#1
AC, Swinton has not been arrested in connection with the raid in Texas and the Rangers who searched her Colorado Springs apartment returned to Texas on Thursday. She was arrested Wednesday by Colorado Springs police on suspicion of making a hoax distress call in February that set off a futile search by dozens of officers for an injured child trapped in a basement in a neighborhood in the northeast part of the city. She was convicted recently in Castle Rock, Colorado for a false reporting incident there. In the 2005 incident in Castle Rock, Swinton allegedly called an adoption agency and police posing as a teenage mother named Jessica who wanted to give up her baby before committing suicide. Source. I thought "this woman is sick" and now you tell me she's an Obama Mama... what more can I add.
EUGENE, Ore. -- A 12-foot snake attacked a female employee of a pet store, prompting assistance from police, firefighters and emergency personnel Thursday. Sergeant Ryan Nelson had never tangled with a snake larger than a garter snake before Thursday. All that changed, however, when he responded to a 911 call at 3:41 p.m. to find a woman in a Eugene pet store completely wrapped by a 12-foot Burmese python that was slowly constricting around her, police said.
Nelson saw the woman was in grave danger and feared for her life. But as he pulled out his knife in preparation to save the woman, matters got more difficult. She pleaded with Nelson not to injure the snake.
So at risk to himself, Nelson complied and began his rescue attempt by trying to wrench the snake's mouth off of the woman's finger -- the snake had begun its attack by biting onto the woman's finger, wrapping itself around her wrist, arm then shoulder and moving toward her throat, police said.
Nelson managed to pry the snake's jaws partially off the woman's finger. A few of the snake's teeth got lodged in his thumb. Then emergency personnel used a screwdriver to free the woman's finger from the jaws of the reptile.
Nelson then put his own squeeze on the snake’s neck and was helped by fire and EMS members to unwrap the snake from the woman. Nelson then started the task of returning the snake to the cage – the entrance to which was above head level. The snake fought itself free and lunged for Nelson, but he grabbed the head again and finally wrestled it into its enclosure.
As he shut the door the angry serpent's head shot forth once more, trying to get in one last bite. The jaws met only glass. And only then did the shop owner begin to contemplate the fact that she now had a python with a bad attitude on her hands. No easy insurance settlement for you! And no customer for 100 miles around is going to do anything more than ask to look at your famous snake.
Neither the woman nor the snake was seriously injured in the ordeal, police said. For Sale: 12-foot Burmese python to a loving home. Price reduced for immediate clearance.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/19/2008 8:38 Comments ||
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#2
Here we have more applied misinformation from do-gooder TV nature shows. Internet sources report that a 15 foot python can kill an adult male within 3 minutes, by cutting off blood circulation. Screw "prying" a constrictor snake off its target; use a serrated knife to cut them horizontally. And cut them in half if necessary.
#3
Burmese Pythons, if kept properly fed (will break the bank) are usually pretty docile. I've raised two to 20 the foot mark. However, you got to watch the females, they can be a bit more cantankerous than the males.
#5
Mutual of Omaha's Marlin never would have reported this with so much enthusaim or use of action verbs; but then again Sgt. Ryan is probably not as manly as Marlin's sikekick Dave was ( Dave always got his ass kicked wrestling the sabre-toothed Anaconda, or some such, while Marlin calmly sipped his vodka daquari leaning aginst the Land Rover fender, hawking insurance....
CNN reporter Richard Quest will avoid jail despite being arrested in Central park on drug charges.
Quest, 46, was arrested early Friday morning with a small amount of methamphetamine.
The CNN International travel reporter agreed to undergo drug counseling and therapy in exchange for avoiding time behind bars.
The New York Post reports that Quest was found with a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot. The paper quotes unnamed law-enforcement sources in its report.
Quest was approached by police because he was in the park after 1 a.m., which is the official closing time for the Manhattan landmark.
The reporter is represented by Alan M. Abramson. He says his client was simply returning to his hotel with friends and didn't realize that the park had a curfew.
CNN is not commenting but its Web site said, "He has become one of the network's highest profile presenters," and his "dynamic and distinctive style has made hima unique figure in the field of business and news broadcasting."
The criminal complaint says the officer at the scene was able to ID the drug because of "his prior experience as a police officer in drug arrests, observation of packaging which is characteristic of this type of drug, and defendant's statements that . . . 'I've got some meth in my pocket.' "
President Vladimir V. Putin, who during eight years of centralized rule has kept his private life largely sealed from view behind the KremlinÂ’s walls, on Friday bluntly dismissed rumors that he had secretly divorced his wife for the affections of a gymnast less than half his age.
The moment, prompted by a question from a Russian journalist while Mr. Putin held a news conference at an Italian villa with Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister-elect of Italy, was met with the mix of relish and confrontation that Mr. Putin has often displayed in his sessions with journalists.
He paused and answered another question, and then returned to the subject and pushed back. “What you are saying has not a single word of truth,” he said.
The question followed the publication on Thursday of an unusual article in Moskovsky Korrespondent, a Moscow newspaper owned by a former Soviet intelligence officer, which said that Mr. Putin, 56, planned to marry Alina Kabayeva, 24, an Olympic gold medalist in rhythmic gymnastics who has been voted in polls as one of Russia’s most beautiful women. Interfax reported Friday evening that publication of Moskovsky Korrespondent had been suspended “for health financial reasons,” according to its parent company, National Media Company.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Moskovsky Korrespondent is in VERY poor health. It just doesn't know it yet. ;-)
#2
Divorce is an unneccesarily expensive and socially awkward prospect for someone in Putin's position; his wife could certainly just pass away of 'natural' causes.
#6
All those pics of the lovely lass and Fred chooses to use the 'flexible' one?
I'm going to have to have a talk with Ethel. Then again, maybe I'd better not ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2008 10:57 Comments ||
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#7
Miss Kabaeva isn't unusual for the rhythmic gymnastics crowd. See this for comparison. But why do these people expect President Putin to put away his wife for a mistress with a fairly short shelf life? At twenty-three or so she's already lost some of the flexibility she had a decade ago; soon she will be nothing more than one of the many, many beautiful Russian girls willing to pose for photos wearing little more than a smouldering glance.
SMOKING would be banned for everyone born next year, junk food would be taxed and everyone would be subjected to a fitness test by 2020.
By comparison, the cost of healthy food, including fruit and vegetables, would be reduced to reflect its low environmental impact and obvious health benefits.
These are just a few of the ideas from 100 of the nation's health experts who discussed the best way to combat obesity, reduce illness and promote a healthy lifestyle.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said one idea put forward in a submission was an annual national fitness test where citizens would receive a financial incentive if they pass.
Health stream participants in the 2020 summit also discussed increasing public education about how death can be a "positive experience" to avoid patients panicking when they reach hospital emergency departments.
Health participant, Meredith Sheil, a former Westmead Children's Hospital pediatrician, said many participants had suggested a ban on cigarette sales by 2020.
"A lot of the health submissions suggested a ban on smoking by 2020," she said.
"You would say, 'OK, from now on everybody born after 2008, you are not allowed to sell cigarettes (to)'."
Nutritionist Rosemary Stanton suggested increasing the cost of artificial and packaged food. "I actually think we need to price foods according to their environmental and health impact, rather than harping at people to eat this or that," she said.
"All the artificial foods would become very expensive and the healthy foods would be cheaper."
The health stream of the 2020 summit also discussed sharing patient medical records nationally, to allow a hospital in a regional area to effectively treat an inner-city patient.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma, who sat in on the health stream, said there should be a shift towards preventative health and warned that health expenditure could consume the entire State budget by 2037.
Mr Iemma listened to suggestions from participants that state health departments be scrapped and replaced by regional wellness centres.
He conceded a new approach was needed towards health and education issues, such as truancy, in each regional area as well as an increased focus on aged care.
"Hospitals in rural areas are de facto nursing homes," he said. "Another option is to have not four levels of health care, but an integrated system."
Ski champion Alisa Camplin suggested expanding the active after-school communities program to ease the burden on the health system.
"Creating a national program focused on physical activity would provide a pro-active framework for Australians to attain greater general well-being and receive preventative, rehabilitative and curative health support," Camplin wrote in her submission.
#1
"All the artificial foods would become very expensive and the healthy foods would be cheaper."
No, all the healthy foods would become more expensive as their use became mandatory...unless of course, the Government was going to fix that problem by being the one distributing the food. Please see 'Cuba' for how well THAT works.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/19/2008 16:47 Comments ||
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#2
How much would it cost you for them to leave you the fuck alone?
#5
Sounds like some "health experts" need a heaping helping of double-aught buckshot where their brains are - where most people sit down. Nanny-statism is communism in disguise, and needs to face the same type of "acceptance" - non-, never.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/19/2008 22:58 Comments ||
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Two Sami reindeer herders were narrowly missed by a falling space rocket launched from the Esrange space station in northern Sweden in the beginning of April. Saarivuoma Sami village has demanded that safety be improved.
"It was lucky that the rocket did not fall on our heads. Otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here," said one of the reindeer herders, Per Ola Blind, to news agency TT.
Saarivuoma Sami village has demanded safety improvements to ensure that there is no repeat of the incident.
"Since the NMT network was shut down at the beginning of the year we have no mobile telephone coverage in the area. Esrange can however construct telecom masts so that we can receive text messages and be forewarned when rockets are set to be launched," said Blind. OK. Then what?
Blind was out tending his flock together with a colleague on April 1st when the rocket landed barely a kilometre away with a large boom. They jumped on their snow scooters and headed off to the site to explore.
When they came to the site where the rocket had crashed into the earth they found a large crater.
The rocket was around five metres long and weighed 150 kilograms, according to Olle Norberg of Spaceport Sweden and head of Esrange.
"It was the sonic boom they heard, and I understand that they found it very disturbing. But they were not at any risk," Norberg said.
Esrange has security procedures that it follows to ensure that no reindeer herders are in the space station's landing zone. Mikael Viertotak, head of security at Esrange, assured TT that the routines were followed. "Attention reindeer herders! Attention .."
But according to Saarivuoma Sami village Esrange did not inform them.
"We should have accompanied Esrange when they scouted the area by helicopter before the launch. But we were not. They never got in touch with me," said Per-Anders Nutti, the chairperson of Saarivuoma Sami village.
Olle Norberg responded that they attempted to contact Nutti but were unable to get hold of him. "... direct to voice-mail."
The National Union of Swedish Samis (SSR) and Esrange are now holding discussions with a mobile telecoms operator as to how mobile telephone coverage can be improved in the area.
"There is complete agreement between the Sami village and us that it would be good. And we have masts in the area that could be used," said Norberg.
BANGALORE, India, April 18 -- Squeezing through the gates of a sold-out 55,000-seat cricket stadium in steamy evening heat, Hashim Kerala made no attempt to hide his reason for coming to the season's opening match: Cheerleaders. Washington Redskins cheerleaders, to be specific.
In white go-go boots, yellow spangled short shorts and bikini tops, they pompomed their way onto the field, bursting right through local notions of modesty. The result was something that few in this cricket-obsessed nation thought possible: tens of thousands of male cricket fans finding it hard to keep their eyes on the game.
"The cheerleaders are heroes in their ability to make people excited," exclaimed the merry Kerala, a 30-year-old doctor of traditional ayurvedic medicine, as friends crowded around him, cheering in agreement. "They have great spirit."
"They're the only reason I am here. I wanted to treat myself," declared Setty Bishum, 55. The crowd swept him along, but he shouted back one more observation: "It's a new era for cricket -- hooray for American cheerleaders!"
In many corners of the world, cricket is seen as slow-moving and stodgy, a vestige of British colonialism that is a cross between baseball and napping. Organizers of the newly founded Indian Premier League are hoping to drastically change that perception overseas, and bring new verve to the game for the home crowd as well.
So they've brought in 12 Redskins cheerleaders, who, in addition to performing, are mentoring a squad of Indian women. The league is also trying to win fans over to a shortened format of the game that is formally called "Twenty20," known colloquially as "cricket on crack." It condenses nearly a week of match play into three hours, with shorter "overs," which are similar to innings in baseball.
It can all be seen as a metaphor for India itself, which is growing younger, hipper and more willing to take chances, awash in cash as its economy expands at 9 percent per year.
"This is the spectacularization of the game of cricket. One-third of these people are here to see the cheerleaders," said Boria Majumdar, a sports historian and a commentator for India's TimesNow news channel. He was conducting live interviews from the stadium. "Sexuality and cricket is the way forward. And it's time India wakes up to the fact that it's a different society. It's a modern society. There's no use keeping it all under wraps."
Beer and airline billionaire Vijay Mallya, who calls himself the king of India's good times, agrees. He owns the Bangalore Royal Challengers cricket franchise and invited the Redskins cheerleaders to the game, which pitted his team, on home turf, against the Kolkata Knight Riders.
They're owned by Shah Rukh Khan, India's top movie star. His team fielded its own cheerleaders, both male and female. But their black-and-gold uniforms were much less revealing than those worn by the Americans.
The Redskins cheer choreographer, Donald Wells, said the Indian cheerleaders he's working with are already adept at shaking their hips and staying on the beat. He noticed that Indian cheerleaders were very expressive with their hands -- Indian classical dance has countless hand motions -- and joked that they probably wouldn't need pompoms.
"The Indian girls who tried out so far were so beautiful and so good, they were practically better than us," said Sharica Brown, 27, a Redskins cheerleader from Baltimore, as she snacked on a plate of nachos before the game at Bangalore's Hard Rock Cafe. Nearby, Indians in heavy-metal T-shirts downed cheeseburgers and jostled to get a glimpse of the visitors. The women said they were enjoying India and had already been filmed in a Bollywood music video. Some had also indulged in a shopping spree for sparkly Indian-designed shirts and chandelier earrings.
Jazzed-up cricket has already become a huge business. Some players are reportedly earning nearly $200,000 a week during the tournament. Sony signed a $1 billion deal for exclusive rights to film and photograph Indian Premier League games over the next 10 years. Several international news agencies, including Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, stayed away from the match Friday to protest what they consider unreasonable restrictions by Sony.
Cricket purists complain that the abbreviated version of the game is cheapening its traditional stately tone.
"Twenty20 Terror?" read the headline of an editorial in the Times of India, a major English-language newspaper. The paper noted worries that money might spoil the "good taste of cricket," but it also saw the shortened game, which was invented in England, as a sign of the times.
But it is often not only the fast-motion format of the new game that offends cricket purists.
The American women's presence has caused a stir across India, a conservative, Hindu-dominated country where even at the beach, women often shun swimwear in favor of saris, which are made of at least six yards of billowing fabric that covers everything from the neckline to the ankles, sometimes leaving the belly exposed. It's a country where the top female tennis star, Sania Mirza, who is Muslim, is often criticized for wearing short skirts on the court.
Some TV pundits pointed out that the Redskins cheerleaders are showing more skin on the cricket pitch than most Indian men will see before marriage.
At the game, the crowd roared every time the cheerleaders appeared on the big screen. "I wish I could wear a bikini, but that's not allowed for Indian women," said Bollywood actress Rakhi Sawant during a heated pregame debate on an Indian cable sports channel. Across South Asia, modesty is still an essential part of everyday life. Public affection is severely frowned on. Protests erupted last year after Richard Gere publicly kissed Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty.
Indian society has shown a grudging acceptance of hip-shaking sexuality in movies and music videos, but not in daily life.
Friday's event went smoothly. Though some newspapers had predicted protests, there were none. But there were Indian rock bands, smoke machines, stilt-walking butterflies, ballet dancers in clear plastic cocoons, trapeze artists, a laser-light show and a fireworks display. And, of course, cricket.
The cheerleaders said that the Indians treated them very warmly, although they were sometimes ogled in a way they were not used to. "I just think they are just very curious," said Jenny Zaleski, 28, from Alexandria, Va. "Let's just say we were stopped on the street a lot for our pictures."
In the end, the cheerleaders might have been too much of a distraction for the Royal Challengers, who lost to the Knight Riders by 140 runs.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/19/2008 12:17 ||
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#1
There is big Bollywood money and their publicity machine behind this.
I stayed up the last couple of nights to watch the games. As a sporting contest they left a lot to be desired. IMO they will need to change to a rotating short innings format like Baseball, but it was interesting to watch the big international stars play.
A group lawyers thrashed a traffic warden in the Cantonment Courts for issuing one of them a fine ticket on Friday. Traffic Warden Yousuf was on duty when a group of 12 to 15 lawyers, headed by Azeem Jhatool and Aziz Bhatti, approached him and thrashed him. The police said that lawyers had beaten up the traffic warden for issuing a fine ticket to Azeem Jhatool a couple of days back in Mughalpura.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I have to admit I've occasionally wanted to give parking police a good ass-whupping. Lord knows most of them deserve it.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 ||
04/19/2008 5:50 Comments ||
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#2
Six of one, a half-dozen of the other, had the warden shot the "Lawyers" beating him, then I'd cheer.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/19/2008 14:38 Comments ||
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Iraqis often complain about the problems in their country and the government's lack of obvious progress in solving them. But as drivers in traffic-clogged Baghdad learned this week, Iraqi officials are taking action in one area: strict enforcement of a seat belt law.
Later this month, traffic police officers all over Iraq will start issuing tickets to any scofflaw who drives without buckling up. Violators will be fined 15,000 dinars -- about $12.50. "It is part of the healing process of this country and of Baghdad to enforce the law, law by law," said Brig. Gen. Zuhair Abada Mraweh, traffic commander for the capital's Rusafah district.
Some might say there are more pressing issues, such as car bombs that can turn a morning commute into a nightmare of blood and body parts, daily killings and kidnappings, political and sectarian infighting. Or that enforcing the seat belt law might not be an adequate solution in a city where traffic rarely moves above a crawl, checkpoints are ubiquitous, roads are often blocked, and it is not uncommon to see a vehicle charging down a street in the wrong direction.
Still, brigades of traffic officers trying valiantly to do their jobs have been a constant in an ever-changing landscape of war and chaos over the last five years. And as traffic police officers warned Baghdad drivers earlier this week that seat belt enforcement was about to begin, many drivers said it was probably a good thing.
"It is a symbol of civilization," said taxi driver Ahmed Wahayid, whose 1993 Honda Elantra was stuck in a long line of cars waiting to clear a checkpoint. "Western people in Europe and America have it, so we are like them."
Wahayid said he could not find words to describe the traffic in Baghdad. "If I didn't need to drive in order to eat and live I wouldn't."
Hussain Fathil, 35, trying to guide his 1991 Opel through the logjam, put it more briefly. "It pulls your heart apart," he said. But he doubted whether enforcing the seat belt law would help. "Do you want to know my opinion?' he said. "This law cannot be applied in such a city."
But he had his seat belt on and said that he would keep wearing it. "It's the law," he said.
#4
Could be just an excuse to see what's going on in the vehicle, too. My law enforcement buddies say that they use the justification to scope out the vehicle/occupants on many occasions.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/19/2008 8:43 Comments ||
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#5
Buckle up - it's part of the healing process
Bumper sticker after BHO loses. Or maybe after he wins....
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.
President Vladimir V. Putin, who during eight years of centralized rule has kept his private life largely sealed from view behind the KremlinÂ’s walls, on Friday bluntly dismissed rumors that he had secretly divorced his wife for the affections of a gymnast less than half his age.
