‘At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.
Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the ‘miracle’
St Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina. “All our patients have similar history and symptoms. The damage is to the macula, the most sensitive part of retina. They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun,” Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital’s ophthalmologist, said. [..]
The health department has now put up a signboard at the hotelier’s house near Erumeli, where the divine image is said to have appeared, warning people against exposing their eyes to sunlight.’
‘A man beat and slashed his mother because he feared she would have him arrested for taking her computer, then read the Bible to her as he watched her die, state police said.
Jesse James Campbell told friends that he wanted to kill his mother, Cindy Jo Coleman, because she demanded that he return a computer he stole from her by 8 a.m. Thursday, police said.
Campbell went to his mother’s home before the deadline, grabbed a five-pound plastic weight and hit Coleman repeatedly in the face with it, police said. He also choked his mother and then grabbed a steak knife and stabbed her, police said.
Campbell later told his girlfriend things “got messy” when he confronted his mother about the computer and that he read his mother the Bible as she lay dying, police said.’
‘Ride me sideways was another one..’
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‘Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for two years, and they’re investigating whether she was mistreated.
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.
Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.
“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”‘
‘The Church of Scientology tried to stop protesters from returning to the sidewalks outside its headquarters this week by filing a type of petition in court usually used by women in fear for their safety.
And in large part because of that approach, a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge denied it late this afternoon.
In a petition filed Tuesday, the church claimed the Internet-based group Anonymous wants to harm the church and its leaders – in particular the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, the president of the Church of Scientology International. The church also claims Anonymous has tried to harm the church in the past.
The church’s court maneuver comes a month after about 180 members of Anonymous gathered outside Scientology’s headquarters Feb. 10 and conducted a peaceful protest. Members of the group vowed to return.
In court lingo, the church was asking for an injunction for protection against repeat violence, which is more typically filed by women who say they are being beaten.’
‘A town in South America is living in fear after several sightings of a ‘creepy gnome’ that locals claim stalks the streets at night.
The midget – which wears a pointy hat and has a distinctive sideways walk – was caught on video last week by a terrified group of youngsters.
Teenager Jose Alvarez – who filmed the gnome – yesterday told national newspaper El Tribuno that they caught the creature while larking about in their hometown of General Guemes, in the province of Salta, Argentina. [..]
“Suddenly we heard something – a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones.
“We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with we thought it was a dog but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid.”
Jose added that other locals had come forward to say they had spotted the gnome.’
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‘An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a “direct operational link” between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. [..]
Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had “bulletproof” evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam’s secular dictatorship.’
‘Most people believe that the U.S. is interested in Iran for the OIL or the DOMINATION of the Middle East or even the PELT of Ahmadinejad. WRONG. The real reason for attacking Iran is far more MYSTERIOUS and SHOCKING.
The REAL reason the U.S. government and George BUSH are plotting to invade Iran: MAGIC CARPETS.
Most people think that oil that is the real resource the U.S. is after in Iran, but that’s nothing but a falsehood, perpetrated by the CIA and the Pentagon to distract Americans and the world from the TRUTH.
Iran has the world’s largest STRATEGIC supply of MAGIC CARPETS–flying machines that give the otherwise modest Iranian army the ability to carry out QUICK and DEADLY air strikes in complete SILENCE.’
What a waste of two years. 🙂
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‘People who have been injured while walking and texting on their cell phones may be in luck.
A London street is experimenting with padded lampposts to protect those not paying attention from banging into them, ITN reports.
A study conducted by 118 118, a phone directory service, found that one in 10 people has been hurt while focusing on their cell phone instead of where they were walking, ITN reports.
The test lampposts will be given a trial run in London’s East End on Brick Lane. If the trial is successful it will be rolled out in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.
The survey found that almost two thirds of respondents lost peripheral vision while texting, and more than a quarter wanted lines on the pavement to create routes for texters to walk while using their phones.’
I can see the sunset in your eyes.
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Hooray for windmills eating themselves.
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‘Authorities are still trying to figure out what prompted 28-year-old Kevin Lininger to run naked up and down South Shawnee Street near Aurora today.
“He didn’t demonstrate any signs of alcohol or drug use,” said Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson.
After getting reports from neighbors of a man running completely naked at about 7:30 a.m., deputies went to Lininger’s apartment at 5241 S. Shawnee St.
He was dressed and refused to talk, the sheriff said.
But at the police station, he let his urine do the talking. [..]’
‘North Korea has executed 22 fishermen who strayed out of the country’s waters by mistake, it was claimed yesterday.
The group were apparently gunned down once they returned to the Stalinist state.
Having drifted into South Korean territory, they had the opportunity to seek asylum, but insisted they never had any intention of doing so.
They told South Korean officials they had strayed accidentally while fishing for clams and oysters, so were sent back to North Korea – and to their deaths.
A South Korean newspaper reported yesterday that all the drifters were immediately shot dead in a secret location by agents of North Korea’s national security agency.
It was another alleged incident supporting claims that North Korea has a “no tolerance” policy against anyone suspected of trying to leave the country – even in error.’
‘For law enforcement, fear and the politics of fear have entwined to create a radical new paradigm. Even the term “law enforcement” has been rendered quaint by the Bush administration. These days, the term of art is “lawfare” — the confluence of police work and military tactics. With Joint Terrorism Task Forces set up across the country to coordinate the work of federal agencies and local cops, the FBI now devotes nearly two-thirds of its resources — some $4 billion — to waging war on terrorism. The approach today is not the traditional police work of investigating actual crimes but the far more slippery goal of preventing terrorist attacks before they occur.
To hear the Bush administration tell it, the JTTFs have been an unqualified success. [..]
But a closer inspection of the cases brought by JTTFs reveals that most of the prosecutions had one thing in common: The defendants posed little if any demonstrable threat to anyone or anything. According to a study by the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, only ten percent of the 619 “terrorist” cases brought by the federal government have resulted in convictions on “terrorism-related” charges — a category so broad as to be meaningless. In the past year, none of the convictions involved jihadist terror plots targeting America. “The government releases selective figures,” says Karen Greenberg, director of the center. “They have never even defined ‘terrorism.’ They keep us in the dark over statistics.”‘
‘A baker who put abortion tablets into his wife’s breakfast to try to make her lose their baby has been jailed.
Gil Magira, 36, crushed the tablets into his 38-year-old wife Anat Abraham’s sandwich, a bowl of cereal and a yoghurt, the Old Bailey was told.
Mrs Abraham suffered pain and bleeding but the child survived unharmed.
Magira, of Holmebrook Drive, Hendon, north London, admitted “using an instrument to procure a miscarriage” – the first such charge in 30 years. [..]
His wife said she feared for her life – and that of the child – when she realised what he had done.
“What made it worse was how desperate and determined he was to try to kill the baby that I already felt moving inside me,” she said.’
‘A man has admitted trying to have sex with a goat – but believed he wouldn’t get caught because “animals couldn’t talk”.
New Zealand’s Rangiora District Court was told the pensioner, who managed to protect his identity, took the goat round the back of his farm and tried to commit a sex act with it.
The court was told that there were complications – and according to reports, “he did up his trousers, patted the goat and walked off”.
A police spokeswoman said: “He was contrite, but said he was unable to stop the behaviour.”‘
People seem to insist on doing obviously stupid things. It’s grand. 🙂
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‘Eat a whale and save the planet, a Norwegian pro-whaling lobby said on Monday of a study showing that harpooning the giant mammals is less damaging to the climate than farming livestock.
Environmental group Greenpeace dismissed the survey, saying almost every kind of food was more climate friendly than meat.
The survey, focused on whale boats’ fuel use, showed that a kilo (2.2 lbs) of whale meat represented just 1.9 kilo (4.2 lbs) of greenhouse gases against 15.8 for beef, 6.4 for pork and 4.6 for chicken.
“Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the planet is to eat whale meat compared to other types of meat,” said Rune Froevik of the High North Alliance, which represents the interests of coastal communities in the Arctic.’
Garage doors do not aid balance.
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‘A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.
The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital’s staff canteen.
A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its “nose”. [..]
The security guard, suitably horrified, told the man to “clean himself and the hoover” before asking him to leave and informing his bosses.
When later questioned by his employers, the man said he was vacuuming his underpants, which was “a common practice in Poland”. He has since been fired.’
‘Two German air force officers have been suspended from service for making and eating blutwurst, or blood sausage, from their own blood.
One of the soldiers, based in the southern German city of Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich, posted photos of the meal on a popular website.
Disciplinary action against the soldiers is underway, a military official told German weekly magazine Focus on Saturday. The case may also be passed on to state authorities.
According to the military official, the unsavory incident came to light when the soldiers asked a fellow officer for blood this summer. The soldier reported the request to his superior officers.’
‘A man beheaded his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in a supermarket in Saudi Arabia apparently after a family dispute, newspapers reported.
The 25-year-old Syrian national picked up a knife from the store in the Red Sea city of Jeddah yesterday and decapitated the little boy in full view of shoppers, Arab News said.
The man apparently killed the little boy following a dispute with the man’s sister and brother-in-law, the English-language daily said.
“He chopped off the boy’s head in front of the mother to get back at her,” a police officer was quoted as saying. The mother fainted and was taken to hospital.’
‘The founders of a camp geared toward gay, lesbian and transgender nature lovers have received threats, but won’t back down from their dream.
Joanie Beasley, who along with Nancy Leedy developed the idea for the camp, said the couple had received threats since a news article was published Tuesday.
She was not specific on the threats, but said, “We will proceed and take the proper precautions. We are not going anywhere now.”
A call made to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office was not immediately returned Wednesday.
Some residents found the name of the camp disagreeable, but Beasley said the name — Camp Lickalotta — would not change.’
Jumping from one roof to another.. What could go wrong? 🙂
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