‘A law passed this year allows Arkansans of any age — even infants — to marry if their parents agree, and the governor may have to call a special session to fix the mistake, lawmakers said Friday.
The legislation was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to marry but also allow pregnant teenagers to marry with parental consent, bill sponsor Rep. Will Bond said.
An extraneous “not” in the bill, however, allows anyone who is not pregnant to marry at any age if the parents allow it.
“It’s clearly not the intent to allow 10-year-olds or 11-year-olds to get married,” Bond said. “The legislation was screwed up.”‘
‘A handcuffed woman being transported for treatment after she was taken into custody by sheriff’s deputies jumped out of a moving ambulance, ran into some woods and vanished, according to Orange County sheriff’s deputies.
Investigators said Lisa McCoy, 34, was picked up Wednesday on an outstanding warrant. She was wanted for failure to appear on a petty theft charge.
When McCoy was taken into custody, she complained she was having a panic attack, police told Local 6 News.
Deputies handcuffed the woman and an ambulance was called to take her for treatment.
Officers said a paramedic was supposed to be watching her during a trip to the hospital.
“He moved to the front to call in the transport and when he did that, that is when she jumped out,” Orange County sheriff’s Sgt. Roland Rivera said.’
‘In a break from historic Israeli opposition to U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday his country understands Washington’s plan to supply state-of-the-art weapons to Riyadh as a counterweight to Iranian influence.
The United States, knowing that Israel is sensitive about such arms sales, is also offering a sharp increase in defense aid to Israel and has assured the Jewish state it will retain a fighting edge over other countries in the region, he added.
“We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states and there is a need for a united front between the U.S. and us regarding Iran,” Olmert told a weekly Cabinet meeting.
The rare agreement reflects shared U.S. and Israeli concern over the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.’
‘Kevin Rudd has admitted visiting a strip club while representing Australia at the United Nations in New York.
The Opposition Leader confirmed he had visited the ‘Scores’ club in 2003 while he was Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister and acting as a bipartisan observer at the UN.
Mr Rudd says he could not recall the events of the evening because he ‘had too much to drink’.
The Opposition Leader says as far as he can recall, he stayed for about an hour at the Manhattan club with New York Post editor Col Allan and Northern Territory Labor MP Warren Snowdon.’
‘A dairy farmer hoping to induce a woman he impregnated to miscarry gave her a soda containing a cattle hormone sometimes used to force abortions in cows, police said.
William Stanley Sutton III, 25, added ProstaMate last week to a soda he gave to 21-year-old Lauren Ashley Tucker, according to documents charging Sutton with reckless endangerment, assault and poisoning. [..]
ProstaMate is a hormone given to cows in the breeding process to bring all cows into heat at the same time. It can also be used to stimulate an early term abortion in a heifer that gets pregnant too young or a cow that mates with an undesired bull.’
‘The 50-foot California pepper tree was in Kelley Fornatoro’s backyard when she went on vacation Aug. 2.
It was gone when she got back a week later. [..]
It took two days and a sizable crew from Oxnard-based Julian’s Tree Care to remove the nearly 30-year-old tree from her Rustic Court home in Thousand Oaks, neighbors told Fornatoro.
The question both Fornatoro and the police are asking is who hired the company to remove the tree?
The tree removal cost $3,500 and the company hasn’t been paid. A police report lists the company as the second victim in the case along with Fornatoro. [..]
Replacing the tree that was cut down with one similar in age and stature would cost $52,000 to $60,000, according to other tree service companies Fornatoro consulted with. The price includes labor and special equipment.’
‘My praise is just so funky..’
(13.3meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A couple were thwarted in their effort to leave this small central Wisconsin town when they were arrested for robbing a gas station with a samurai sword.
Renee Ferreri, 22, told police that she and Brian A. Schmid, 24, “were tired of their lives, and they just ‘gave up,'” according to a criminal complaint.
The couple needed money to leave town, so they stole a 2000 Mercury Sable on Aug. 8 from the Jeepers Gin Mill and drove to their home to pick up the sword and two stocking caps, police said. [..]
Police arrested the couple after a Plover officer remembered seeing several samurai swords in their apartment when he responded to a domestic disturbance call in May.’
‘Steven Earp, 48, was eating a fast-food sandwich Wednesday morning, said police Sgt. Doug Mozan.
Earp choked and blacked out. His 1997 Honda sedan hit a parked car. After the wreck, Earp came to.
Mozan attributed his revival to a “seat-belt-induced Heimlich maneuver.”
Witnesses told police Earp got out of his car, and they asked if he was OK.
“No, I’m not,” he said, and collapsed again.’
‘Physicists in Singapore have developed a battery that can be powered by human urine. Aimed at disposable health-care kits for use in rural areas, we naturally couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment on such a product being used for those “emergency” phone calls when your conventional battery had died. Led by Dr Ki Bang Lee, a team at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology developed a paper battery which is designed to be cheap to produce, and use urine as its power charge source.
Using 0.2 ml of urine, the team were able to generate a voltage of around 1.5 Volts with a corresponding maximum power of 1.5 mW. Battery performance can also be adjusted by using different construction materials.’
‘A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to a Texas base, U.S. officials said.
The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.
The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina — twin sisters — exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority” were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator.’
‘Author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal when he started signing books during an unannounced visit to a shop in Australia, according to local media.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said staff at the Alice Springs book store did not initially realise the writer was autographing his own novels.
Bookshop manager Bev Ellis said: “When you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey [nervous].
“We immediately ran to the books and lo and behold, there was the signature.”
Ms Ellis later approached the author at a nearby supermarket and said he was “very nice, charming”.
“Well, if we knew you were coming we would have baked you a cake,” she told the writer.’
The waves are created by huge chunks of ice falling off a glacier and into the sea.
(3.2meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Son quit job after Dad’s lotto lies
The furious son of a hoaxer who convinced a town he’d won the £35.4million Euro lottery has spoken of his anger.
Jordan Frater quit his job after his father Fergus, 46, promised him a £5million share of the jackpot.
Roofer Jordan told The Sun: “I could kill him. I’m absolutely gutted.”
“When dad told me he’d won the lottery, I phoned my boss to tell him I was leaving. I’ve had to get back on the phone and beg for my job back. [..]
He said: “One minute I was a multi-millionaire, the next I was back to having nothing.”‘
‘About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution, concludes a Cornell researcher. Such environmental degradation, coupled with the growth in world population, are major causes behind the rapid increase in human diseases, which the World Health Organization has recently reported. Both factors contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of 3.7 billion people, he says. [..]
“We have serious environmental resource problems of water, land and energy, and these are now coming to bear on food production, malnutrition and the incidence of diseases,” said Pimentel.’
‘An 8-year-old girl who recently moved to Florida caused a panic when she tried to ride back home to Ohio on her bicycle out of fear of hurricanes.
A sheriff’s helicopter, search dogs and neighbors found the girl after an hour-long search Wednesday night.
“It is amusing but at the same time sad,” DeLand police Deputy Chief Randel Henderson said. [..]
DeLand police arrived and began a search, aided by tracking dogs and a Volusia County sheriff’s helicopter. A homeless camp also was searched.’
‘President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.
Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy. [..]
The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.’
‘One American student sent major corporations, governments and even the Vatican on the defensive after coming up with Wikipedia Scanner, a software program that reveals who changed Wikipedia entries. [..]
As soon as the software was launched on the internet, chaos erupted. [..]
– The Vatican edits Irish Catholic politician Gerry Adams page
– In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that “Iraq was involved in 9/11″
– Exxon Mobil edits spillages and eco-system destruction from oil spillages article [..]
– UN address calls journalist Oriana Fallaci a racist ‘prostitute”
The whole thing is here: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations.
Lots of amusing headlines from newspaper articles and advertisements.
A clamp will make sure you get a good grip of the underwear. :)
see it here »
‘Crows have shown that two tools are better than one when it comes to problem solving, scientists say.
A University of Auckland study has revealed that New Caledonian crows can use separate tools in quick succession to retrieve an out-of-reach snack. [..]
The scientists said the crows’ performance was comparable to that of the great apes in similar experiments.
The team believes that because the birds were able to solve the problem on their first attempt they were using analogical reasoning rather than trial and error.’
‘Dressed in white coveralls and wearing a crash helmet, Gary Le Fever, 70, sat gripping the wheel of his 1921 Model T speedster. Before him loomed a 475-foot-tall hill that in Evansville, Ind. passes as a mountain. He revved his engine, waiting for the climbing contest to begin. Competing with him were other vintage racers and, at FORBES’ request, a 2003 Hummer H2. [..]
When the flag dropped, Le Fever punched both feet to the floor. He crossed the finish line in 9.96 seconds. Later the Hummer had its turn: 10.74.
How? Why? Weight has much to do with it. The 316hp Hummer weighs twice as much per unit of power. Not only did the Model T beat the Hummer, it beat every other comer, including a modern turbocharged Dodge diesel and the county sheriff’s patrol car.’
‘He survived against all the odds; now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again.
When his body was cut in two by a lorry in 1995, it was little short of a medical miracle that he lived. [..]
Skin was grafted from his head to seal his torso – but the legless Mr Peng was left only 78cm (2ft 6in) tall. [..]
Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about Mr Peng’s plight late last year and devised a plan to get him up walking again.
They came up with an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it.’
see it here »
‘So, driving home from work today I have some fuckwad tailing me, just banging on the horn. I look in my rear view and it is some dork in a BMW or Mercedes or some other overpriced piece of shit. I can see dude’s veins bulging in his forehead and literally I can see the specks of saliva splashing off the windshield and he is LEAAAANNNNNING over the steering wheel yelling at me as if this was going to help me hear him better.
By the looks of him, he is a pretty big dude. So, unluckily for me, I have to stop at a light. [..] So, of course Mr Testosterone has to get out of his car and confront me. [..]
So, I continued to look straight ahead, I rolled my window down, maybe a 1/3, not quite half and asked him if he was having a bad day. Without warning, Road Rage Guy punches at me. Fucking longest light in the history of Vancouver right here…sadly for him, his big fucking mitt hit most of my window–shaking his hand he yelled for me to get out of the car–LOL, here is where it gets funny. [..]’
‘Whenever folks who have lived or traveled in Germany gather for a beer, sooner or later one subject is sure to rear its ugly head: what is the deal with those toilets? [..]
We’ve had innumerable bad experiences with German toilets. In Berlin, we lived on an upper floor and the water pressure was too weak to push a healthy-sized log off the shelf. After a few minutes’ fruitless flushing you’d be forced to grab a wad of toilet paper and give the horrid thing an encouraging nudge. Then followed a lengthy bout of brushing and cleaning to remove the skid marks from the porcelain. At the other extreme, in Munich we lived in a basement suite where the water pressure was too high. Worse, the shelf was actually slightly concave, forming a shallow bowl. The first time I flushed the toilet the water came rushing through so forcefully that a small chunk of poo launched off the lip and shot out over the floor. After that we always held the lid down when we flushed. I swore you could feel a kick as the turd ricoched off the underside.’
It’s kinda like a backwards version of the old classic. You’re the asteroid. Destroy the ships.
