scientists say, because they signal that a baywide effort to save the crab begun in 2001 is falling short.

Governments promised to clean the Chesapeake's waters by 2010. But that effort is far off track, leaving "dead zones" where crabs can't breathe.

Maryland and Virginia have changed their laws to cut back the bay's crab harvest. But watermen have repeatedly been allowed to take too many of the valuable shellfish, scientists say. The watermen, meanwhile, say they're being unfairly blamed.

"Now it appears that even the hardy blue crab is approaching its breaking point," said Howard Ernst, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and a critic of government efforts to protect the Chesapeake. If the crab's population drops further, Ernst said, "what we ultimately lose is not only a resource, but a unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage."

Continued at http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/366124.html

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 11:07 PM

Corn Bin Collapses, Burying Iowa Family
November 20, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa - A grain bin collapsed and sent a tidal wave of corn into a home, sweeping it off its foundation, trapping a family of four and shaking the ground for miles.

One man was taken to a hospital after being buried for hours in grain and debris in Hillsboro in southeast Iowa.

The bin - about 100 feet in diameter, 90 feet high and containing more than 500,000 bushels of corn - collapsed Monday evening. The force of the grain broke the walls of Jesse and Jennifer Kellett's home and sent the roof crashing down.

"The force actually took the house with the corn and shoved it and crushed it," Dan Wesely, Henry County chief sheriff's deputy, said Tuesday.

The Kelletts and their children, Jordan Walter, 11, and Sheyanne Walter, 9, were trapped. Jennifer Kellett and her daughter crawled out, but her husband and son - pinned by walls, wood and corn - had to be rescued.

Many residents of the town of 200 said they could hear the bin's rivets giving way, sounding like machine-gun fire. Farmers miles away reported feeling the ground shake. The bin was about 20 feet away from the house, authorities said.

The grain bin is owned by Chem Gro. The bin was new, Wesely said, and officials are investigating the cause of the collapse. A telephone message left with the company Tuesday was not immediately returned.

Emergency crews reached Jesse and Jordan Walters and supplied them with oxygen lines.

"The thing was they had to move this corn, and it kept rolling in. They had to move a lot of corn back before they could get down and find out what was holding them in. That would be the lumber, walls and different things," Wesely said.

Once free, Jordan Walters walked to an ambulance, where he was found to be uninjured. His father, rescued after about four hours, was taken to a hospital, which declined to release information about his condition.

"When it happened, my house shook, and I'm clear on the other end of this town," Hillsboro resident Naomi Sanderson told the Hawk Eye newspaper of Burlington.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 09:36 AM

Getting a 'do in Alaska

Woman crashes into hair salon

Alaskan loses control of vehicle, crashes into salon's front window

The Associated Press
updated 11:12 p.m. CT, Fri., Nov. 16, 2007

SOLDOTNA, Alaska - A woman on her way to hair appointment crashed her car through the hair salon.

Della Miller, 73, crashed into Tina's Hair Pros' windows Wednesday, knocking one customer six feet across the room, Soldotna police officer Marvin Towle said.

The parking area in front of the salon was snow-covered.

Miranda Nelson, a stylist, said she was in the back room when she heard the crash.

"I thought a bomb had gone off," Nelson said.

Two large plate-glass windows were destroyed, walls were damaged, and the stonework front outside the salon was smashed, police said. Towle estimated damage to the building to be at least $15,000, and the car at $2,500 more.

Miller, who was not injured, was not cited for the crash.

She proceeded with her hair appointment.

© 2007 The Associated Press

Well now, what would you have done?

Picture at link. Bystanders look mostly bored.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 09:43 AM

Hey, she came to get her hair done. Right? Right. I like a person with focus.

Too bad she couldn't focus on finding the damn brake pedal.


A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 01:46 AM

Jellyfish wipe out salmon farm

More than $2 million in fish destroyed in 'unprecedented' N. Ireland attack

The Associated Press
updated 8:55 p.m. CT, Wed., Nov. 21, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland - The only salmon farm in Northern Ireland has lost its entire population of more than 100,000 fish, worth some $2 million, to a spectacular jellyfish attack, its owners said Wednesday.
The Northern Salmon Co. Ltd. said billions of jellyfish — in a dense pack of about 10 square miles and 35 feet deep — overwhelmed the fish last week in two net pens about a mile off the coast of the Glens of Antrim, north of Belfast.

Managing director John Russell said the company's dozen workers tried to rescue the salmon, but their three boats struggled for hours to push their way through the mass of jellyfish. All the fish were dead or dying from stings and stress by the time the boats reached the pens, he said.

Russell, who previously worked at Scottish salmon farms and took the Northern Ireland job just three days before the attack, said he had never seen anything like it in 30 years in the business.

"It was unprecedented, absolutely amazing. The sea was red with these jellyfish and there was nothing we could do about it, absolutely nothing," he said.

The species of jellyfish responsible, Pelagia nocticula — popularly known as the mauve stinger — is noted for its purplish night-time glow and its propensity for terrorizing bathers in the warmer Mediterranean Sea. Until the past decade, the mauve stinger has rarely been spotted so far north in British or Irish waters, and scientists cite this as evidence of global warming.

Russell said the company, which bills its salmon as organic and exports to France, Belgium, Germany and the United States, faces likely closure unless it receives emergency aid from the British government.

"It's a disaster," he said.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

John