TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

Chat about anything and everything... (well almost anything) Whether it be the front porch or the pot belly stove or news of interest or a topic of your liking, this is the place to post it.

Moderator: S2k Moderators

Message
Author
User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#941 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:25 pm

Witnesses report seeing nothing unusual...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Four armed men stole several famous paintings on Friday, including a Picasso and a Monet, from a Rio de Janeiro museum and then slipped away in a crowd of Carnival revelers.

Officials of the Chacara do Ceu museum in downtown Rio de Janeiro said among the stolen paintings were Pablo Picasso's "Dance," Claude Monet's "Marine," Henri Matisse's "Luxemburg Garden," and Salvador Dali's "Two Balconies."

The men, who were suspected of carrying a grenade, forced the guards to turn off the internal television circuit. One of the guards was manhandled.

"They took advantage of a Carnival parade passing by the museum and disappeared into the crowd," said Vera de Alencar, director of the museum, which is administered by the federal government.

Museum officials did not say how many paintings were stolen or place a value on them.

The thieves also walked away with the belongings of several visitors, including three foreign tourists.

The Federal Police are investigating the case and taking measures to prevent the paintings from leaving the country.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#942 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:26 pm

His lost wedding ring story is no croc...

By Ed Stoddard

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Pieter Abrahamse has an original excuse for a lost wedding ring: a crocodile ate it, along with the arm it was attached to.

"He took my wedding ring, I suppose he ate it up," Abrahamse told Reuters by telephone from his hospital Monday as he recounted his life-or-death struggle with a man-eating reptile.

The 47-year-old farm manager had the lower part of his left arm torn off in the attack last Thursday on a citrus plantation in South Africa's northern Limpopo province.

But he's counting his blessings as he could easily have lost his life.

"I took my horse for an evening swim in one of the farm dams. There are lots of crocs and hippos in the area but they move around all the time, from dam to dam and into the river and out again," he said.

"I was on the lookout for hippos and didn't see any. It slipped my mind that there might be crocodiles," he said.

He was standing belly-deep in water about 5 metres from the shore when he felt a biting jolt in his left hip. He said thought it was a hippo but quickly realized it was a crocodile.

"I started to fight immediately. So I hit him with my left arm and then he went for my left forearm," Abrahamse said.

"It pulled me under the water for a few seconds and I knew this was his biggest advantage. I realized if I didn't stand up my wife will never find me again," he said.

Somehow, he managed to stumble to his feet and then he felt the crocodile lose its grip.

"What I didn't realize at the time was that it had let go because it had taken part of my left arm off," he said.

With his right arm, Abrahamse then grabbed the rope of his horse, which fortunately for him chose that moment to take flight, dragging him to safety.

Abrahamse then walked 200 metres to his house and his wife drove him 60 kms (40 miles) to the nearest hospital.

"I'm lucky, I didn't lose too much blood ... The biggest problem with a croc bite is it can be septic. They never brush their teeth," said Abrahamse.

And when he gets out of the hospital does he plan to look for the culprit? "Oh yes, I'll be looking for him alright," he said with a laugh.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#943 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:27 pm

Carnival dancers love their heels high

By Terry Wade

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - It isn't surprising that shoes are an obsession with the beauties who grace Brazil's Carnival parades -- they're generally the biggest things they wear below the neck.

Dancers at Carnival, the pre-Lenten bash that starts this weekend and ends on Ash Wednesday, say the higher the better for their towering heels, worn with soaring feathered headdresses and little else but glittery patches, strategically placed.

Social customs are thrown out and roles inverted during the festivities, when ordinary people dress up as royalty or in drag to celebrate before Lent, the period of repentance that lasts until Easter.

Dancers say the platform sandals, preferably with shiny straps and buckles that snake to the knee, help prevent them from tipping over and injuring their ankles while dancing the lightning-quick gyrations of the samba.

"Platforms are safer," said Iris Sol, 28, a dancer for the drum section of the Barroca Zona Sul samba club in Sao Paulo.

"I've paraded with samba troupes since I was six, but the truth is that I was dancing samba when I was born," she said.

Sandals with platform heels push body weight onto the ball of the foot, where the samba is danced. Samba platforms go as high as 17 centimeters, or 6.6 inches. Heels are extra-wide.

"Platforms make women more beautiful, elegant and taller, with better posture. They help you stick out your chest and butt a bit," said Magaly Santos, 22, Sao Paulo's 2005 Carnival queen.

The culture of derrieres is so big in Brazil that GNT, a popular cable channel, produced a show about them in preparation for Carnival this year. Its title? "The National Passion."

Some Brazilians are so eager for plump backsides that they go to plastic surgeons for silicone implants.

A display of samba sandals by Fernando Pires, who designs for top dancers, included eye-catching designs like swirls of red, yellow and orange leather resembling flames, and black heels topped with lanyards of fake diamonds and pink beaded jewels.

Carnival dancers put almond oil on their feet to prevent skin from cracking and splitting. But they say blisters are inevitable during hours of late night dancing to thundering drums.

"It hurts. You get blisters and feel pain but you samba a lot because you don't want to stop," said Michele Eleuterio, 20, of the samba troupe Unidos do Peruche.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#944 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:28 pm

Mardi Gras parades lampoon politicians, agencies

NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - The crowds are smaller at New Orleans' first post-Katrina Mardi Gras parades but there is no shortage of fiendishly satirical wit on floats lampooning public figures and agencies with any connection to the devastating hurricane.

One float on Thursday was festooned with the seal of the "Department of Homeland Insecurity," poking fun at the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA has been blasted for its slow initial response to the disaster.

Another was called "Chocolate Divinity," featuring a bust of Mayor Ray Nagin in a send-up of his comments last month about wanting to rebuild New Orleans as a mostly African-American center, or "chocolate city."

"It's fabulous. It's great to see and, as some people would say, only in New Orleans can you take a tragedy and have fun with it," said Allen Fandal, an airline employee trying to catch beads along St. Charles Avenue, a main parade route.

Other floats took aim at the media, the Bush administration and the Superdome, where thousands of displaced people were housed in the early days after Katrina hit on August 29.

The all-women Krewe of Muses parade group ended its large procession of floats, acrobats and funky marching bands with a sober message: "We celebrate life, we mourn the past, we shall never forget."

Following Katrina and its massive flood, which killed 1,300 people in New Orleans, devastated numerous neighborhoods and cut the city's population by about two-thirds, some residents urged officials to call off Mardi Gras.

Nagin has said the carnival should help New Orleans as it tries to rise from its collective despair.

Residents whooping it up at parades said the crowds, although thinned amid the flight of evacuees and drop in tourism, are participating in a kind of collective release.

"For the locals, it's a sense of normalcy, relief, and it gives us an outlet to come out and maybe just get a little crazy like we normally do," said Patrick Keating, a lawyer who was born and raised in New Orleans.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#945 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Feb 27, 2006 5:33 pm

Distillery to Revive 184-Proof Whisky

By JENNIFER PRICE, Associated Press Writer

LONDON, England - A Scottish distillery said Monday it was reviving a centuries-old recipe for whisky so strong that one 17th-century writer feared more than two spoonfuls could be lethal.

Risk-taking whisky connoisseurs will have to wait, however — the spirit will not be ready for at least 10 years.

The Bruichladdich distillery on the Isle of Islay, off Scotland's west coast, is producing the quadruple-distilled 184-proof — or 92 percent alcohol — spirit "purely for fun," managing director Mark Reynier said.

Whisky usually is distilled twice and has an alcohol content of between 40 and 63.5 per cent.

Bruichladdich is using a recipe for a spirit known in the Gaelic language as usquebaugh-baul, "perilous water of life."

In 1695, travel writer Martin Martin described it as powerful enough to affect "all members of the body."

"Two spoonfuls of this last liquor is a sufficient dose; if any man should exceed this, it would presently stop his breath, and endanger his life," Martin wrote.

Reynier put Martin's test to the claim and consumed three spoonfuls.

"I can tell you, I had some and it indeed did take my breath away," Reynier said.

Bruichladdich, a small privately owned distillery founded in 1881, plans to make about 5,000 bottles of the whisky, which Reynier estimated would sell for about 400 pounds (US$695, euro590) per case of 12 bottles. Although whisky lovers can place their orders now, the actual spirit will not be delivered for about 10 years.

"You get a better drink if you wait because of the basic oxygenation through the oak barrels," Reynier said.

In the meantime, customers will be able to watch the whisky's progress on the distillery's webcams.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#946 Postby TexasStooge » Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:00 pm

Brown Sugar off the menu in China

BEIJING, China (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones will likely follow the beat of China's censors when they offer mainland fans some long-awaited satisfaction with an April concert, promoters said Tuesday.

The veteran British group, who had two shows in China canceled in spring 2003 because of the SARS epidemic, would make its mainland debut in Shanghai on April 8 as part of its "A Bigger Bang" tour, Emma Entertainment said on its Web site (http://www.emma.cn).

Even before their April 2003 concerts were scuttled, the Stones had run afoul of China's culture commissars.

This time around, the band was ready to steer clear of trouble, a company employee told Reuters Tuesday.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture told the band in 2003 it could not perform four songs -- "Let's Spend the Night Together," "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Women" and "Beast of Burden."

No reasons were given, but the songs are among the most sexually explicit of the Rolling Stone's hits.

"This time, they also probably will not play those songs," a company employee surnamed Gu told Reuters Tuesday.

"They know there are differences between Chinese and Western cultures. They don't want to do anything against the Chinese government," she said.

The Stones appear to be in the clear to play darker numbers like "Under My Thumb" and "Sympathy for the Devil" in Shanghai, and cutting four songs may seem a minor price for a band that has tried to bring its rock n' roll circus to China for decades.

In the late 1970s, they held high-level talks about touring China, but those were the days when the country feared spiritual pollution from the West and plans were never laid.

Seats for the April concert at the Shanghai Grand Stage would cost between 300 yuan and 3,000 yuan (between $37 and $373) each, Emma Entertainment said.

"The world-famous Rolling Stones are hitting mainland China for the first time," it said. "Music fans must not pass this up!"
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#947 Postby TexasStooge » Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:01 pm

Idaho's image becomes hot potato

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A state lawmaker wants to peel Idaho's standard license plate of the legend "Famous Potatoes" in a battle over whether the lowly spud should symbolize a state whose major export is high technology.

Republican Sen. Hal Bunderson said the slogan no longer has resonance for a state whose population and commerce have undergone a seismic shift in the 46 years since the motto was first stamped on Idaho's license plates.

"Other than as a consumer, the majority of people in Idaho have no connection to 'Famous Potatoes,'" said Bunderson, whose potato proposal will be heard by a state transportation panel on Thursday.

Besides, he said, the potato has fallen from agricultural grace, dropping from the state's top-earning agricultural commodity to No. 3 behind milk and livestock.

Frank Muir, president of the Idaho Potato Commission, is irked over the proposal, which he says undercuts the spud's considerable contributions to the state. After beating back the onslaught of low-carb diets in recent years, the last thing the Idaho potato industry expected was to be mashed at home, he said.

"We don't have to be embarrassed by our agricultural roots. Why not be proud of your potato?" he said.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#948 Postby TexasStooge » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:56 pm

DNA Tests Ordered for Urine Toolbox Prank

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A Baton Rouge hospital, hoping to get to the bottom of an office prank, is ordering 25 employees to undergo DNA testing or be terminated.

Leaders at Woman's Hospital say a man who works in Building Operations returned from several weeks off to find that someone had placed urine in his toolbox.

After hearing of the incident, hospital administrators sent a memo to 25 employees who also work there telling them that DNA testing would be done unless someone came forward admitting guilt. Since no one came forward, the hospital said the DNA testing will begin within the next few weeks.

"We checked with our legal counsel first and this is the next step in using technology to help solve a workplace incident," hospital supervisor Stan Shelton said Monday.

The DNA testing, to be conducted by ReliaGene Technologies of New Orleans, will cost the hospital $25,000, he said.

Attorney Jill Craft worked with litigation involving swabs taken during the investigation into the South Louisiana serial killer cases. Craft fought for the rights of those swabbed during the probe that eventually resulted in the arrest of Derrick Todd Lee.

Craft said she believed the employees' rights are being violated. "It's the intrusion by finding out what your DNA looks like, your unique pattern, which in my opinion, violates someone's right to privacy," she said.
___

Information from: Paul Gates/WAFB-TV
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#949 Postby TexasStooge » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:58 pm

Strip Club Operator Runs for School Board

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (AP) - The president and director of a Colorado-based adult entertainment company is running for the school board of a suburban St. Louis district, and already many residents are giving the candidacy a thumbs down.

"I wouldn't want that kind of guy running a school board," Jeremy Parks, 21, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "If he's that great of a guy, with good morals, he wouldn't be running strip clubs."

Micheal Ocello is president and director of VCG Holding Corp., based in Lakewood, Colo., a company that says on its Web site that its clubs feature "premium quality female performers" with "highest standards" for "appearance, attitude, demeanor, dress and personality."

The Web site says the company owns and operates a dozen adult entertainment nightclubs, featuring exotic dancers, in St. Louis, Denver, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Louisville, Ky., and Sauget, Ill.

Ocello, 46, a husband and father of three, hopes to win one of two seats on the Mehlville School Board in south St. Louis County.

He said he knew the race would be tough, but is tiring of the strip club questions, and finds remarks about the business offensive. He was once a male dancer himself.

Today, he enjoys playing with his grandchildren, riding motorcycles with his wife, watching old movies with his daughter and boating on the Mississippi River with his family.

The others candidates, including two incumbents, are a Union Pacific worker, a pressroom supervisor, a salesman, a retired teacher and a church fundraiser.

Several candidates said it will be rough for a man in adult entertainment to win the hearts of suburban, conservative district residents.

"I don't want to say anything negative about anybody," said Tom Diehl, a nonprofit fundraising consultant. "I imagine it might be tough for some voters to get beyond that issue."

Privately, at least one candidate asked Ocello what he's doing, Ocello said.

"I knew going into it I would receive a lot of scrutiny," Ocello said. "I think it's important enough to go through with it."

Several district residents told the Post-Dispatch a strip club executive would never get their vote.

But those who know Ocello speak highly of him.

Barbara Geno, executive director of Clayton Child Center, said Ocello has been a strong board member for 10 years at her school, and has "very high morals and ethics."

The candidates say they hope the race sticks to the issues.
___

On the Net: VCG Holding Corp.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#950 Postby TexasStooge » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:30 pm

Boy, 12, Sticks Gum on $1.5M Painting

DETROIT, Mich. (AP) - A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say.

The boy was part of a school group from Holly that visited the museum on Friday, officials say. They say he took a piece of Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's "The Bay," an abstract painting from 1963.

The museum acquired the work in 1965 and says it is worth about $1.5 million.

The gum stuck to the painting's lower left corner and did not adhere to the fiber of the canvas, officials told the Detroit Free Press. But it left a chemical residue about the size of a quarter, said Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art.

The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it. The museum hopes to make the repair in two weeks and will keep "The Bay" on display in the meantime, she said.

"Our expectation is that the painting is going to be fine," Hart said.

Holly Academy director Julie Kildee said the boy had been suspended from the charter school and says his parents also have disciplined him.

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behavior and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12 and I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now," said Kildee.

___

On the Net: Detroit Institute of Arts
Information from: Detroit Free Press
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#951 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:26 am

Toys for boys...

PARIS, France (Reuters) - Maybe it's because men don't like to ask for directions -- but satellite navigation devices for cars are very much a "guy thing."

"We would love to close the gender gap. We are not very successful, quite frankly," Harold Goddijn, Chief Executive of car navigation systems maker TomTom, told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.

Despite advertising targeted at women, the big majority of TomTom's customers are men, Goddijn said at the summit in Paris.

"It is still very much a guy thing, but also a bit of a girl thing where the guy buys it for the girl," he said.

"Twelve percent of people who buy our products are women. For a technology product, that's not that bad."
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#952 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:27 am

Dinner and a movie...

By Philip Blenkinsop

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) - A real-life German cannibal who ate a willing victim is being immortalized on the big screen, like the fictional Hannibal Lecter, despite his legal bid to block the movie version of his gruesome crime.

"Rohtenburg" ("Butterfly -- A Grimm Love Story") is set to open in Germany on March 9 and will hope to profit from the shock and fascination the case of Armin Meiwes evoked in a transfixed public in Germany and beyond.

The movie tells the tale of fictional American criminal psychology student Katie (Keri Russell) who is drawn in by the bizarre case of a Meiwes-like character called Oliver Hartwin.

The cannibal plot of the movie, seen in a preview on Tuesday, is almost identical to real-life events. It also shows a younger Hartwin as a loner forced by a domineering mother to wear Lederhosen at school. Like Meiwes, he dreams up an imaginary friend.

Later, as a computer repairman, Meiwes's career, he is drawn to the "Cannibal Cantina" Web site in his search for a willing victim, who he finds in Simon Grombek.

"I want you to bite off my thing. Are your teeth strong enough?" Grombek asks in one of the movie's more startling lines.

Later, when the two meet at a railway station near Hartwin's half-timbered home, mirroring that of Meiwes, Grombek introduces himself with the line "I am your meat" a prelude to his slaughter.

Director Martin Weisz says the film is merely inspired by real events, but Meiwes's lawyers are not convinced.

Meiwes's lawyer Harald Ermel complains the film effectively portrays his client as a "beastly murderer," arguing the main actor could be Meiwes's twin brother and that the movie is a confusing blend of truth and fiction.

"The ending is all wrong. The victim is stabbed in a frenzy a dozen times. In reality, it was just one stroke," Ermel said.

LEGAL ARGUMENTS

Meiwes has sought to block the film's release. A German court will determine Friday whether his rights have been infringed after lawyers presented arguments Tuesday.

Ermel also believes the March release date is inappropriate as judges at Meiwes's retrial could then be considering their verdict.

The real computer repairman was sentenced to 8-1/2 years for manslaughter in January 2004.

However, Germany's Supreme Court ruled the judges had been too lenient and ordered a retrial, which started in January.

Meiwes only killed one man, unlike notorious American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who practiced necrophilia on and ate some of his 17 male victims, but Meiwes's case is unique because his victim wanted to be eaten.

Legal experts have focused on the case.

Meiwes's lawyers argue he is only guilty of illegal euthanasia, but prosecutors say the fact that Meiwes filmed the slaying for sexual gratification should tip the scale toward murder.

Meiwes severed his victim's penis and they both tried to eat it, initially raw then fried. The bizarre scene is also part of the movie, Hartwin serving up the dish for a candlelit knife-and-fork meal for himself and a weakening Grombek.

When the victim fell unconscious, Meiwes took him to his "slaughter room," slit his throat, pulled out his organs and chopped off his head. In the film too, Hartwin hacks into the corpse, with a severed head in the foreground.

The movie title "Rohtenburg" is a corruption of Rotenburg, the town where Armin Meiwes lived. "Roh" is German for raw.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#953 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:27 am

You can't force cats to do anything...

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russian clown Yuri Kuklachev has a troupe of cats who do handstands, crawl along high wires and balance on balls and he says the secret to training them is realizing that you can't force cats to do anything.

"The Moscow Cats Theater" came to New York in September and did so well at a small theater in the Tribeca neighborhood that it recently moved uptown to a bigger venue near Times Square, where it is close to Broadway giants such as "The Lion King," although not the musical "Cats," which closed in 2000.

Kuklachev started working with cats more than 30 years ago after adopting a stray kitten he named Koutchka. He now has 120 cats in Moscow and has brought 26 of them to New York.

"If the cat likes to sit you can't force her to do anything else," he said, adding that several of the cats in the New York show simply sit and watch the others.

"Each cat likes to do her own trick," said Kuklachev, whose show has not been the target of animal rights protesters. "Maruska is the only one who does the handstand. I find the cat and see what they like to do and use that in the show."

Kuklachev's cats apparently like to be swung precariously around his head balanced on hoops, to be shut up in a cooking pot and to walk on their hind legs pushing a child's stroller.

"I have a cat now that loves to be in the water," he said.

Kuklachev said the breed of cat made no difference to their abilities, although Persians tended to be lazy. He adopts cats from shelters and trains the offspring of the cats he has.

BOOK IN THE WORKS

Sharing his secrets over caviar and blintzes in Brighton Beach, a New York neighborhood known as Little Russia, Kuklachev said he plans to write a book about how to train cats since so many people are asking him.

Kuklachev, 56, said his cat-training method also can be applied to children.

"Parents need to watch their children to see what he or she likes to do and encourage this," he said, adding that it worked for his three children.

One child joined Kuklachev at the cat theater, one is a dancer and one is a painter who paints cats.

"If you do the same thing with your child as you do with your cat, he may not become a genius but he'll do whatever he enjoys doing," Kuklachev said.

He has had about 300 cats in his life and says every one had a different personality. Only one did not want to go on stage because she was already an adult when he got her.

Kuklachev says the show, which also includes his wife Yelena, is a hit because people everywhere love their pets. He chuckles as he recalls a friend who bought a hamster for $10 and spent $300 on surgery when it got sick.

"You're a better person when you love animals," he said.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#954 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:29 am

Problems with his passport...

NICOSIA (Reuters) - You might have the best forgery skills in the world, but it is not much use if you cannot spell.

A Cyprus court jailed Pakistani national Fazal Ur Rehman for eight months for forgery after police spotted spelling mistakes on stamps on an Afghan passport he was carrying -- otherwise it was a near-perfect copy, the Cyprus Mail said Wednesday.

"Ministry" was spelled "Menistry" and the first "n" was missing from government, the newspaper said.

"The passport looked perfect and professionally made ... almost deemed original by forensics," a police officer told a magistrate in the Cypriot capital Nicosia.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#955 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:29 am

Newspaper story saved my leg

GLASGOW, Finland (Reuters) - Finnish player Markus Paatelainen has revealed how a newspaper article in his homeland helped save his leg from amputation after a blood clot developed hours after he was caught on the shin by a late tackle.

The 23-year-old brother of Finland international and current Cowdenbeath manager Mixu was left in agony when he was scythed down playing for the Scottish fourth division side in a 4-0 league win at Elgin City Saturday.

He began to feel severe pain in the leg on the journey home and remembered a story he read about impact-related blood clots.

Paatelainen, a former Aberdeen player, told The Scottish Sun: "My parents send me Finnish newspapers every week and I read about an ice hockey player who was in a similar situation two weeks ago.

"When I started to feel the pain while I was on the bus it was unbearable and I thought it might be the same thing. I knew I had to go to hospital then so I got Mixu to take me."

Markus was caught on the outside of his shin by the tackle and also twisted his knee causing a blood clot.

Hospital x-rays revealed there was no break, but doctors spotted the clot after measuring pressure on the shin and operated immediately at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

"The family and everyone associated with the club are shocked by what has happened but Markus has been very fortunate," Mixu Paatelainen told the Cowdenbeath website.

"Such an operation should normally take place within six hours but Markus was not operated on until 3.30am Sunday morning. But thanks to the expertise of the medical team the surgery was a success.

"Markus will have a second operation tomorrow and will be sidelined for two to three months."
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#956 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:30 am

Pregnant Idaho moms could face jail for drug use

BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - Pregnant mothers caught using illegal drugs could go to prison for endangering their unborn children under a bill passed by the Idaho State Senate on Tuesday.

"The first thing we're after is a drug-free baby," said State Sen. Denton Darrington, a Republican who said his eastern Idaho district is plagued by methamphetamine use. "Meth is a problem everywhere in the state of Idaho."

If the measure passes the Idaho House and receives the approval of Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican, the measure would be the first in the United States specifically to make it a crime for a pregnant woman to use illegal drugs.

If caught, individuals could first face drug treatment or drug court. Beyond that, however, judges have the option of sending mothers to jail for up to five years or imposing a $50,000 fine.

Women's health advocates say the proposed law is a recipe for more unhealthy mothers and, therefore, children.

"If you want to hurt babies, you pass this law," said Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. "Drug abuse is a health problem. Health care in prisons is hideous."

About one baby per month is delivered on average in the Pocatello, Idaho women's prison, said Darrington, and he conceded more babies could be born in prisons if his bill becomes law. "We don't know what the cost would be of delivering drug babies," the lawmaker said.

Opponents of the bill, which passed on an 18-16 vote in the Idaho Senate, said the law would discourage pregnant mothers from seeking treatment if they had used drugs.

"It would be the first frontal assault on infant health we've seen in a long time," Paltrow said.

(Reporting by Shea Andersen in Boise)
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#957 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:31 am

Beijing Starts Campaign to End Spitting

BEIJING, Reuters (AP) - Beijing is launching a campaign to stamp out widespread public spitting in an effort to clean up its image for the 2008 Olympics.

The government has concluded that spitting is the city's "most serious bad habit," Zhang Huiguang, director of Beijing's Capital Ethics Development Office, said Wednesday.

"This year we will intensify our law enforcement efforts in this field," Zhang told a news conference. "We will require law enforcement officials to step up the frequency of fines."

The fine for public spitting is 50 yuan (US$5; euro4).

Tourists visiting Beijing often are startled at how many people spit or blow their noses onto sidewalks.

The crackdown is part of efforts to raise "ethical and cultural" standards in advance of the 2008 Summer Games, a major prestige project for the communist government.

Zhang said officials will launch an advertising campaign on radio, television, the Internet and mobile phones to "teach people the right way to spit."

"For example, you have to spit into a tissue or a bag, then place it in a dustbin to complete the process," she said.

Those without a bag handy needn't worry. Zhang said her office has organized a small army of volunteers who are already hitting Beijing's streets, handing out small "spitting bags" and wearing bright orange uniforms with the Chinese character "tan" — "mucus" — printed in yellow on the back.

She said enforcement will also be ramped up against littering — the second-worst habit her office faces — and pets fouling the streets, the No. 3 scourge.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#958 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:35 am

Dump trucks to the rescue at junk-filled home

By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8

DUNCANVILLE, Texas — Authorities sent in dump trucks Tuesday after residents spoke out about a Duncanville house they said should be condemned because of the junk piling up around it.

The trucks were sent to the home that sits on a busy street near the corner of Cockrell Hill Road and Highway 67 in an attempt to clear some of the mess.

The city warned the people who moved into the home in July to clean up. However, everything from stuffed animals to appliances and even some chickens could still be seen in the yard.

The tenant, Melanie Moore, said she's not the slob, and blamed the property's owner, Gene Slade.

The county constable sent in the dump trucks that hauled off two loads of stuff to the landfill at Slade's expense. But he also had some fingerpointing to do, and blamed Moore for the mess.

"I have already spent about $3,000 of my own money and it looks like I am going to have to spend another $2,000 or $3,000 to have all this hauled to the dump," Slade said.

He said he was forced to evict the renters because they turned the home into a junkyard and stopped paying rent.

"I just want to warn people about renting property [and] to be sure they do a strict background check before renting their property, because this could happen to them," Slade said.

But Moore contends that she stopped paying the rent after the owner refused to fix up the place.

"I told my husband I am not going to live in this man," Moore said.

She said the house has no sewer system or septic tank. Instead, she said there is just a big hole in the ground.

She also said the home is falling apart in general and should be condemned.

"I don't want to live here—period," she said. "It has made me sick and it's made my animals sick. I've had to take my dogs to my mom's. It's unhealthy."

While Slade said Moore's junk was making the place and the neighborhood look bad, Moore said she was collecting things to open a thrift store.

Either way, many neighbors said they were glad to see the unsightly mess hauled away.

Image
WFAA ABC 8
The owner of the home blames the renter for the mess; the renter blames the owner.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter

rainstorm

#959 Postby rainstorm » Wed Mar 01, 2006 7:50 pm

TexasStooge wrote:Carnival dancers love their heels high

By Terry Wade

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - It isn't surprising that shoes are an obsession with the beauties who grace Brazil's Carnival parades -- they're generally the biggest things they wear below the neck.

Dancers at Carnival, the pre-Lenten bash that starts this weekend and ends on Ash Wednesday, say the higher the better for their towering heels, worn with soaring feathered headdresses and little else but glittery patches, strategically placed.

Social customs are thrown out and roles inverted during the festivities, when ordinary people dress up as royalty or in drag to celebrate before Lent, the period of repentance that lasts until Easter.

Dancers say the platform sandals, preferably with shiny straps and buckles that snake to the knee, help prevent them from tipping over and injuring their ankles while dancing the lightning-quick gyrations of the samba.

"Platforms are safer," said Iris Sol, 28, a dancer for the drum section of the Barroca Zona Sul samba club in Sao Paulo.

"I've paraded with samba troupes since I was six, but the truth is that I was dancing samba when I was born," she said.

Sandals with platform heels push body weight onto the ball of the foot, where the samba is danced. Samba platforms go as high as 17 centimeters, or 6.6 inches. Heels are extra-wide.

"Platforms make women more beautiful, elegant and taller, with better posture. They help you stick out your chest and butt a bit," said Magaly Santos, 22, Sao Paulo's 2005 Carnival queen.

The culture of derrieres is so big in Brazil that GNT, a popular cable channel, produced a show about them in preparation for Carnival this year. Its title? "The National Passion."

Some Brazilians are so eager for plump backsides that they go to plastic surgeons for silicone implants.

A display of samba sandals by Fernando Pires, who designs for top dancers, included eye-catching designs like swirls of red, yellow and orange leather resembling flames, and black heels topped with lanyards of fake diamonds and pink beaded jewels.

Carnival dancers put almond oil on their feet to prevent skin from cracking and splitting. But they say blisters are inevitable during hours of late night dancing to thundering drums.

"It hurts. You get blisters and feel pain but you samba a lot because you don't want to stop," said Michele Eleuterio, 20, of the samba troupe Unidos do Peruche.


lets all do the samba!!
0 likes   

User avatar
TexasStooge
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 38127
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
Contact:

#960 Postby TexasStooge » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:50 pm

Ohio Couple Tie the Knot at McDonald's

FAIRBORN, Ohio (AP) - Do you take this man, and do you want fries with that? A couple decided to get married under the golden arches, as customers continued to place their orders for Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets.

Trisha Lynn Esteppe and Tyree Henderson exchanged their vows on Monday at the McDonald's in Fairborn where they work together and met three years ago.

Esteppe said she couldn't imagine a more romantic spot for their wedding. The couple walked down a white aisle laid on the restaurant's floor and had a traditional ceremony, not far from the counter.

They were married by the Reverend James Hartman, who said his first fast-food wedding was "just wonderful."
Last edited by TexasStooge on Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
0 likes   
Weather Enthusiast since 1991.
- Facebook
- Twitter


Return to “Off Topic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests