moonbuggy

`Satellite tracking, helicopter surveillance and dart gun attempts failed it was a boiled ham dinner that brought Sam, a golden retriever, in from the cold after two years on the lam.

Nicknamed the “Golden Ghost,” Sam survived two New Hampshire winters, deer hunting season and being hit by a car and still no one could catch him. [..]

In January, experts from Boston arrived with infrared cameras and a remote-controlled net but had no luck. A friend provided the use of his helicopter to search. Steve Sprowl’s efforts to get the dog with a tranquilizing gun failed repeatedly.

“Sam, he was winning 200 to 1,” Sprowl said.’

`A Philippines judge who allegedly claimed to have psychic powers and said he had made a covenant with “dwarf friends” has been removed from his post.

Judge Florentino Floro, who presided in a suburban Manila court, allegedly said he was empowered with supernatural abilities, could read the future and conducted “healing sessions” in his chambers.

“His mental problems for now appear to render him unfit with the delicate task of dispensing justice,” the Supreme Court said in a ruling, stressing that Floro had not been found guilty of misconduct or corruption.’

‘This one is actually pretty funny. Check out these two head bangers. One of them bangs his head so hard he faints. Try and pick which one. I had my money on the wrong dude.’

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`Pakistani children ride a ferris wheel over a heap of garbage in a slum area of Karachi, Pakistan, reads the official WaPo caption on this one.’

`Staff at a Japanese convenience store got a shock when they asked an elderly gentleman to stop reading magazines without buying them, media reports say.

The man, 70, left the 7-Eleven store in the Ibaraki prefecture north-east of Tokyo – and returned with a chainsaw, police told AFP news agency.

After threatening to cut staff to pieces he left the chainsaw outside the shop and carried on reading.

“He was still reading when I called the police,” the manager told AFP.’

`A yank on a child’s underwear has a teacher in big trouble.

Albany police have charged 41-year-old Mark Holley of Scotia with endangering the welfare of a child for giving a student a wedgie. Holley’s a teacher at New Covenant Charter School in
Albany.

Police say that during summer school, while a 10-year-old New Covenant student was in the bathroom, Holley grabbed the child’s underwear and pulled it up.’

That sounds like a wedgie to me.

`Protesters demanding a return to democracy postponed a rally that had been expected to draw thousands on Saturday, after the king imposed an all-day curfew and ordered violators shot on sight.

Khadga Prasad Oli, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal, called the curfew “unnecessary, illegal and illogical” and said the protesters would try to hold the rally on Sunday.

Seven main political parties organized the rally as the high point of a four-day general strike that has shut down the capital Katmandu, where King Gyanendra’s refusal to give up absolute rule has led to growing unrest.’

`An argument at a baby shower escalated into a brawl in which one man was shot and the pregnant guest of honor was beaten with a stick, police said.

Three people were arrested after the fight, described by police as a “baby shower gone bad.”‘

Authorities said the shooting victim, Aristotle Garcia, got into a fight with a man who is dating his ex-girlfriend. The argument, over whether the woman let their 5-year-old daughter drink beer, escalated and drew in two other people — Jazz Rivas and Juan Velazquez, said Police Lt. Cheryl C. Claprood.

When the baby shower’s hostess tried to intervene, Rivas began hitting some of the guests, including the 22-year-old mother-to-be, with a large stick, she said.’

`The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

“That’s the name they’re using,” the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that “this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.”‘

`Springtime light may lift the spirits, but in Rattenberg, residents have a long memory for shadows. From late fall to midwinter, this tiny Austrian town, famous for its glassblowing, gets no sun at all. And it has been that way for centuries. Next time, though, the villagers may finally see the light–thanks to giant rotating mirrors known as heliostats.

Bartenbach Light Laboratory in the Austrian Tyrol plans to begin construction of the heliostats this August. “The idea is not just to light the village,” says Silvia Pezzana, an engineer at the firm. “The idea is to give them the impression they have sun.”‘

`A Marion County Jail corrections officer was fired after an internal affairs investigation determined he struck his wife in an argument over his buying Dungeons and Dragons fantasy toys.

Investigators say Edward Bonthron and wife Lori Jo Bonthron were arguing at their home last month over whether he was paying too much for the toys.

Lori Jo Bonthron told investigators she was hit, pushed and choked’

`In their quest to seize the ill-gotten gains of suspected drug dealers, federal prosecutors have targeted cash, jewelry, cars and even homes.

You can now add gold-capped teeth to the list.

A defense expert and the attorneys for two men facing federal drug charges in Tacoma are crying foul over efforts by federal prosecutors and officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to have the gold-capped teeth — commonly called “grills” or “grillz” — removed from their clients’ mouths.

“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this,” said Richard Troberman, past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and an expert on forfeiture law. “It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead.”‘

`A 5-year-old boy called 911 to report that his mother had collapsed in their apartment, but an operator told him he should not be playing on the phone, and she died before help arrived. [..]

Turner’s son, Robert, placed two calls to 911 after his mother collapsed Feb. 20 on the kitchen floor. During one of the calls, an operator said: “You shouldn’t be playing on the phone.”

In a tape of the call, parts of which were broadcast by Detroit-area television stations, the operator said: “Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you gonna be in trouble.”‘

`AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers’ phone calls, and shunted its customers’ internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF’s lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. [..]

According to a statement released by Klein’s attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T’s #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.’

A funky remix of the Leprechaun in Alabama video from the other week. Good stuff. :)

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