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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 10:11 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 02:20 PM

Ig Nobel awards celebrate the sillier side of science

Story Highlights
Argentina teams finds that Viagra cuts jet lag recovery time for hamsters

World's first comprehensive study of sword-swallowing injuries finds the obvious

Researchers discover "a very simple formula" can explain sheet, skin wrinkling

Though the research sound silly, some could help solve real problems



   
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Good news for your Viagra-using hamster: On his next trip to Europe, he'll bounce back from jet lag faster than his unmedicated friends.

The researchers who revealed that bizarre fact earned one of 10 Ig Nobel prizes awarded Thursday night for quirky, funny and sometimes legitimate scientific achievements, from the mathematics of wrinkled sheets to U.S. military efforts to make a "gay bomb."

The recipients of the annual award handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine were honored at Harvard University's Sanders Theater.

A team at Quilmes National University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came up with the jet-lag study, which found that hamsters given the anti-impotence drug needed 50 percent less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change. They didn't fly rodents to Paris, incidentally -- they just turned the lights off and on at different times.

Odd as it might be, that research might have implications for millions of humans. The same cannot be said for another winning report, "Sword Swallowing and its Side Effects," published in the British Medical Journal last year.

It was the world's first comprehensive study of sword-swallowing injuries, said co-author Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, one of only a few dozen active sword swallowers in the world. Not surprisingly, throat abrasions, perforated esophagi and punctured blood vessels were the most common injuries.

"Most sword-swallowing injuries happen either after another smaller injury when the throat is tender and swollen, or while doing something out of the ordinary, like swallowing multiple swords," said Meyer, who went a month without solid food after doing the latter in 2005.

The Ig Nobel for nutrition went to a concept that sounds like a restaurant marketing ploy: a bottomless bowl of soup.

Cornell University professor Brian Wansink used bowls rigged with tubes that slowly and imperceptibly refilled them with creamy tomato soup to see if test subjects ate more than they would with a regular bowl.

"We found that people eating from the refillable soup bowls ended up eating 73 percent more soup, but they never rated themselves as any more full," said Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior and applied economics. "They thought 'How can I be full when the bowl has so much left in it?' "

His conclusion: "We as Americans judge satiety with our eyes, not with our stomachs."

Harvard professor of applied mathematics L. Mahadevan and professor Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago in Chile won for their studies on a problem that has vexed anyone who ever made up a bed: wrinkled sheets.

The wrinkle patterns seen on sheets are replicated in nature on human and animal skin, in science and in technology.

"We showed that you can understand all of them using a very simple formula," Mahadevan said.

His research, he says, shows that "there's no reason good science can't be fun."

Other winners include a Dutch researcher who conducted a census of all the creepy-crawlies that share our beds, and a man who patented a Batman-like device that drops a net over bank robbers.

This year's planned Ig Nobel program included a two-minute speech by keynote speaker Doug Zongker consisting only of the word "chicken," and a mini-opera entitled "Chicken versus Egg," performed by professional mother-daughter opera singers Gail Kilkelly and Maggie McNeil.

Most winners are more than happy to accept their awards from real Nobel laureates at the typically rowdy ceremony, including seven of the 10 winners this year. But there are still a few sticks-in-the-mud, magazine editor Marc Abrahams said.

The U.S. Air Force won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize this year for its proposal to develop a "gay bomb" -- a chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers want to make love with each other, not war with the enemy.

Abrahams talked to a number of retired and active Air Force personnel to try and get someone to accept the prize in person on behalf of the military. None would.

"Who in their right mind would turn something like this down?" Wansink said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 01:55 PM

Early Halloween is their treat for an ailing girl

Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH -- For two hours Thursday night, 7-year-old Trinity Rhyan Bright, in costume as a baby holding a big bottle, went trick-or-treating in her northwest Fort Worth neighborhood. For most children, Halloween's not for four more weeks. Didn't matter. Trinity's family and friends just want to make her happy and Trinity loves Halloween. The first-grader has diffuse pontine glioma, an inoperable brain cancer.

A neighbor, Scott Nipp, said the idea for an early Halloween started recently when Trinity's parents, John and Angel Bright, asked neighbors if they would hand out candy during a mock night of trick-or-treating. Nipp said his wife, Rhonda, and other neighbors quickly organized a much bigger celebration. "Everyone has been touched by her story," Trina Booker said. "If we can just make one day special for Trinity and her family, we'd stop at nothing to do that."

Fire trucks, police cars and clowns showed up in the neighborhood near the corner of Boat Club and Ten Mile Bridge roads. Friends dressed in elaborate costumes and more than a dozen neighbors decorated their homes and handed out treats. Activities included a bean bag toss and fishing for toys. "We're excited to see all of the people who were here for her," said Trinity's mother, Angel, who wore a black-and-white striped prison costume. "This was good because she loves to dress up and she loves candy."

The Brights' Web site describes the family's shock at the sudden onset of the cancer. Trinity first experienced double vision March 3; by March 13, an oncologist at Cook Children's Medical Center was giving the parents the devastating news that their daughter has a rare cancer that is hard to treat. Most patients live only six to 12 months after diagnosis.

"At this time we are currently seeking treatment options around the world. There have been no reported cases of anyone beating this disease, but we want to," they write on the Web site. Thursday night, Trinity's wheelchair was pushed mostly by her father, John, who also wore prison stripes.

Trinity's speech was slow and slurred. She is swollen from steroid medications, her mother said. But she was taking it all in. "It was fun because I got to see Trinity," 8-year-old schoolmate Alycia Savage said. "She was happy and she smiled at me."

Sydney King, 7, another schoolmate, said: "It's fun, exciting and inspirational."

"We wanted to make it the most memorable Halloween that any kid could hope for," Scott Nipp said.

How to help

Donations can be made to Trinity Bright and her family at these banks:

First Bank, account No. 1313766

Bank of America, account No. 488003556995

To find out more about Trinity, go to: www.forevertrinity.com

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 11:09 AM

It bothers me that - so far as I can tell - Dollar General hasn't announced the employee's dismissal.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 10:58 AM

The store's surveillance tape was erased or taped over prior to officers' arrival, Sullivan said.

That's the guilty act that is going to get him when he appears in court.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 10:55 AM

No sh*t. To be annoyed is one thing, but hitting the guy with a crow bar, good lord.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 10:19 AM

Wesley, I saw that story on the front page this morning. I'm working on getting my 15-year-old son in the habit of reading the paper (he's beginning to catch on) so I read that one out loud while he ate because he was in a hurry and wanted to know what the story was. That clerk has some anti-social problems, to say the least.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Oct 07 - 09:44 AM

His silence mistaken, deaf man is attacked
By ALEX BRANCH
Star-Telegram staff writer

FORT WORTH -- A store cashier struck a deaf customer in the head with a crowbar after he mistook the man's silence for rudeness and disrespect, police said.

The cashier, Ricky Benard Young, 20, faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The customer, Cody Goodnight, 31, suffered "a large knot" on his head during the incident, which occurred Saturday at the Family Dollar Store at 4117 E. Lancaster Ave.

"I can't believe someone would hit him for not speaking," said Goodnight's mother, Kay Goodnight. "When you're deaf, you don't make a point of starting conversations with people."

Young's defense attorney, Mark Scott, said Thursday that he was recently assigned the case and declined to comment.

Kay Goodnight called police after her injured son returned home from the store late Saturday morning. Family members translated Cody Goodnight's story to officers using sign language.

Goodnight said went to the Family Dollar several blocks from their house to buy a soft drink for his 5-year-old son. Inside the store, he put the soda on the counter to pay.

The cashier tried to speak to him but got angry when Goodnight didn't respond, Goodnight told police. The cashier threw Goodnight's change at him, scattering it on the floor.

As Goodnight picked it up, the cashier hit him in the side of the head with the crowbar, Goodnight said.

Officers went to the store, where Young immediately asked if they were there about what "happened earlier," said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a police spokesman. The cashier told officers that he had tried to start a friendly conversation with Goodnight but that Goodnight wouldn't acknowledge him.

At one point, Young told officers, Goodnight mumbled something that Young thought was racial in nature, Sullivan said. Young told officers he struck Goodnight because he thought Goodnight was going to assault him.

After officers told Young that Goodnight was deaf and unable to communicate verbally, Young responded "Oh," Sullivan said.

"Upon further investigation, it appeared the suspect became frustrated when the victim wouldn't respond or acknowledge his attempts to converse," Sullivan said. "He became outraged and struck the victim in an unwarranted attack."

The store's surveillance tape was erased or taped over prior to officers' arrival, Sullivan said.

A corporate spokesman for the Family Dollar Store did not return a phone message Thursday.

Cody Goodnight was treated at the hospital for his injury but still has pain in his head and neck, Kay Goodnight said Thursday.

Deaf since the age of 2, when he suffered a high fever, Goodnight speaks in guttural sounds -- "deaf speak" as his mother calls it.

His stepfather, Barry Adair, said Goodnight doesn't like talking to people he doesn't know.

"He gets embarrassed because people make fun of the way he talks," Adair said. "He's not trying to be rude or unfriendly. You just can't understand him unless you're around him a lot."

Emily Robinson, a Fort Worth deafness resource specialist, said that while it is unusual for a deaf person to be attacked physically, misunderstandings are common. People sometimes take deaf people for rude when they are unresponsive, she said.

"It is a really big problem," Robinson said. "Businesses should be professional and sensitive to deaf people. There are training workshops about the deaf culture and what to expect in interactions with us."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Oct 07 - 03:20 PM

The Associated Press
Updated: 4:56 p.m. CT Oct 3, 2007

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A man accused of drunken driving reportedly tried to outrun the police, but his vehicle wasn't up to the task.

Michael Ginevan of Bunker Hill was driving a riding lawnmower on Runnymeade Road about a mile from his home when a Berkeley County sheriff's deputy attempted to pull him over. Ginevan, 39, allegedly sped away, and Deputy J.H. Jenkins stopped his cruiser and gave chase on foot, according to magistrate court records.

Jenkins caught up to the lawnmower after a short chase, but Ginevan allegedly wouldn't stop, so the deputy pulled him off the machine. Ginevan refused to take a field sobriety test and was arrested. Jenkins then found a case of beer strapped to the lawnmower's front, court records show.

Ginevan was charged with fleeing while driving under the influence and obstructing an officer. He was being held Tuesday at the Eastern Regional Jail on $7,500 bond.

A person who answered the phone at the jail did not know whether Ginevan had hired an attorney. There was no telephone listing for Ginevan in the Bunker Hill area.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

So get a turbocharger on that mower before you take it out.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 04 Oct 07 - 10:58 AM

Lawmaker shows naked woman during school lecture

NORWALK, Ohio (AP) -- A state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law.
State Rep. Matthew Barrett was giving a civics lesson Tuesday when he inserted a data memory stick into the school computer and the projected image of a topless woman appeared instead of the graphics presentation he had downloaded.

Police interviewed Barrett and school officials and seized the data memory stick and the computer to determine where the image came from, a state highway patrol spokesman said.

Barrett said there were a few snickers from the approximately 20 students in the senior government class at Norwalk High School when the image appeared. He said he immediately pulled the memory stick out of the computer.

The legislator said he finished his lecture using printouts and then met with the school's principal and technology staff, who examined the stick. He said the school's technology director determined the stick had a directory of nude images in addition to Barrett's presentation on civics lessons.

"I have no idea where these came from," the Democrat said.

Barrett said the data memory stick was a gift he received about three weeks ago from a legislative liaison from the state Library of Ohio.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 04 Oct 07 - 10:49 AM

Woman Claims She Was Sexually Assaulted By Devil

DETROIT -- The Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to review a sex assault case involving allegations against a local pastor, and the devil.

The case surrounded Gennaro Piscopo, the 55-year-old pastor of Evangel Christian Church in Roseville.

In 2003, Piscopo was convicted of sexually assaulting a female church member during a deliverance ceremony in which Piscopo said he expelled the devil from the woman's body.

Michigan's high court has agreed to hear the case because a key piece of testimony, about the devil, was not allowed. According to court records, the woman indicated she "had been raped by a demon" and sexually assaulted by Satan himself, who she claimed was living in her attic at the time of the exorcism.

"Either way it's a reason to doubt the truth," said defense attorney George Michaels. "And it's reason to doubt whether or not there was a criminal sexual conduct."

The woman has also claimed that she was sexually assaulted, during a separate incident, by her own father, who also happens to be a minister. The allegation against the woman's father was not part of the Piscopo trial, but Michaels said it should have been. "The jury was out for five days. Had they had this information that would have gone toward her credibility."

Michaels also argued during Wednesday's appeal that the exorcism by Piscopo was performed in front of more than 100 people. According to Michaels, none of the witnesses said it was inappropriate to touch someone while performing an exorcism.

During the first trial Piscopo was convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault which refers to "unwanted touching without force." Piscopo is on probation during the appeals process. It is now up to the Michigan Supreme Court to decided if Piscopo gets a new trial.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 01:11 PM

I think it is a sorry reflection on mankind that National Mental health only gets one goddam day to be the Awareness Du Jour. It just goes to show ya, people got no sense of priorities. If National Mental Health had been the keynote for a whole YEAR, like, say, 1999, effing W would be shining shoes for a living in Potluck, Texarkana.


A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 10:32 AM

Family Hit By Second Tornado In 9 Years

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Lynnville family is forced to pick up the pieces after their home is hit by a tornado for second time in nine years.

Tornadoes touched down Sunday in both Poweshiek and Jasper counties. High winds blew apart business and farm buildings.

They also damaged several homes, including one that's now been hit by a tornado twice in the last decade. Mark Hay saw his neighbor's farm get hit by a twister.

"I got down in the storm cellar and hear the lumber go 'brrrr,' and within about 15 seconds, it was all over with," he said.

The garage was destroyed, the roof blew off and the insulation was draped in trees.

"Here's where the tornado came right through here, hit the garage, went right across the field, missed my aunt Mildred over there, which I was very thankful," he said.

His family was safe, but his belongings are gone.

"Anything I had in the garage is gone. It's completely gone. It's strung out for about a mile clear across my whole field," he said.

Hay said the damage will probably take nine to 12 months to clean up. He knows because that's how long it took him last time.

"Last time, it came from Des Moines. Grimes got hit. It came right across here and just, same spot again. It must be tornado alley all I can figure out," he said.

Some people live their whole lives without having to experience severe weather such as tornadoes.

"I guess since it happened to us once. I'm always wondering," said Kendra Hay.

"I'm blessed. It's twice now and we both walked away from it, no scratches, not a lick, just a lot of sad memories of all your pictures are gone," Hay said.

The debris stretches for more than 15 miles. At least five farms got hit and so did a business.

Hay said the farmer he bought his property from lived there for 40 years and never had a tornado come through here. "I get here and I got whacked," he said.

Several people came out to help storm victims by either boarding up windows, building a temporary roof or hauling away debris.

The Hays said they think they'll be able to live in the basement while their home gets fixed and they're just hoping twice is enough.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 01:26 AM

So, what shouldn't we be aware of now that it's October?
By ALYSON WARD
link

Welcome to October. And as you settle into this crisp new month, we offer this advice: Please be sure you are aware at all moments.

Aware of what? Just about everything.

Some journalists have labeled October "National Month Month" because it's been claimed by so many awareness campaigns that we don't know what to be aware of first. According to the National Health Information Center, October is second only to May for monthlong health awareness campaigns.

You probably know already that it's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with its pink ribbons and fundraising. But October is also the month we should be aware of — ready for this? — healthy lungs, eye injury prevention, dental hygiene, lupus, celiac disease, Down syndrome, spina bifida, sudden infant death syndrome, physical therapy, chiropractic health and Halloween safety. Among other issues. All month long.

Of course, there are plenty of other health issues that don't get the full month, so don't forget those. Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day. Oct. 22 is International Stuttering Awareness Day. And Oct. 31 is Interstitial Cystitis Awareness Day. (You probably wanted to dress up in some silly costume and trick-or-treat. Thoughtless.)

[There's a lot more to the story but the online version is truncated. If I can get my scanner to work (it has it's moments, and this is not one of them) I'll send the rest. Easier that having to read all of my typos.]

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 12:39 AM

Holier-than-thou. They can buy vibrators also, even if I can't spell. :)

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 11:10 PM

The Albertson's stores around here (Texas) sell a massager (with a heater element) by the Wahl company, and continued to do so while a similar case was tried in the courts here (charges were eventually thrown out). This "massager" was designed specifically to be a vibrator, and this is the one that rates a 4 on the 1 - 5 rating at Good Vibrations (http://www.goodvibes.com/). The Wahl Coil (5 of 5) turns up in there every so often also--no warming element, just the basic attachments and a powerful, silent motor. I always chuckle when I walk past that aisle--they banned the Playboy magazines years ago, but left the sex toys. I wonder if any of my holier-than-though Baptist neighbors have slipped one into the shopping cart? :)

Antique Vibrator Museum.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: bobad
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 10:11 PM

The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.

P.E.Trudeau

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 10:04 PM

"Talk about sex toys is once again the buzz around Alabama. The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the Alabama sex toy case, ending a nine year battle for the right to keep and bear (well, more accurately, purchase) sex toys in the state. Sherri Williams provided the money quote in this AP article:"
An adult-store owner had asked the justices to throw out the law as an unconstitutional intrusion into the privacy of the bedroom. But the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, leaving intact a lower court ruling that upheld the law.
Sherri Williams, owner of Pleasures stores in Huntsville and Decatur, said she was disappointed, but plans to sue again on First Amendment free speech grounds.

"My motto has been they are going to have to pry this vibrator from my cold, dead hand. I refuse to give up," she said.

Alabama's anti-obscenity law, enacted in 1998, bans the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 11:10 AM

Makes Chinatown look simple, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 03:32 AM

Woman gives birth to own grandchildren

Woman received four embryos from her daughter

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:22 p.m. CT Sept 30, 2007

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 51-year-old surrogate mother for her daughter has given birth to her own twin grandchildren in northeastern Brazil, the delivery hospital said.

Rosinete Palmeira Serrao, a government health worker, gave birth to twin boys by Caesarean section on Thursday at the Santa Joana Hospital in the city of Recife, the hospital said in a statement on its Web site.

Hospital officials were not available for comment on Sunday, but press reports said the grandmother and twins were discharged on Saturday in excellent health. The Caesarean section was performed about two weeks ahead of time because Serrao was having trouble sleeping, the statement said.

Serrao decided to serve as a surrogate mother after four years of failed attempts at pregnancy by her 27-year-old daughter, Claudia Michelle de Brito.

Brazilian law stipulates that only close relatives can serve as surrogate mothers. De Brito is an only child and none of her cousins volunteered, so Serrao agreed to receive four embryos from her daughter.

©2007 The Associated Press

So these two boys are brothers
to the daughter who's their mother
and ... ?

I'm thoroughly confused, I think.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 03:21 AM

          Don't go to Michigan this week.

          The State is CLOSED

Michigan's state government partly shuts down

Lawmakers scramble to reach tax increase deal; essential services in place

The Associated Press, Updated: 1:02 a.m. CT Oct 1, 2007

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan's state government partially shut down early Monday as the new fiscal year began with no budget deal in place to plug a $1.75 billion deficit.

The Senate voted to raise the state's income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent, a key step toward implementing a budget deal, hours after the measure passed the House. It now heads to Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is expected to sign it.

Granholm was waiting for the income tax increase and a bill placing the state's 6 percent sales tax on a wide range of services before she would sign a 30-day continuation budget that would keep government running.

While the House earlier passed the bill expanding the sales tax, the Senate had not voted on the measure.

The House and Senate also approve a measure that would change the way some teacher and state worker health benefits are determined.

In one of the first signs a shutdown was looming, campers were asked to leave some Michigan state parks Sunday night. Some highway rest areas closed and some state troopers did not start their overnight shifts.

Services that protect public health and safety, including prisons and state police, kept running.

Without a budget deal in place, 35,000 of the state's roughly 53,000 workers were expected to be barred from going to work Monday morning.

© 2007 The Associated Press

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 10:59 AM

ID thief almost ties innocent woman to crimes
From the Everett Herald

Jean Nelson will never forget June 2002. It was her birthday month and her husband proposed to her. Another reason she won't forget: It was the month in which she became a victim of identity theft.

A childhood friend who knew her well used Nelson's birth date and other personal information to escape a theft charge in King County. Nelson was dragged through a Burien municipal court system insisting on her innocence, but even her own attorney accused her of lying, she said last week. "Every day since the first incident in 2002 not a day goes by that I'm not worried that somebody's going to use my identity again," she said.

Someone did. More than once. Nelson hopes a string of credit problems and brushes with the law will finally end with the sentencing of the old friend, Susan Michele Tate, 44, of Lake Stevens. Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne on Tuesday sentenced Tate to prison for a little more than two years.

The case is just one of about 150 serious identity theft and fraud cases now being prosecuted by a small unit started up late last year by the Snohomish County prosecutor's office. The unit has identified nearly 670 people whose personal information wound up in the hands of identity thieves who have been convicted this year, lead deputy Halley Hupp said. Many more victims are associated with cases that have yet to be prosecuted.

The theft of Nelson's identity was a little unusual because it was personal, Hupp said. Tate twice used Nelson's identity to get out of trouble with the law: the theft case and a 2006 citation by Marysville police for not wearing a seat belt. Nelson received a $47 ticket in the mail from Marysville. A Marysville police officer figured out what was going on and arrested Tate. The ticket was erased.

In 2004, somebody opened an account was using Nelson's name and Social Security number. She was notified by Boeing Employees' Credit Union about it. Nelson also had bogus checks issued in her name in 2006, and she spent hours clearing her name. She and her husband are still banned from writing checks at Home Depot, she said.

Hupp's unit consists of himself, deputy prosecutor John Juhl and assistant Cheri Wantola. It started in November with the idea of tackling the most complex identity theft and fraud cases, and charging the thieves with somewhat near the number of crimes they actually committed. They tried to keep the number of cases they were juggling to about 100. But it hasn't worked out that way. The crime -- a less risky way for drug addicts to support their habit -- is mushrooming.

The prosecutors try to charge defendants with enough counts to get the most severe penalty possible, and to properly represent all the victims, Hupp said. For example, Edward Tom Brockavich Jr., 31, of Federal Way pleaded guilty to 23 counts of identity theft and was sentenced last week to more than two years in prison. On Wednesday, Nathan Dean May, 26, of Snohomish pleaded guilty to 16 identity theft charges. "We are only handling the more sophisticated cases, the ones with a large number of victims, those associated with a large financial loss and defendants with a history of identity theft," Hupp said.

Less complex identity theft cases are being prosecuted by other prosecutors in his office, he said. The unit has become a resource for police, helping to schedule tasks among agencies when several jurisdictions are involved in a case, and even training detectives to be alert for certain things. Hupp and Juhl frequently hold meetings with investigators from several police agencies to divvy up the work on complicated cases stretching across municipal boundaries.

"There's a lot of paperwork, and it's nice to have prosecutors who specialize in (identity theft), Everett police Sgt. Mark Thaker said.

The cases often are hard for the cops to get a full grasp of what's going on. The prosecutors follow the money and financial documents, Thaker said. "When they get a case, they know what to look for," Thaker said. "It's nice to have a unit in the prosecutor's office where we can gather to plan an investigation on a subject or group of subjects. We're understanding more clearly what the prosecutors need to make their cases."

The unit has closed nearly 140 cases so far this year. That includes a conviction of 89 individuals. Many had multiple cases, and multiple investigations by police. The result of the preparation and police interaction has been "well prepared cases that we can prosecute," Hupp said.

The cases are so well prepared that Hupp said he has not had to reduce charges to coax guilty pleas. When offenders plead guilty, they nearly always admit to the original charges, Hupp said. The unit also tries to notify people that personal information stolen from the mail or from some other source was found in a crook's hands. That's time consuming, and the unit doesn't have the personnel to notify everybody, Hupp said.

Victim Nelson is happy that Hupp's unit paid attention to Tate's activities. "I called Hupp when I was told that he may take an interest in my case. For the first time in over five years I finally found someone in the justice system that was willing to take notice," Nelson said. "It scares me the different way (Tate) could have ruined my life," she added. "I could have been the person going to prison now."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:00 AM

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Three Mexican minors detained in California on suspicion of smuggling drugs stole a U.S. Border Patrol car while still wearing handcuffs and drove it back across the border to Mexico.

Police in the Mexican border city of Mexicali said on Tuesday the three boys had been driving a pick-up truck on a remote Californian highway when a Border Patrol agent stopped them.

Suspicious they were carrying marijuana, he handcuffed them and put them in his patrol car while he searched their truck.

"As the agent was doing his search, he left the vehicle running and the keys in the ignition, so one of the lads, still wearing handcuffs, grabbed the steering wheel and they headed back to Mexico," a police spokesman said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:56 PM

Lab Tech Bites Boy, 3, During Blood Test
From Associated Press
September 26, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS - A laboratory technician was fired after the parents of a 3-year-old boy claimed she bit his shoulder during a blood test, a hospital spokesman said.

Faith Buntin took her son Victor to St. Vincent Hospital on Friday to have blood drawn because of recent recalls of toys involving lead. She said she saw the worker put her mouth on Victor's shoulder as she restrained him so another lab worker could draw the blood.

"I looked at her like that was the craziest thing that I'd ever seen," Faith Buntin said Tuesday. "She looked at me and smiled and said, 'Oh, it was just a play bite. He's not hurt.'"

Buntin said she saw teeth marks on the boy's left shoulder after they went home, and her husband drove the child back to the hospital, where he was prescribed antibiotics.

"Taking a bite out of him like he's an apple, this is heinous," said James Buntin, the boy's father.

St. Vincent is "reviewing the capabilities" of the employees of the subcontractor that does its blood work, hospital spokesman Johnny Smith said.

No charges have been filed.