By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Imaginary Friend Writer
NEW YORK - There's nobody nice on this Christmas list: snowman stabbers, Grinch snatchers, wreath-robbing weasels. 'Tis the season for strange crimes by even stranger people, with police blotters expanding faster than a 6-year-old's wish list of gifts.
David Allen Rodgers, 42, was arrested Dec. 3 for driving while intoxicated at the wheel of a float during the annual Christmas parade in Anderson, S.C. According to witnesses, Rodgers sped down Main Street in the Steppin' Out Dance Studio float with 19 people aboard, ran a red light and led police on a 3-mile chase.
Police said that when Rodgers finally stopped, they found an open container of alcohol in his truck. "I made a very bad judgment on my part," Rodgers said at a court hearing.
In Chicago, 32 plastic baby Jesus dolls were stolen from nativity scenes set up in people's front yards. The kidnappers then lined up all the dolls along the fence outside a Chicago woman's home; she rounded them up and turned them over to her parish priest.
Similar creche crimes occurred in 35 cities from Fayateville, N.C., to Mission Viejo, Calif., according to The Catholic League, which tracks nativity vandalism.
In Houghton, Mich., somebody stole an inflatable Grinch from outside an apartment complex. That was just one instance in the area's rash of seasonal thievery: Two brown plastic reindeer, a baby Jesus statue and several wreaths were also stolen.
In Ohio's Hamilton County, a pair of 18-year-olds were arrested for using screwdrivers to stab an inflatable 12-foot-tall Frosty the Snowman. "Why me?" asked Frosty's owner, Matt Williquette. "And why Frosty?"
The snowman had survived two previous stabbing attacks.
Two other local teens were arrested in an unrelated incident where they allegedly smashed a car with a large decorative candy cane, causing $1,000 worth of damage.
An Oklahoma woman was arrested after she visited the Delaware County Jail with a Christmas card for her incarcerated boyfriend. Police said the card held marijuana, leading to Dawn Smith's arrest.
A real-life Grinch in Yonkers, N.Y., made off with $14,000 in staff bonuses and money from the office safe during a Christmas party, police said. Daniel Rios, 38, spent $7,500 in cash but returned about $6,500 in checks, authorities said.
And then there's the case of the Santa Claus kidnapping.
A motorcycle-riding Santa Claus with a stuffed Rudolph in his sidecar was arrested after allegedly grabbing an 8-year-old girl from outside a South Carolina convenience store. John Michael Barton, 55, was in his Claus outfit filling his bike with gas when the girl's family stopped by the store.
The girl's father then saw Barton speeding off with her. After a chase at speeds of up to 80 mph, Barton pulled over his motorcycle and turned over the girl, police said.
ELYRIA Muslims from a local mosque say they feel betrayed after one of their own was accused of robbing a mother and son in Westlake.
Abdul Bari was one of five acting imams who led sermons at the Masjid al-Madinah mosque on Reid Avenue in Lorain, said Mahmoud Al Tabbaa, one of the mosques board members. An imam is anyone who leads prayer services in the Muslim religion, but who must exhibit a wealth of knowledge about Islam and piety, he said.
Bari, 40, of Elyria was in contention to become the official imam of the mosque, who would lead all services and be paid. He was well-liked among the congregation comprised of about 40 families because he was fluent in Arabic, Pakistani and English, and he was very intelligent. He seemed perfect in every way, said Sam Shannawi, 40, one of the congregants.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
...Man, things really HAVE changed back home - when we moved to Lorain in '65, it was all solidly Italian, when I left in '77 it was mostly Puerto Rican...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/24/2006 7:27 Comments ||
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#2
"Man, things really HAVE changed back home." Sorry. The neighborhood ain't what it used to be.
#3
Since life is full circle, there is hope for Lorain in the future.
Posted by: Art ||
12/24/2006 10:00 Comments ||
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#4
Were Muslims. (The congregants) trusted him, thats what we do, Shearson said. Were not suspicious of each other.
We noticed. Believe me, we noticed.
We let someone slip in that we didnt check fully, said Ephraim Bahar, 60, another board member. Now we are the victim.
Of course. You're a Muslim; the very word means "victim".
He said people in the congregation were afraid to attend Friday services and children were afraid of an anti-Muslim backlash at school.
Of course they are! Not so worried about making sure the fellow leading you in prayers isn't a career criminal, but when he goes out an robs people, well, then you worry about what might happen to YOU.
Asshats.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/24/2006 11:19 Comments ||
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I'd heard of this, but had no idea how popular it is.
Blizzard fails to derail NORAD Tracks Santa operations
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. - Despite being pounded by the Holiday Blizzard of 2006, North American Aerospace Defense Command remains on alert for the nation and ready to track Santa Claus, according to NORAD officials.
NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center is schedule to begin operations as scheduled at 2 a.m. Christmas Eve, said Michael Perini, Director of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command Public Affairs.
More than 800 Santa tracking volunteers will cycle through the center answering telephone calls and e-mails from children around the world wanting to get a fix on Santa Claus whereabouts.
In 2005, the volunteers at the Operations Center received 563,452 telephone calls and 103,156 emails from children around the world, Perini said.
The NORAD Tracks Santa Web site, www.noradsanta.org, went live Nov. 17 and has already garnered an amazing 48,695,357 page views. Last year the site received 907,958,865 page views from 204 countries and territories around the world.
Beginning at 2:00 a.m. MST on December 24, the Web site will provide minute-by-minute updates on Santas journey around the world.
A toll free number is also available at 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) for children to call and personally speak to a Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve.
Broadcast Media Note: top-and bottom-of-the-hour audio updates for broadcast are available at: www.noradsanta.org/media/2006/audio. (in .MP3 format)
#1
It's very cool - I remember as a kid watching the radar track on a black-n-white TV at Grandma's in Fallon, NV. I don't think LA or San Diego TV ever showed it...
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/24/2006 11:54 Comments ||
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Golly, I hope they won't shoot him down. Hey, guys, he's no threat, really, let him be, and that goes too for that Rudolph guy.
#3
By the time, any chance they could give me an holler when Santa comes to visit me? I have ordered adult toys on the internet, and so far, nothing has arrived yet, and I really, really need my penis pump/vaccuum developer if I am to eventually start a career in gay porn. Thanks in advance.
#4
Interestingly, this started when a local department store published an ad inviting children to call to find where Santa was. There was a typo, and the phone number in the ad was that of NORAD's predecessor agency. When the agency got calls from children asking where Santa was, a quick-thinking officer started providing offical reports, and they maintained the custom ever since.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/24/2006 16:16 Comments ||
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I had never heard that Eric, what an interesting story. Quirky traditions are the spice of life.
In 1955, a Colorado Springs-based Sears store ran an advertisement encouraging children to call Santa Claus on a special telephone hotline. Due to a printing error, the phone number that was printed was the hotline for the Director of Operations at the Continental Air Defense (CONAD). Colonel Harry Shoup took the first Santa call on Christmas Eve of 1955 from a six-year old boy who began reciting his Christmas list. Shoup didn't find the call funny, but after asking the mother of the second caller what was happening, then realizing the mistake that occurred, he instructed his staff to give Santa's position to any child who called in[1].
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/24/2006 21:36 Comments ||
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*sniff* I was that first caller. Shoup crushed me. After decades of self-medicated therapy I've finally found peace. The experiences made me stronger. In that roundabout way I want to thank CONAD, GONAD, NORAD, and modern lithium-based pharmaceuticals for making me such a nice motherfucker.
#1
One of the fun things in Asia is the food. If you can get past what animal it is, usually it ain't so bad. I only had two hard and fast rules, it had to be cooked and no bugs!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/24/2006 10:45 Comments ||
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Merry Christmas everyone. It's 4AM on Christmas Day here.
On the subject of unusual Christmas fare. I once spent Christmas day in a Dayak Longhouse in the interior of Borneo. Woken by the sound of squealing pigs being slaughtered. Every family (there were about 40 in the longhouse) had a pig in a cage out the back (BTW everything is on stilts 20 feet above the ground). Pigs are cut up and roasted in pit fires. Men sit around fire scorching pieces of fatty pig skin as a breakfast snack washed down with Arak. Insisted I join them. None of them spoke English and it's real hard to politely refuse when you don't have a language in common (our Dayak speaking guide wasn't around for some reason).
I put aside my fear of parasites and managed to get some of the almost raw pig skin and fat down with plenty of Arak as a lubricant.
#4
For 25 years our little tradition was to catch our own Christmas dinner. We were always camping out in the bush, so usually we would catch some fish, or I would shoot some rabbits.
LOS ANGELES, Dec 20 (Rooters Life!) - A woman sent her one-month-old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport, security officials said on Wednesday. The woman, who spoke little English and was traveling to Mexico, put the infant in a plastic bin used to hold loose carry-on items for security scanning at the busy airport on Saturday morning.
Security screeners saw the baby as it started to pass through, pulled the bin out, and immediately sought medical assistance for the child, Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nico Melendez said. The baby was examined at a local hospital and judged not to have received a dangerous dose of radiation, bar that glow-in-the-dark side effect, which will only add to the Christmas atmosphere.
"The lady obviously mistakenly put the baby in the machine. It was an unfortunate incident," Melendez said. "She's just a little bit stoopid, what can you do about it?"
Airport officials said it was an innocent mistake by an inexperienced traveler and only the second such incident there since 1988, when a baby in a car seat went through an X-ray scanner and emerged as a green muscle-bound giant.
Jakarta chef hopes his creation will catch on overseas
Singapore - The Electric New Paper - December 24, 2006 (AFP)You need a million rupiah ($170) in spare change if you want to try this luxury creation from Mr Vindex Tengker, the executive chef with the Four Seasons Hotel in Indonesia.
The 200g burger is made from Japanese Kobe beef with wasabi mayonnaise and Italian portobello mushrooms, in a homemade onion-wheat bun. It is served with Asian pear and French foie gras.
That's only .44 lbs.
And of course, no burger meal would be complete without French fries and a drink - in this case, a glass of wine.
Even though the meal doesn't come with a toy, it has proved popular with diners in the one month since it was put on the menu. They have sold at least 20 burgers already.
Sex sells. Skinny-assed Paris Hilton bumped sales for Carl's Jr big-time. Mebbe Chef Tengker will consider adding some skin...
Mr Tengker said: 'The idea is not that we are selling the most expensive hamburger. It is our dream to marry the East and the West through food.
'Asians have developed a love for food. They appreciate the variety we offer. We had a local couple dining here and the man ordered the hamburger for his girlfriend.'
Now, he hopes it will catch on abroad.
'Of course when you start something new, there will be doubts. But those who appreciate food will pay for the hamburger,' he added.
Carl's Jr usedta have a Portobello Mushroom Burger. ~.5 lbs. of 100% Angus beef. $4.59.
Kobe beef comes from the ancient Japanese wagyu black cattle breed, which receive a daily massage and are fed hefty quantities of sake and beer mash, the theory being that relaxed cows make good beef.
Closer to home, Uberburger at Millenia Walk sells a $101 burger, packed with a 180g wagyu beef patty, seared foie gras, truffle cream sauce and salad greens tossed in a champagne dressing.
But Four Seasons Singapore's One-Ninety restaurant probably has the most expensive sandwich here - tuna toro slices, Alaskan king crab, Oscietra caviar and Matsutake mushrooms between slices of homemade lemon brioche - for just $268.
#1
Makes me real glad I already know how to cook. Too much of this nouvelle cuisine crap is different solely for the sake of being different, not because of any intrinsic and unique flavor harmonies or subtle new tastes. You have to be one jaded SOB to plunk down a day's pay for a stinking burger.
Want to try a sandwich with loads of flavor and one that you can get at the local deli? Mix bloody rare roast beef with smoked turkey on dark rye, heavy on the Mayonnaise and mustard with Cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and light onions plus a schmear of horseradish. Some pepperoncinis plus potato chips on the side with a Vernor's ginger ale to drink and you'll be in hog heaven. What's more is that you'll pay less than ten frogskins for the whole meal.
#2
Want to try a sandwich with loads of flavor and one that you can get at the local deli? Mix bloody rare roast beef with smoked turkey on dark rye, heavy on the Mayonnaise and mustard with Cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and light onions plus a schmear of horseradish. Some pepperoncinis plus potato chips on the side with a Vernor's ginger ale to drink and you'll be in hog heaven. What's more is that you'll pay less than ten frogskins for the whole meal.
damn Zen!, gettin a food jones now. can't wait till Xmas, 11.5 lb boneless marbled rib-eye roast with secrete wiskey/cran crust, turkey w/trimmings and orange duck.
and No I will not be cooking thank you, the girlz will and they do better work!
#3
Dozens of raw oysters, medium rare venison tenderloins, green bean casserole with the crunchy onions, a good strong DOMESTIC red, and my wife's chocolate-bourbon pecan pie.
Merry Christmas!
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/24/2006 7:58 Comments ||
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Dang Z. I've got the sirloin tip in the fridge, gonna try that one.
#5
Herbed roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, w/roast brussel-sprouts on the side, streuseled sweet potatoes with dried fruit, mashed potatoes.... by Christmas we are usually so sick of turkey that we have practically anything else.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/24/2006 10:28 Comments ||
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#9
Ok... but you might have to park in the street. The garage is full of Blondie's stuff, and our own cars take up all the driveway!
(Little primrose-colored house with xerioscaping, in the middle of the block. Don't mind the dogs. Or the cats.)
#10
Lookin' at a Coca-Cola glazed shank of hickory smoked ham with house-style horseradish sauce, scratch garlic mashed potatoes, tossed salad with homemade Green Goddess dressing, creamed cabbage and some cherry pie for dessert!
PS: Please do try the sandwich recipe. I left out mention of a Claussen's dill pickle on the side. Don't substitute any of the ingredients (although smoked Cheddar is good). The black rye bread is essential for the overall flavor. I promise, you'll be hooked.
#11
Roast brussel-sprouts, I think I'll try that today. Thanks for the idea Sgt Mom.
BTW, stir fried chopped BS with green onion, garlic and soy is really good. For some reason it eliminates that Brussel Sprout taste, which I personally like but many don't.
#12
it eliminates that Brussel Sprout taste, which I personally like but many don't.
I have found that the majority of the time when people complain about a chlorine aftertaste (it is actually a form of mustard flavor, like all brassicae plants), it is because they are eating overgrown specimens.
For a real changeup, please try purchasing Brussel sprouts no larger than the end of your thumb. Peel off the first two or four outer leaves to arrive at a clean product and then cut away a few millimeters of the stem to eliminate any wood.
Boil or steam these morsels very briefly. I like to add a pat or two of butter to the cooking water. Overcooking tends to highlight the mustard flavor, just as with cabbage. In reality, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Swiss chard, bok choy, nampa cabbage, collard greens, turnip, rutabaga and mustard are all derived from the same plant which has undergone extensive selective breeding by humans over several millennia.
Just give him a dagger and a jug of mead - he'll take care of it like DeNiro did in Ronin.
SUN VALLEY, IDAHO - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly hospitalized Saturday after suffering a leg fracture that will require surgery. The injury occurred while he was skiing on a family holiday in Sun Valley, Idaho, the governor's office said Saturday night.
Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's deputy chief of staff for communications, issued a statement saying that the governor suffered a fracture to his right femur, the thigh bone.
"After the accident, the governor was taken to a local hospital for X-rays and was soon discharged,'' Mendelsohn said in his statement. "He is currently at his home in Sun Valley, Idaho, with his family. When the governor returns to Los Angeles from his scheduled Christmas trip, he will have surgery to repair his femur. No one else was involved in the skiing accident."
More details regarding the incident, including whom the governor was skiing with and whether the injury took place on or off trails, were unavailable Saturday night. He did not require a cast.
Was he with that "hot" Latino chick? Oh, wait - it was a family thingy. Nevermind, lol.
The thigh injury was not considered serious, and Schwarzenegger will return to work as planned after Christmas to work with legislators on a number of pressing issues -- including health care -- before his State of the State address, his staff said.
Walk it off, Gov. Rub some dirt on it.
This isn't the first time the California governor's active lifestyle has resulted in minor injuries and even hospitalizations that have made headlines.
Nearly a year ago, the California governor needed 15 stitches to repair a cut lip after another driver backed into the street as he was riding his Harley-Davidson in Los Angeles with his son, Patrick, then 12.
Banged up a Harley? Driver shoulda got the Death Penalty.
suffered a fracture to his right femur. After the accident, the governor was taken to a local hospital for X-rays and was soon discharged.
Must've been a hairline fracture; the femur fractures I've seen don't get discharged from the hospital in a couple of hours, and did require a cast, and couldn't wait until after vacation to get fixed.
This is weird. Maybe Dr. Steve has thoughts...?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/24/2006 10:38 Comments ||
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Some governor. That's what he gets for leaving the state to go skiing. What's the matter with Squaw Valley or Bear Mountain?
Let 'em try to take Chicago. We got poo-lice officers with baby blue helmets and night sticks ...
MURPHYSBORO, Ill. -- For years, Lloyd Nelson laughed off as myth reports that armadillos -- those armored, football-sized critters with the big claws and bigger nose -- had waddled their way into southern Illinois, the same place folks say they've seen cougars.
Folks weren't fibbing about the mountain lions. Nelson knows now they weren't joshing about armadillos, either.
Since his run-in with an armadillo that was turning a woman's flower bed into a crater near here three years ago, the Jackson County animal-control chief says he's logged in this county alone 13 sightings of the stubby-legged kin to sloths and anteaters. Most were dead as doornails along roads -- the leathery animals with poor vision are no match against highway traffic.
"We've had armadillos killed on the road just about every year" since 2003, says Nelson, reflecting what wildlife specialists say is ample evidence that the creatures with the pencil-thin tail are nudging their way northward from their southern U.S. climes.
"We've got them in Nebraska; that's as far north as we have any records," said Lynn Robbins, a biology professor at Missouri State University. "They're adapting, filling in so many places."
Continued on Page 49
#4
Back in the early '80's, the Texas Lone Star Beer Company had a hilarious series of TV advertisements featuring a giant armadillo with a penchant for Lone Star Beer.
In one such advert, they showed a Lone Star semi-truck that looked like it had been torn apart by Godzilla, with a shaken truck driver being interviewed by a highway patrolman.
Another was a Casablanca parody, at an airport, where the pilot of a crop duster was preparing to fly an emergency shipment of Lone Star beer, telling his girlfriend that, "This beer just has to get through. Or I won't get paid!"
Germany, warned five years ago by the European Union to revive its field hamster population, has brought a French pair of the rodents to get busy in a hamster-decmiated eastern state.
And no one knows rodents like the French ...
European hamsters are larger than the breeds of hamster normally sold as pets.
"And they have huge .. teeth .."
This week, officials cleared the final bureaucratic hurdles for a pair of field hamsters from France immigrate to a region of the German countryside around Berlin where their kind had gone extinct.
"Papers please!"
"Oh dear, I seem to have left mine on the bottom of my cage ..."
Biologists hope the population of European, or black-bellied hamsters, which used to be common from Belgium to the steppes of western China, will rebound in Germany. Previously, the hamsters were kept at the Heidelberg Zoo in western Germany, but on Thursday they were to be released in the Prignitz district of the the eastern German state of Brandenburg, where the species had disappeared.
And if they have any sense they'll high-tail it again.
They won't live in the wild, but at a "hamster protection station," where they're expected to breed and establish a new German community of European hamsters.
"I'm telling you, Gretel, this is the good life! We eat, sleep, breed; eat, sleep, breed ..."
"Gøød for you, ja Hansel, but I'm the one carrying a litter of sixteen every other month!"
The European Commission reprimanded Germany in 2001 for letting farms and development threaten the hamsters' natural habitat. The hamster population is one indicator of a countryside's health, according to Rudolf Scholz, head of the local Forest Protection Service.
Rudolf's got a sweet gig going here and he'll not allow anyone to tamper with it ...
He told the Märkische Allgemeine newspaper that the last European hamster to be seen in Prignitz was in 1986. Before then the animal was common in eastern Germany, indeed there were millions, but industrialization of farms under Communism took its toll.
Since the peasants had nothing else to eat but ...
European hamsters (cricetus cricetus) can grow up to 32cm (12 inches) long, bringing them closer to the size of guinea pigs than the hamsters normally sold as pets. They also have large cheek pouches, which they fill with air while they swim.
Da-yum, they're just like rats. In fact they are rats!
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Willingly release docked rats into the wild to collapse exactly what part of the existing food chain that is thriving without them? Yes, I know that rodents are an important part of raptor and small carnivorous mammal diets, but was this thought through with anything resembling some sort of thoroughness? Look at what the EU did to Europe rabbits did to Australia.
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 8:20 Comments ||
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#6
Ima slightly offended. In my college days, our fraternity team was the Rodents, and we made a lot of money selling all manner of t-shirts and shorts with our name on them - in fact, Rodentia sales paid for a lot of my textbooks
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/24/2006 8:51 Comments ||
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"The hamster population is one indicator of a countryside's health, according to Rudolf Scholz, head of the local Forest Protection Service."
Another indicator is GDP.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
12/24/2006 9:37 Comments ||
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#8
Yum yum, the Feral Cats Committee* wishes to thank the Brussels bureaucrats who came up with this brilliant idea.
* soon to be known as the Fat Cats of Germany
#9
Another indicator of what PC politicians do with their time. While the world walks the plank about to plunge into WW3, PC EU crats get touchy over fuzzy pets.
Advanced lunacy.
If Jesus was reborn in Europe, could he shoot his way out in time to make a difference ?
No history of drug use, drunk driving arrests or misdemeanors, either.
SAN FRANCISCO - A 350-pound Siberian tiger that mauled an experienced San Francisco Zoo keeper so badly she could lose her arm had no history of violence, prompting an investigation into what led to the vicious attack.
The tiger would likely remain on view Saturday, zoo officials said, even as the woman underwent emergency surgery to save her lacerated limb.
At least 50 visitors were at the zoos big cat exhibit, called the Lion House, when the tiger, Tatiana, reached through her cages iron bars and grabbed the keeper Friday afternoon, said Robert Jenkins, the zoos director of animal care. Were still trying to figure out what happened and why it happened, Jenkins said.
Tiger reached through the cage and grabbed a two-legged lunch. Not so hard.
The woman was rushed into surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and remained hospitalized Friday night. Her family requested that details of her condition not be released at this time, zoo and hospital officials said. My understanding is the injuries are not life-threatening, but perhaps limb-threatening, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said.
The trainer has been an animal keeper at the zoo since 1997. Her main job is taking care of the zoos four lions and three tigers, Jenkins said.
The attack happened during a regular 2 p.m. public feeding, during which keepers typically deliver a meal of fortified horse meat through a small slot. No matter how familiar you get with these animals, theyre still wild animals, Jenkins said. You have to have a healthy respect for them and be aware of what can happen.
Reeeeeeaaallllly?
The 3-year-old tiger arrived at the San Francisco Zoo from the Denver Zoo more than a year ago. There were no previous incidents of aggression against humans involving Tatiana, said Ana Bowie, a Denver Zoo spokeswoman.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Even the most hardened professional criminal was a First Offender once.
#2
The hilarious part of feeding time at the big cats' house is watching the expectant crowd jam right up to the railing to get a close peek at these gorgeous beasts.
More seasoned zoo-goers know damn well to perch on the opposite railing across the walkway. You get a good view over the crowd's head and aren't at the head of the line for when the cat's arrive.
The first thing one or two of the female tigers do is whip their butts around and cut loose with a nice garden hose spray of extra-ripe tiger urine into the onlookers' faces.
#5
Do you mean tigers can be sometimes aggressive, or even dangerous, and can kill other living beings? I never thought of that, but then again, my formative experience with tigers was watching Disney's Winnie the pooh.
#7
I knew an unemployed young man who admitted one time that he had always fantasized about working with big cats as a great career. So I asked him why didn't he go to the local zoo and see if he could get work there?
It took me two weeks to convince him to give it a go. But when he showed up and asked for an application, they were going to give him one when he mentioned that he wanted to work with big cats.
They practically dragged him inside and gave him an interview on the spot--and hired him before he had even finished filling out the form.
Within a few months, he was the senior big cat man at the zoo. But a little over six months after he was hired, he got a job offer from Las Vegas at several times his current pay. Any experience at all and you could get the big bucks.
I don't want to nitpick, but IIRC what I've read and watched, human meat tastes like pork, and is actually a white meat. But, what the hell, tigers aren't discriminating, red, white, as long as it is fresh and tasty, it's ok.
#12
A nice SA Tesco Merlot might be the ticket. Goes well with ribs, steaks or roasts. It's a bit pricey at around R240 per case as I recall, but worth the outlay.
#14
Wine experts have changed the official doctrine so that the proper wine to have with food is the one you like.
However, I gather the Argentinians are now producing some superb wines, if any have gotten through yet, as the wine lovers grab them all before they can make it to the shelves.
#15
I don't want to nitpick, but IIRC what I've read and watched, human meat tastes like pork, and is actually a white meat.
Burnt humans do indeed smell like burnt pork roast, it's the high fat content of human flesh that causes it. I can't comment on what we taste like. Domesticated swine raised for the market are specially bred to be lean(er) and the flesh pale.
Wild swine have flesh that is dark red in color. Human flesh is red, don't believe it, cut yourself open and have a look. ;-)
#17
Wild swine have flesh that is dark red in color. Human flesh is red, don't believe it, cut yourself open and have a look. ;-)
I dunno, my own flesh is very spongious, and looks very funny, not enough exercise and too much junk food; in fact, when I press a finger on it, the mark stays for days, and I can go deep too, up to third knuckle without pushing too much (otherwise, the skin ruptures, and some kind of yellow fat oozes out of the wound, smells like used frying oil, and there seems to be lots of fibers in it. I think that might be my blood).
All in all, I'm not really sure my inside is red, when I cut myself, all I see is this, and some mutliple layers of unhealthy tissues, of uncertain color, but not red, I'll tell you that.
(SomaliNet) Ugandas president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, had an affair with the wife of opposition leader, Rtd Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, the opposition leader has confirmed. However, Besigye denies that this is behind all the rivalry between the two. "Yes, they had a relationship but I do not consider that this relationship has a connection with his relationship with me. What Museveni does to me, he can do it to anybody else who opposes him," Besigye told dpa.
Mueveni supposedly had an affair with Besigyes wife during the bush war that saw Museveni rise to the profile of president. Besigye was Musevenis personal doctor then. Dpa also spoke to Wafula Oguttu, the spokesperson of the Besigye led party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), who confirmed the affair news. "Museveni still loves Winnie (Besigyes wife). He has never given up on her up to this day. I think Museveni has a negative attitude against Besigye because of Winnie, he said.
Oguttu added that Museveni had many mistresses but Winnie stood out of the crowd when she left him. Besigye has contested twice for Ugandas presidency and has lost in both instances. He was accompanied by his wife on his campaign trail. Winnie Byanyima is an outspoken lady wo once threatened to reveal secrets about Museveni if he did not leave her husband alone. Winnie and Besigye have one son, Anselm.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2006 00:37 ||
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Nearly one in four marriages in the conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends in divorce, a newspaper quoted the Justice Ministry as saying on Saturday.
For 105,066 marriage contracts registered in 2005, 24,000 divorce cases were recorded by the ministry, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said, quoting a ministry report. Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment but the statistics come amid intense debate over the surge in divorce rates in the birthplace of Islam.
The High Court in the Red Sea port of Jeddah said earlier this year divorce rates in the city had risen by 60 percent over the last two years against 39 percent in the capital Riyadh and 18 percent in the Eastern Province, home to a Shia minority. Saudi Arabia, which follows an austere form of Sunni Islam, allows men to repudiate their wives. It is impossible to have healthy relationships in Saudi Arabia. The laws have given men full authority while women are deprived of their rights and freedom, rights activist Wajiha al-Howeidar said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"One in four Saudi marriages end in divorce"
So that means, on average, every Saudi man divorces one wife.
#2
exJAG, not every Soddy gets married. About 25% get 4 wives. They divorce one, thus enabling another 6.25% to have a wife at all. Due to the fact that there is about 48+% to 51+% natural male to female distribution, another 1% may get lucky and get a wife. The rest, 67.75% of Soddy males are destined to a lifelong bachelorate.
#5
They're all daisy chaining each other. I saw it on the deck of a bulk carrier in Sudan (yes, I know it wasn't SA but the religion was the same). Sick f***s, the lot of them. If you aren't a rich, or at least up-and-coming guy in SA, you better get prepared for a life of buggery. And, as the saying goes, if you'll pitch, you'll catch.
Posted by: mac ||
12/24/2006 5:34 Comments ||
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#6
Whahahaha Mac! If I had a pint, I'd lift it to ya mate.
#7
Muslim divorce? The male says "Talaq" 3 times, and its done. For females it takes years. And men get custody of children, although they usually abandon them.
#8
So what happens to the ex-wives? I know some of them end up on Divorcee' Street, doing who knows what to support themselves, but do the rest get sent back home to Daddy? And then what -- a less prestigious marriage, because they're used goods?
#9
TW, we know EXACTLY what they're doing on the Street of Divorced Women to support themselves. Some of the lucky ones who came from a family that can afford to take them back, and which doesn't blame the woman for the breakup, will do so. They have a refuge. Almost all the rest end up prostitutes.
Women in SA have a miserable existence and it's pretty well documented, which is why I can't understand ANY woman here in the West taking up with the death cult. It's like seeing American blacks volunteering for the reinstitution of slavery; mind-bogglingly surreal.
Posted by: mac ||
12/24/2006 14:41 Comments ||
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Bono to Receive Honorary Knighthood
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Irish rocker and humanitarian Bono will become a knight of the British empire - but the U2 frontman won't be called "Sir."
Britain confirmed Saturday Bono will receive his honorary knighthood from the British ambassador to Ireland, David Reddaway, in a Dublin ceremony shortly after New Year's Day. The Dubliner, whose real name is Paul Hewson, won't be entitled to use the title "Sir" because he is not a national of Britain or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. A spokesman said the 46-year-old singer was flattered by the honor and hoped it will help him open diplomatic doors in his campaign for more Western aid to Africa.
In a letter to Bono released Saturday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the singer's lobbying had forced wealthy nations to focus on increasing aid to Africa. "I know from talking to you how much these causes matter to you," Blair wrote. "I know as well how knowledgeable you are about the problems we face and how determined you are to do all you can to help overcome them. You have tirelessly used your voice to speak up for Africa." Blair said he hoped to keep working with Bono "to work together to maintain momentum on Africa, and ensure leaders around the world meet the promises they have made."
The British Embassy in Dublin said the Irish government approved granting Bono the title. The issue is diplomatically sensitive, because Irish officials are legally barred from receiving British royal honors and other Irish nationals have refused nominations on political grounds. Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1949.
Hi folks: It's arise Sir Bono
In the centuries-old history of the British honours system, it will go down as the most extraordinary way a knighthood has ever been announced. The official notification revealing that Tony Blair had awarded an honorary knighthood to his friend, rock star Bono, lead singer of U2, came in an email which began: "Hi folks."
As well as being announced by the British Embassy in Bono's home town of Dublin, the news was also released on the Downing Street website - and Bono's own website. The way the news was broken immediately came under fire from MPs on all sides, who claimed it was final proof of the way Mr Blair has manipulated the honours system for cynical political purposes.
The timing of the announcement was also criticised, coming a week ahead of other similar awards in the New Year's Honours.
more at the link
Snobbery, sycophancy...and Sir Dog Biscuit KBE
So Mr Dog Biscuit, the man who is so famous and wonderful that he doesn't have to have a real name, is now to become Sir Dog Biscuit KBE.
What an episode of snobbery and sycophancy this is.
A whole generation, which likes to tell itself that it is devoted to equality and rejects the hierarchies of the past, falls to its knees and licks the shoes of the new aristocracy of fame and cool.
Is there any real distinction between the old bowing and simpering to landed gentry, and the new deference paid to the nobles of rock?
The interesting thing is, who is supposed to benefit from this parody of honour? Who is sucking up to whom?
It is hard to see why Mr Paul Hewson, a right-on citizen of a Republic that rejected the British Crown and stormed out of the British Empire, should even want to belong to the Order of the British Empire, let alone be a Knight Commander of it.
WITH its horse-drawn buggies, farmhouses with manicured lawns and fields planted to the horizon with soya beans and sorghum, the Mennonite settlement at Manitoba in Bolivia's eastern lowlands feels like a tropical version of rural Ohio or Pennsylvania.
That placid impression lasts until farmers start talking about their fears of President Evo Morales' plans for land reform. One year into an administration that intends to reverse centuries of subjugation of Bolivia's indigenous majority, Morales intends to redistribute as many as 48 million acres of land, considered idle or ill-gotten, through opaque purchase agreements, to hundreds of thousands of peasants. The project won approval last month in Congress, and thousands of Morales' supporters marched in La Paz, the capital, in celebration. But it has shaken Manitoba and Bolivia's 41 other Mennonite farming communities. "I read [the newspaper] El Deber - I know what's taking place in this country," said 22-year-old Gerardo Martens. "We simply want to know what will happen to us and our land."
Mennonites have carved new settlements out of the thick jungle of eastern Bolivia for more than 40 years, helping to create an agricultural frontier. Multinational companies rely on their soya bean and sunflower harvests to produce cooking oils and animal feed. These exports have transformed Bolivia's 40,000 Mennonites into relatively prosperous landowners. The German-speaking Mennonites trace their origins to the 16th century, with their name and beliefs derived from a Dutch Protestant reformist, Menno Simons. They migrated earlier to Russia, the United States, Canada, Belize and Mexico, and then some went to Bolivia, for the farming opportunities and religious freedom. While the degree of observance of Mennonite customs varies in each of these colonies, as they call them, the 2,500 people in Manitoba stitch their own clothing. They also eschew cars, electricity for their homes and rubber tyres for their tractors. Their only schooling is the study of scripture and other subjects in German until the age of 12.
Their families tend to be large, often with six to 12 children. With family farms generally limited to about 100 acres, population growth inevitably pushes families to search for new land to settle. This practice, often in areas where land titles are of murky provenance, is the main source of the Mennonites' concern about the government's plans. Farmers in Manitoba and nearby Chihuahua shuddered when speaking of the situation in El Cariño, a community more than six hours to the north where squatters have tried to occupy Mennonite farmland.
"We're fine because the title to our land is clear," said Franz Schmidt, an attendant at the bustling general store in Chihuahua. "But those people on the margins are the ones we're worrying about."
The Mennonites are Bolivian citizens, but generally avoid any involvement in politics. "We try not to say anything negative about the decisions made at the presidential palace," Martens said haltingly in German-accented Spanish. "We're afraid of being expelled from Bolivia." While details of Morales' land programme remain vague, the main thrust of the proposal would require its beneficiaries, though not current landowners, to own land on a communal instead of individual basis. In Manitoba, farms are owned by single families. A previous government tried agrarian reform in 1953, though subsequent lethargy and corruption in the distribution of land grants effectively concentrated nearly 90% of Bolivia's arable land among its wealthiest 10% of families.
When asked what the future held, one farmer, Abraham Wall, started out by describing the odyssey that brought him here. Born in northern Mexico and brought to Bolivia at the age of two by his parents, he moved from settlement to settlement before arriving in Manitoba in 1993. "Whether we stay in this spot," said Mr Wall, 40, as he was surrounded by six of his eight children, "that depends on Evo Morales."
Inside the high-security Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) off Mumbais northern fringe, nuclear scientists are designing next-generation nuclear reactors with a target lifespan of 100 years. Apsara, the oldest research reactor, turned 50 this year and reactors worldwide usually survive 40 to 60 years.
They are also currently trying to convince atomic regulatory experts that a prototype 300 MW reactor under design since the 90s can be operated, for the first time, without the mandatory protective barrier of a 1.6-km no-mans land or radiation exclusion zone.
The site search and safety review for the prototype are currently going on.
A 100-year lifespan is one of our reactor design objectives. It is achievable, Srikumar Banerjee, BARC director, told Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview. We also want to scientifically prove that the prototype reactor is safe enough not to need an exclusion zone. Advanced safety features would ensure there will be no accident or, in case of an accident, no question of atmospheric dispersion of radiation.
At a time when the India-US nuclear deal has focused attention on the potential import of nuclear reactors to power energy demands, Banerjee emphasised that BARC with over 4,000 scientists is simultaneously ensuring that indigenous effort on reactor life management, safety and economics never slackens.
Now, even coal-sufficient states like West Bengal and Jharkhand want nuclear power plants, said Banerjee, adding that nuclear power is the best sustainable alternative to avoid turning into one of the worlds worst polluting nations as electricity consumption rises. Indias huge energy demand needs additional reactors, indigenous and imported there is no
conflict.
The prototype 300 MW Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) will be the worlds first power reactor to use thorium-based fuel, with passive or automated safety features that minimise human operations. Ompal Singh, secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), said pre-licensing review of the prototype is underway. The issue of the exclusion zone will be taken up in the next detailed licensing review. Globally, nuclear scientists have similar goals for future technology.
Banerjee said the aim is to start construction during the 11th Plan period. The AHWR is totally innovative. The construction plan is ready, said Banerjee. The International Atomic Energy Agency has also given it favourable comments.
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 07:52 ||
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#1
I'm all for nuclear power.. but fellas ... keep the 1.6-km no-mans land.
Besides radiation safety, it provides a free fire zone to target jihadis who will come a calling
Posted by: john ||
12/24/2006 8:14 Comments ||
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FINALLY!
Thorium's fantastic stuff: You seed a reactor with some U-233 to start the reaction. fissioning U-233 has the highest ratio of neutrons per fission than plutonium or U-235, but the fissions take place in an energy band that renders it useless as bomb-grade material. The extra neutrons are absorbed by the thorium, which decays into MORE U-233. The whole amount of thorium is potentially fissionable. In contrast, U-238 decays to plutonium, only part of which is burned in a uranium fueled reactor.
There's more minable thorium than uranium: some asshole boosted Uranium's fraction by including the uranium suspended in sea-water to make it look more attractive.
Another one of these 'western woman tries to get her kids back after stupidly marrying Arab man who absconds with the tykes back to the homelands' story.
A MOTHER and her two young daughters were on the run last night as a former Australian soldier accused of kidnapping the girls was held in custody in Lebanon.
Melissa Hawach is understood to have hired a team of mercenaries, including Brian Corrigan, 38, to find her daughters, Hannah, five, and Cedar, three. The girls were secretly taken to Lebanon by their Sydney-based father, Joseph Hawach, in July. They were not returned home to Calgary, Canada, where they lived with their mother.
Mr Corrigan and New Zealander David Pemberton could be jailed for 15 years on charges of kidnapping minors. The pair were reportedly hauled off a plane at Beirut's international airport last Wednesday.
That close to getting away.
Their three alleged accomplices, another former Australian soldier, James Arak, and New Zealanders Simon Dunn, 33, and Michael Douglas, 40, have since fled Lebanon.
"We ain't being paid enough for this! Toodles!"
It has been claimed the men had retrieved the girls and re-united them with their mother.
The Missing Children Society of Canada, which has supported Mrs Hawach in her bid to find her daughters, insists the men are innocent. Society executive director Rhonda Morgan acknowledged the group had been monitoring the hotel where Mr Hawach was staying with his daughters in the town of Jounieh since the beginning of this month.
But it was Mrs Hawach, 32, who had gone to the hotel last Wednesday, called out to the girls and fled with them in a car, Ms Morgan said. "They came running to her. She said: 'We're going to Mummy's hotel. We'll call Daddy later,' and they left."
Western woman drives up to a hotel in the south of Lebanon, middle of a war zone, calls to the kidlings and vamoozes in a rental car. And the kiddies just happened to be outside playing in between the Hezbollah posters. Uh-huh. Sure.
Lebanese authorities are now searching for Mrs Hawach and her daughters.
Mr Hawach has been charged with two counts of abduction under Canadian law, and arrest and extradition warrants have been issued. Lebanon, however, does not classify parental abduction as a crime and refuses to honour extradition treaties.
Since all Dad was doing was returning them to the fold in their rightful place as fourth class citizens ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/24/2006 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press 
ELYRIA Muslims from a local mosque say they feel betrayed after one of their own was accused of robbing a mother and son in Westlake.
LOS ANGELES, Dec 20 (Rooters Life!) - A woman sent her one-month-old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport, security officials said on Wednesday. The woman, who spoke little English and was traveling to Mexico, put the infant in a plastic bin used to hold loose carry-on items for security scanning at the busy airport on Saturday morning.
(SomaliNet) Ugandas president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, had an affair with the wife of opposition leader, Rtd Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, the opposition leader has confirmed. However, Besigye denies that this is behind all the rivalry between the two. "Yes, they had a relationship but I do not consider that this relationship has a connection with his relationship with me. What Museveni does to me, he can do it to anybody else who opposes him," Besigye told dpa. 
Nearly one in four marriages in the conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends in divorce, a newspaper quoted the Justice Ministry as saying on Saturday. 
WITH its horse-drawn buggies, farmhouses with manicured lawns and fields planted to the horizon with soya beans and sorghum, the Mennonite settlement at Manitoba in Bolivia's eastern lowlands feels like a tropical version of rural Ohio or Pennsylvania. 
