‘Ongoing turmoil in the troubled kitchen-floor region of the Branson household reached a boiling point Tuesday, as relations between rival house cats Boswell and Johnson erupted into fresh violence. Observers said the arrival of a new brown paper-bag in the area ignited long-standing tensions and set off another round of territorial conflict between the two factions in the most serious aggression since the devastating stove-side siege of 2005.
The afternoon was marred by sporadic fighting, according to reports, with opposing forces darting and then retreating in surprise attacks. Boswell held his position despite relentless onslaughts from Johnson, who repeatedly batted the controversial bag along the ancient linoleum surface. By the end of the day, neither side displayed any intention to halt reprisals without the other first relinquishing claims and pulling out permanently — an outcome those close to the fighting called “unlikely at best.”‘
‘Four sheriff’s deputies have been suspended after a paralyzed man was tipped out of his wheelchair at a Florida jail.
Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows a veteran deputy dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation.
Sterner said that when he was taken into a booking room and told to stand up, the deputy grew agitated when he told her he could not.’
‘Scientists at Canada’s McGill University have discovered a way to boost an organism’s natural anti-virus defenses, effectively making its cells immune to influenza and other viruses. In effect, this makes the cells immune to flu and other viruses.
The researchers performed their study with mice, and knocked out two key genes that repress production of interferon. Without these repressor genes, the mouse cells produced much higher levels of interferon, which effectively blocked viruses from reproducing. The researchers tested the process on influenza virus, encephalomyocarditis virus, vesicular stomatitis virus and Sindbis virus.
“People have been worried for years about potential new viral pandemics, such as avian influenzas,” Dr. Sonenberg, the study’s lead author, said in a press release issued by McGill University. “If we might now have the means to develop a new therapy to fight flu, the potential is huge.”‘
‘An accidental push of a button Friday had students at Palm Bay High questioning what they’d done wrong and parents plotting punishments.
Parents of all 2,550 students in the school received an automated call Friday reminding them that their student had to report for Saturday morning detention. Problem was, the message only should have gone to 16 homes.
“One of my friends texted me to ask if I had Saturday detention,” said Robert Lenoci, 15, of Valkaria. The sophomore is going to the state science fair finals and hasn’t been in trouble before.
“I looked and I had a message from mom. She was asking, ‘What did you do?’ It was pretty bad,” he said.’
‘Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.
The cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim world two years ago.
The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a “terror-related assassination” of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing.
Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: “We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend,” in comments reported by The Associated Press.’
‘An eight-year-old boy had to be freed by firefighters after getting stuck in a pair of handcuffs he found in his mother’s bedroom.
Firefighters took the schoolboy to Copnor Fire Station in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
The crew had to use industrial metal cutters to free the boy.
The cuffs were described as made of “hardened steel” and not meant as a toy. [..]
“Before we released him I asked if he was on the run from the police but he assured me he wasn’t.
“And then his grandmother said he’d found the cuffs in his mother’s bedroom.
“She immediately realised what she’d said and put her hand over her mouth.’
‘Mao Zedong proposed sending 10 million Chinese women to the United States, in talks with top envoy Henry Kissinger in 1973, according to documents released today.
The powerful chairman of the Chinese Communist Party said he believed such emigration could kick-start bilateral trade but could also “harm” the United States with a population explosion similar to China, according to documents released by the State Department on US-China ties between 1973 to 1976.
In a long conversation that stretched way past midnight at Mao’s residence on February 17, 1973, the cigar-chomping Chinese leader referred to the dismal trade between the two countries, saying China was a “very poor country” and “what we have in excess is women.”‘
‘During the week of December 17 – 19, 2007, Lakota Indian leaders traveled to Washington DC and withdrew from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. They do so in a fully honest, legal, and ethical manner.
“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,” long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy. All were gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference. In other words, the Republic of Lakota is now inviting everyone within their country borders to join them and to live free and create a new government based on the laws of brotherhood.’
‘Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That’s what Florida’s former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation’s largest prison systems two years ago.
In fact, on his first day on the job, James McDonough says he walked into his office — the same one his predecessor used — and there was crime scene tape preventing anyone from entering.
“That was an indication we had a problem in the department,” McDonough told CNN in an exclusive interview before he stepped down last Thursday. [..]
“Corruption had gone to an extreme,” McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. “They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren’t taking money and beating each other up.” [..]
McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system — one that he says seemed obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games.’
They earn more than I do.
So, the war on $cientology continues with real life protests meant to be happening all over the world at the moment.
The internet is pretty funny some times. :)
For now, here’s a video of 100’s of people marching and yelling in Sydney and Melbourne..
There should be more videos if there’s more protesting. Hilarious. :)
(1.9 and 17meg Flash videos)
see it here »
I’m coming to get you.. in my DC-8.. there’s no escape.
(9.7meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A jogger was injured after being hit by a frozen Mars bar hurled from a passing car.
The man was running along Sunderland Road, South Shields, when the rock-hard chocolate bar was thrown at him.
Police said the car – a black Nissan or Toyota – then turned round, drove back past the shocked man, and its occupants threw another object at him before driving off.
The bizarre incident, which resulted in the man suffering a swollen ankle, happened at about 10.30am yesterday.’
it was on the news mroing.
‘During a convention demonstrating how to use taser guns over 3000 people volunteered to be tazed in order to experience the effect.’
(3.0meg Flash video)
see it here »
Doesn’t seem so tranquil. :)
(1.6meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘No matter how many times you shot a unicorn, they’re sure to stumble off into the bushes and make one last agony-filled run for the fabled gates of their pastel pink homelands. As long as you put enough holes in your unicorns heart and lungs (click here for a shootin’ diagram), you’ve got nothing to worry about: your unicorn will die coughing up it’s own blood not far from where you capped him. When you find a unicorn you’ve shot, don’t get all excited and run over to touch. The first rule is that unicorns are tricky bitches and often fake death just to lure you within impaling range. To avoid this common and undesirable hunter’s fate, pump a couple of rounds into your unicorn’s torso (just don’t hit the horn!). After a couple of safety shots, take a sharp stick and jab it into the unicorn’s eyeball. If the unicorn doesn’t move, congrats, you’ve killed him! If the unicorn still thrashed and makes nasty noises, shot, poke and repeat as many times as necessary.’
‘An improved smoking water pipe or bong comprising a chamber containing water in its lower portion, its upper portion serving as a smoke collection reservoir; a bowl for combusting tobacco or medicinal herbs, the smoke directed through a tube to the water chamber below the water [..]’
‘A Spanish businessman withdrew a controversial lawsuit Wednesday against the family of a teenage boy he struck and killed while driving a luxury car.
Tomas Delgado had filed a suit asking the dead boy’s parents to pay him €20,000 ($29,400) on the grounds that the collision that killed their teenage son also damaged his Audi A-8.
News of the case sparked outrage in Spain and generated deep sympathy for the parents of 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo Trinidad. He was riding his bicycle home to a campground when Delgado’s car hit and killed him in August 2004.
Hundreds of people descended on a courthouse in northern Spain in a show of support for the boy’s parents Wednesday. They broke into applause when word came that Delgado had dropped the suit.’
Followup to Driver who killed teen sues for damage.
‘A troubled schoolgirl who filmed herself as she tried to strangle her mother and then stab her father was today cleared of attempted murder. [..]
The girl was remanded to a secure psychiatric unit for teenagers until her sentence. [..]
It was following an argument with her father last February that the girl, then 15, came into the living room from her bedroom at the family’s home.
She had with her a video recorder which she set up on the arm of a chair so that it was trained on her mum who was sitting at a computer.
The girl, described as highly intelligent and theatrical, with a keen interest in film making, drama and writing, had dressed herself especially for the occasion.
She was wearing a seductive strappy silk nightdress for what the prosecution was to describe in court as “the performance of her life.”
She had brushed out her long brown hair and applied make up to make herself look glamorous film star.’
‘Drugs and guns don’t mix as a 51-year-old Langley man found out the hard way.
The local man, who was known to police, is dead after accidentally shooting himself in the head while mishandling an Uzi-type gun at a well-known drug house on Thursday morning.
Around 2:10 a.m., Langley RCMP were called to 20217 82 Ave. in Willoughby.
The 51-year-old victim is a resident of the home along with a 33-year-old man and 56-year-old Langley woman. Police say the three had been using drugs and handling a pistol similar to an Uzi. The weapon is illegal in Canada.’
What happens when you pretend to be a paraplegic and get people to help push you across the road?
What happens if you fall out of the chair mid way and make them carry you the rest of the way across the road?
And then what happens if you stand up and start walking once you get to the other side?
People get mad, is what. :)
(17.3meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Heavy cannabis users may be at greater risk of chronic lung disease – including cancer – compared to tobacco smokers, two studies suggest.
One study found a higher risk of lung cancer for those who smoked one joint a day compared with those who smoked 20 cigarettes a day over the same period.
Another found bullous disease – a form of emphysema – occurs 20 years earlier in cannabis smokers.
The studies appear in Respirology and the European Respiratory Journal.’
‘Infants and toddlers exposed to baby lotions, shampoos and powders carry high concentrations of hormone-altering chemicals in their bodies that might have reproductive effects, according to a new scientific study of babies born in Los Angeles and two other U.S. cities.
The research, to be published today in the medical journal Pediatrics, found that as the use of baby care products rose, so did the concentration of phthalates, which are used in many fragrances.
The lead scientist in the study, Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana of the University of Washington’s Department of Pediatrics, said the findings suggested that many baby care products contain a variety of phthalates that enter children’s bodies through their skin.’
‘Tucson porn-proprietor Tyrone Henry wants you to know that blowing your load on the faces of blindfolded, underage girls who think they’re participating in a facial cream marketing study is not fraud or any other crime, no matter what the Arizona Court of Appeals said last month. He also wants you to know he was framed. [..]
In the summer of 2000, Roach was assigned to prosecute Tyrone Henry after two teenage girls said he lured them to his home to try out a product called “White Dew” facial cream he was developing. Instead of exfoliation, they said they got ejaculation.
The girls, 15 and 16 years old at the time, said Henry showed them examples of women with “clumpy” white cream on their faces and then blindfolded them. The girls said they heard heavy breathing and Henry say, “It’s coming,” and then felt a thick, warm substance applied to their faces. They said he took photos, paid them $10 a piece and convinced them to make follow-up appointments. Thinking about it later, they realized they’d been hoodwinked and called the police.
Roach admits the hardest part of the case was figuring out what charge he could hang on Henry. It wasn’t sexual assault because he didn’t touch the girls sexually, and they didn’t touch him. And it wasn’t indecent exposure because the girls were blindfolded. [..]
In the end, the only charge Roach could get to stick was “fraudulent scheme and artifice.” [..]’
