Believe it, or not! Weird news and other Oddities

[Guinevere]

Drunk driving in a Bulldozer. From Reuters

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BERLIN Police Stop Drunk Bulldozer Joyrider

(Reuters) - German police stopped a 17-tonbulldozer weaving through Berlin's streets at 3 a.m. by jumping onto the excavator, smashing the window and spraying mace into the driver's face. A police spokesman said a 28-year-old man was detained for drunk driving and may be charged with theft for taking the bulldozer on a four-km (2.5 mile) joyride Sunday after leaving a pub in the Berlin district of Neukoelln.



One of the officers climbed onto the moving vehicle, but the driver held the door shut. Only after the officer smashed the window and sprayed mace in his face did the driver stop.



"He was first spotted by a police squad car as he drove through a red light at about 35 kph (20 mph) and then ignored orders from the police to stop," the spokesman said.

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Crazy man!

At least he could only go 20 miles per hour.

[xita]

story.news.yahoo.com/news...wedding_dc

Dead Couple to Be Married



JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African man who shot his pregnant fiance dead before killing himself will be posthumously married to her at the weekend.





Police Captain Mohale Ramatseba said David Masenta shot 25-year-old Mgwanini Molomo after a quarrel before turning the gun on himself. But Johannesburg's Sowetan newspaper said family and friends wanted to remember them as a happy couple destined for a happy life together.



The groom's corpse would be dressed in a cream suit and his bride's in a gown for the ceremony, at which a priest in the rural village of Ceres in Limpopo will bless the union before the two are buried, the Sowetan said.



"In African culture, there is no death -- there is merely the separation of body and soul," said cultural expert Mathole Motshekga. "It is also important because the families are married together."



"This does not mean the relationship has irretrievably broken down."

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Killing your wife is just a little hiccup in the road to a happy marriage...

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"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[urnofosiris]

So not only did this woman have her life and that of her child taken away by that man, she is now forced to spend eternity with him because their family wants to remember them as a happy couple? What gives them the right to decide that for her. So far for the sanctity of marriage.

[maudmac]

Quote:

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French cinephiles going underground



Thursday, 9 September, 2004, 03:46 GMT 04:46 UK



By Caroline Wyatt



BBC Paris correspondent





The police in Paris have made a curious discovery beneath the city.



A fully equipped subterranean cinema has been discovered below one of the city's museums.



Complete with an electric-powered screen and a bar, it was operated by what might be called an underground movement.



The French capital has hundreds of miles of tunnels, originally dug by the Romans quarrying for the stone to build the city.



In the 1700s, Paris started using some of the tunnels to store the bones of the dead - hundreds of thousands of them - as the medieval graveyards filled up.



Now, a new use has been discovered.



There is only one way to find out exactly what is going on down there - go down into the catacombs, via the one legal entrance to the catacombs on Place Denfert-Rochereau.



You have to go down 200 steps in a winding passageway - in the dark.



Once underground, it is damp, eerie and claustrophobic - the stone walls make you feel hemmed in, and the dripping ceiling is only inches above your head.



For me, it is hard to imagine coming down here for a night of fun, let alone opening up a cinema somewhere further on in these 300km (190 miles) of ancient tunnels.



But there is a group of people who love it down here - the "cataphiles", individuals who come down at night, in the dark, through manhole covers and via secret passageways, to make these underground tunnels and caves their own secret kingdom.



'Secret places'



One of the artists and photographers who founded this underground movement is Patrick Alk, who says the discovery of the cinema is only one tiny example of what is actually going on beneath the Paris pavements.



"The group who created the cinema is one of many groups," he says.



"It all started in the 1980s. We were 500, maybe 1000 people, and we went under Paris to express ourselves as artists.



"We did everything - from dance festivals, theatre, artists' happenings, exhibitions. We had a free kingdom underneath Paris, and the places there are really closed places, secret places."



Or at least they were until a recent police training exercise, when the Paris police stumbled upon the cinema.



Rather appropriately, it was located underneath the Trocadero complex, which includes the Museum of Cinema.



It was guarded by a camera, which set off a tape-recording of barking dogs to scare off intruders into this secret world. Inside were bottles of whisky, and copies of 1950s and 1960s "films noir".



When the police returned, there was a note from the cinephile cave-lovers saying: "Don't try to find us."



'Game with the police'



But in these security-conscious times, do the police consider the cataphiles a potential threat? Mr Alk says not.



"We are not considered a menace by the Paris police, because they prefer to have some people down there as a kind of control. If there were bad people down there, then we would know about it.



"With us, it is like a game with the Paris police. Relations with them are not so bad."



The Paris police do not quite put it that way, but their main concern is safety.



They advise Parisians and tourists not to venture into forbidden areas, in case they get lost, or the tunnels flood or collapse.



In 1993, one night-time reveller lost his way in the labyrinth. A plaque was put up to him by the other cataphiles after he was presumed dead.



That, of course, will not stop the truly dedicated cataphiles, who plan to continue their night-time revels.



And as for the mysterious cineastes, the police had contemplated charging them with the theft of electricity.



But in the end, the charge has been dropped - and presumably, those running it have now sought a more private spot elsewhere beneath the streets of Paris.

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Weird! I'd be scared to death to be down there unless I were with many friends who all had been there a hundred times before. And maybe even then...

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when i hear music it makes me dance

[amberbensontotallyrules4e]

To go back a little, I got purple spanner. It's a relief to know that I'm as weird as I always suspected

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So much of this world is based on illusionary temporariness and disposability that I think its important that our closest relationships reflect what is real. ~ Gillian Anderson

[WebWarlock]

Woo!



I wanna pet chupa!



woai.com/news/local/story...6F6C31975E

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Another Texas Chupacabra?

LAST UPDATE: 10/14/2004 7:39:53 PM

Posted By: CyberBob



By Lynn Winthrop, Lufkin Daily News



LUFKIN, Texas -- Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year.



"What is that?" are the first words out of anyone's mouth when shown photos of the animal, according to Stacy Womack.



Womack -- who has more than 20 years experience working at Ellen Trout Zoo and for a local veterinarian -- said she's seen and handled a lot of different animals, but that she's never seen anything like this one.



"It's not a dog," she said. "I'd bet my lottery ticket on that."



The animal's blue-grey skin is almost hairless and appears to be covered with mange. A closer look at the animal's jaw line reveals a serious overbite and four huge canine teeth, and a long, rat-like tail curls behind the animal's emaciated frame.



The animal was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday after crawling under her mother's house in Pollok. Womack said large dogs in the yard "went nuts" and alerted the family, but would only whine and wouldn't go under the house with the animal. Her brother shot the animal, tied a rope around it and dragged it out from under the house for a closer look, she said.



Womack was called to take a photograph of the animal, and possibly help identify it, as well. A live animal, just like the one in the picture, darted across the road in front of her car while she was driving to the scene.



When she arrived with her camera and expertise in tow, Womack said she almost couldn't believe what she was looking at.



"It was so necrotic, its tissue was just rotted," Womack said. "It had no hair, a severe overbite and its claws were entirely too long for a dog."



She said the animal's front legs were much smaller than it's hind legs, and that despite it's overall ghoulish appearance, it's extremely long canine teeth were in excellent condition. Also, despite having been shot, there was virtually no blood seeping from the animal's carcass. The animal's ear also "broke like a cookie" when it's head was held up for a photograph, she said



"It's body looked like something that has been dead for a month or so," Womack said. "Like I said, I've worked in the veterinary field for more than 20 years and I've never seen anything that bad."



The animal was male and weighed between 15 and 20 pounds, she said. The identical animal that sprinted across the road ran with it's head down and it's tail between it's legs, according to Womack, but wasn't tall enough to be a coyote or a wolf. She said the live animal is probably the dead one's mate.



"I would just like to see somebody go out there and try to trap the other one," Womack said. "Because it's in misery, too, and what if it gets into the population?"



Womack showed pictures of the animal to a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden, who "totally freaked out" and called for a department biologist, she said. The biologist told her it was likely a coyote with mange, but wasn't able to match the animal's skull shape -- and overbite -- with pictures of coyotes in reference books, according to Womack.



Pictures were also dropped off at the Texas Animal Health Commission, where the veterinarian was out of the office and hadn't contacted Womack as of Tuesday afternoon. She said a biologist was on the way to Pollok to collect a tissue sample of the animal, for DNA testing.



"I just want people to be aware that things like this happen," Womack said. "If it's not the mange, it's something that doesn't need to be in the environment."



C.R. Shilling, of the West Loop Animal Clinic in Lufkin said that after seeing pictures of the animal -- and stressing that his determination is "pure speculation" -- he believes the animal is probably a coyote. The animal likely suffers from demodex mange, he said, and possibly a secondary skin infection or even a congenital skin defect, as well.



"That's just a congenital defect," Shilling said when asked about the animal's unusual jaw configuration. "We'll even get dogs like that in here."



Shilling said that without seeing the animal itself, it's hard to make an exact determination of what the animal might be. The possibility of it being a dog/coyote mix would be "unusual, but possible," he said.



"It appears to be an extremely undernourished dog," Ellen Trout Zoo Director Gordon Henley said after being e-mailed several photos of the animal. "Wild animals don't typically wind up like that, but undernourished, neglected, domestic animals do."



After enlarging one of the photos and conferring with the zoo's veterinarian, Henley said he feels the animal's mangy, crusty skin could be a result of either neglect or living in the wild. Undernourishment or a congenital deformity could have caused the animal's gross overbite, he said.



"I think what we've got here is a poor, suffering, undernourished and possibly abused canid," Henley said. "Possibly a coyote, but more likely a dog."



WOAI-TV in San Antonio has aired several stories on the so-called "Elmendorf Beast" since a nearby rancher shot and killed one earlier this year. The animal depicted on the station's Web site, at http://www.woai.com, looks eerily similar to the one discovered in Pollok.



The rancher from Elmendorf, located southeast of San Antonio, killed the animal after 35 of his chickens disappeared in one day. The animal was also almost hairless, with blue-grey coloring and four large "fangs." The station reported that tissue from the animal has been sent for DNA testing, and that it will be several more weeks before the tests are completed.



Speculation in the area as to what type of the animal the rancher killed has varied from simple to mystical. Some say it's a wild Mexican hairless dog, and other than the skin condition and jaw, pictures of the breed do bear a resemblance. Others believe it's the mythical chupacabra -- or "goat sucker" -- an animal Mexican folklorists say stalks rural areas killing livestock.



One area hunting guide even believed the animal might be a muntjac, a small antelope-type animal imported into the state by ranchers, according to the station's online reports. Muntjac are herbivores, but do have upper canine teeth that are elongated into "tusks" that curve outward from the lips. Muntjac are also called "barking deer" for a sound they'll emit to warn others of predators.



Like most deer, however, the Muntjac have split hoofs instead of paws, and certainly don't have long, rat-like tails.



A San Antonio Zoo mammal expert told WOAI-TV the animal is clearly a member of the canine family, and could possibly be a mix between a dog and a coyote. The expert also said the animal was clearly suffering from some sort of skin ailment, and may also have a congenital deformity of some sort.



Sightings of similar animals have been reported across the country, from California to Maryland.

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Wow. that is a lot of damn posts. Maybe I need a life?



Warlock

-----

Web Warlock

Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches

"Joel: Hi, I'm Satan, enjoy the film!" - MST3k "Jungle Goddess", Season 2, Episode 3

[urnofosiris]

That´s the way to go, shoot first and ask questions later. I feel sorry for it´s mate. It does not sound like she´d be popular with the regular boy dogs.

[xita]

It is the chupacabras! I know it.

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"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[amberbensontotallyrules4e]

Erm, Xita, what's a "chupacabras"?



MAybe that's a stupid question, I don't know, but what's a one of those?



Rachel

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So much of this world is based on illusionary temporariness and disposability that I think its important that our closest relationships reflect what is real. ~ Gillian Anderson

[Warduke]

From Yahoo...

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Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton



By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, AP Science Writer





In a breathtaking discovery, scientists working on a remote Indonesian island say they have uncovered the bones of a human dwarf species marooned for eons while modern man rapidly colonized the rest of the planet.



One tiny specimen, an adult female measuring about 3 feet tall, is described as "the most extreme" figure to be included in the extended human family. Certainly, she is the shortest.



This hobbit-sized creature appears to have lived as recently as 18,000 years ago on the island of Flores, a kind of tropical Lost World populated by giant lizards and miniature elephants.



She is the best example of a trove of fragmented bones that account for as many as seven of these primitive individuals. Scientists have named the new species Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man. The specimens' ages range from 95,000 to 12,000 years old.



The discovery has astonished anthropologists unlike any in recent memory. Flores Man is a totally new creature that was fundamentally different from modern humans. Yet it lived until the threshold of recorded human history, probably crossing paths with the ancestors of today's islanders.



"This finding really does rewrite our knowledge of human evolution," said Chris Stringer, who directs human origins studies at the Natural History Museum in London. "And to have them present less than 20,000 years ago is frankly astonishing."



Flores Man was hardly formidable. His grapefruit-sized brain was about a quarter the size of the brain of our species, Homo sapiens. It is closer in size to the brains of transitional prehuman species in Africa more than 3 million years ago.



Yet evidence suggests Flores Man made stone tools, lit fires and organized group hunts for meat.



Just how this primitive, remnant species managed to hang on is unclear. Geologic evidence suggests a massive volcanic eruption sealed its fate some 12,000 years ago, along with other unusual species on the island.



Still, researchers say the perseverance of Flores Man smashes the conventional wisdom that modern humans began to systematically crowd out other upright-walking species 160,000 years ago and have dominated the planet alone for tens of thousands of years.



And it demonstrates that Africa, the acknowledged cradle of humanity, does not hold all the answers to persistent questions of how — and where — we came to be.



"It is arguably the most significant discovery concerning our own genus in my lifetime," said anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who reviewed the research independently.



Discoveries simply "don't get any better than that," proclaimed Robert Foley and Marta Mirazon Lahr of Cambridge University in a written analysis.



To others, the specimen's baffling combination of slight dimensions and coarse features bears almost no meaningful resemblance either to modern humans or to our large, archaic cousins.



They suggest that Flores Man doesn't belong in the genus Homo at all, even if it was a recent contemporary. But they are unsure how to classify the species.



"I don't think anybody can pigeonhole this into the very simple-minded theories of what is human," anthropologist Jeffery Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh. "There is no biological reason to call it Homo. We have to rethink what it is."



Details of the discovery appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.





Researchers from Australia and Indonesia found the partial skeleton 13 months ago in a shallow limestone cave known as Liang Bua. The cave, which extends into a hillside for about 130 feet, has been the subject of scientific analysis since 1964.



The female skeleton and fragments from the six other individuals are being stored in a laboratory in Jakarta, Indonesia. The cave, which now is surrounded by coffee farms, is fenced off and patrolled by guards.



Near the skeleton were stone tools and animal remains, including teeth from a young stegodon, or prehistoric dwarf elephant, as well as fish, birds and rodents. Some of the bones were charred, suggesting they were cooked.



Excavations are continuing. In 1998, stone tools and other evidence found on Flores suggested the presence 900,000 years ago of another early human, Homo erectus. The tools were found a century after the celebrated discovery in the 1890s of big-boned H. erectus fossils in eastern Java.



Now, researchers suggest H. erectus spread to remote Flores and throughout the region, perhaps on bamboo rafts. Caves on surrounding islands are the target of future studies, they said.



Researchers suspect that Flores Man probably is an H. erectus descendant that was squeezed by evolutionary pressures.



Nature is full of mammals — deer, squirrels and pigs, for example — living in marginal, isolated environments that gradually dwarf when food isn't plentiful and predators aren't threatening.



On Flores, the Komodo dragon and other large meat-eating lizards prowled. But Flores Man didn't have to worry about violent human neighbors.



This is the first time that the evolution of dwarfism has been recorded in a human relative, said the study's lead author, Peter Brown of the University of New England in Australia.



Scientists are still struggling to identify its jumbled features.



Many say its face and skull features show sufficient traits to be included in the Homo family that includes modern humans. It would be the eighth species in the Homo category.



George Washington's Wood, for example, finds it "convincing."



Others aren't sure.



For example, they say the skull is wide like H. erectus. But the sides are rounder and the crown traces an arc from ear to ear. The skull of H. erectus has steeper sides and a pointed crown, they said.



The lower jaw contains large, blunt teeth and roots like Australopithecus, a prehuman ancestor in Africa more than 3 million years ago. The front teeth are smaller than modern human teeth.



The eye sockets are big and round, but they don't carry a prominent browline.



The shinbone in the leg shares similarities with apes.



"I've spent a sleepless night trying to figure out what to do with this thing," said Schwartz. "It makes me think of nothing else in this world."



___



Associated Press writers Emma Ross in London and Chris Brummit in Jakarta contributed to this report.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Big Dummy]

...The Red Sox won the World Series!!!



If that's not weird news, what is?







ETA: for some actual weird or odd news. This was apparently many years ago.

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Rudy the Adventure Cat



This is the story of the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head stuck in the garbage disposal. I knew at the time that the experience would be funny if the cat survived, so let me tell you right up front that he's fine.



Getting him out wasn't easy, though, and the process included numerous home remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen minutes of fame. My husband Rich and I had just returned from a 5 day

vacation in the Cayman Islands--where I had been sick as a dog the whole time.



We arrived home at 9 p.m., a day and a half later than we had planned because of airline problems I still had illness-related vertigo, and because of the flight delays, had not been able to prepare for the class was supposed to teach at 8:40 the next morning.



I sat down at my desk to think about William Carlos Williams, and around ten o'clock I heard Rich hollering from the kitchen. I raced over to see what was wrong and spied Rich frantically rooting around under the kitchen sink and Rudy--or, rather, Rudy's headless body--scrambling around in the sink, his claws clicking in panic on the metal and his head stuck in the garbage disposal. Rich had just ground up the skin of

some smoked salmon in the disposal, and when he left the room, Rudy (who always was a pinhead) had gone in after it.



It is very disturbing to see the headless body of your cat in the sink.



This is an animal that I have slept with nightly for ten years, who burrows under the covers and purrs against my side, and who now looked like a fur-covered turkey carcass, defrosting in the sink while it's still alive and kicking.



It was also disturbing to see Rich, Mr. Calm-in-any-Emergency, at his wit's end, trying to simultaneously soothe Rudy and undo the garbage disposal, and failing at both, and basically freaking out.



Adding to the chaos was Rudy's twin brother Lowell, also upset, racing around in circles, jumping onto the kitchen counter and alternately licking Rudy's butt for comfort and biting it out of fear. Clearly, I had to do something.



First we tried to ease Rudy out of the disposal by lubricating his head and neck with Johnson's baby shampoo (kept on hand for my nieces' visits) and butter-flavored Crisco. Both failed, and a now-greasy Rudy kept struggling.



Rich then decided to take apart the garbage disposal, which was a good idea, but he couldn't do it. Turns out, the thing is constructed like a metal onion: you peel off one layer and another one appears, with Rudy's head still buried deep inside, stuck in a hard plastic collar.



My job during this process was to sit on the kitchen counter petting Rudy, trying to calm him, with the room spinning (vertigo), Lowell howling (he's part Siamese), and Rich clattering around under the sink with his tools.



When all our efforts failed, we sought professional help. I called our regular plumber, who actually called me back quickly, even at 11 o'clock at night (thanks, Dave). He talked Rich through further layers of disposal dismantling, but still we couldn't reach Rudy.



I called the 1-800 number for Incinerator (no response), a pest removal service that advertises 24-hour service (no response), an all-night emergency veterinary clinic (who had no experience in this matter), and finally, in desperation, 9-1-1. I could see that Rudy's normally pink paw pads were turning blue. The fire department, I figured, gets cats out of trees; maybe they could get one out of a garbage disposal. The dispatcher had other ideas and offered to send

over two policemen.



The cops arrived close to midnight and turned out to be quite nice. More importantly, they were also able to think rationally, which we were not. They were, of course, astonished by the situation.



"I've never seen anything like this," Officer Mike kept saying. (The unusual circumstances helped us get quickly on a first-name basis with our cops.)



Officer Tom, who expressed immediate sympathy for our plight ("I've had cats all my life," he said), also had an idea. Evidently we needed a certain tool a tiny, circular rotating saw, that could cut through the heavy plastic flange encircling Rudy's neck without hurting Rudy.



Officer Tom happened to own one. "I live just five minutes from here," he said. "I'll go get it."



He soon returned, and the three of them--Rich and the two policemen--got under the sink together to cut through the garbage disposal. I sat on the counter, holding Rudy and trying not to succumb to the surreal-ness of the scene, with the weird middle-of-the-night lighting, the room's occasional

spinning, Lowell's spooky sound effects, an apparently headless cat in my sink and six disembodied legs poking out from under it.



One good thing came of this: the guys did manage to get the bottom off the disposal, so we could now see Rudy's face and knew he could breathe. But they couldn't cut the flange without risking the cat. Stumped.



Officer Tom had another idea.



"You know," he said, "I think the reason we can't get him out is the angle of his head and body. [you can see where this is going, can't you)? "If we could just get the sink out," he continued, "and lay it on its side, I'll bet we could slip him out." That sounded like a good idea--at this point,ANYTHING would have sounded like a good idea--and as it turned out,



Officer Mike runs a plumbing business on weekends; he knew how to take out the sink!



Again they went to work, the three pairs of legs sticking out from under the sink, surrounded by an ever-increasing pile of tools and sink parts.



They cut the electrical supply, capped off the plumbing lines,

unfastened the metal clamps, unscrewed all the pipes, and about an hour later, voila!



The sink was lifted gently out of the countertop, with one guy holding the garbage disposal which contained Rudy's head up close to the sink (which contained Rudy's body). We laid the sink on its side, but even at this more favorable angle, Rudy stayed stuck.



Officer Tom's radio beeped, calling him away on some kind of real police business. As he was leaving, though, he had another good idea. "You know," he said, "I don't think we can get him out while he's struggling so much. We need to get the cat sedated If he were limp, we could slide him out."



And off he went, regretfully, a cat lover still worried about Rudy. The remaining three of us decided that getting Rudy sedated was a good idea, but Rich and I were new to the area. We knew that the overnight emergency veterinary clinic was only a few minutes away, but we didn't know exactly how to get there. "I know where it is!" declared Officer

Mike. "Follow me!"



So Mike got into his patrol car, Rich got into the driver's seat of our car, and I got into the back, carrying the kitchen sink, what was left of the garbage disposal, and Rudy. It was now about 2:00 a.m.



We followed Officer Mike for a few blocks when I decided to put my hand into the garbage disposal to pet Rudy's face, hoping I could comfort him. Instead, my sweet, gentle bedfellow chomped down on my finger really hard and wouldn't let go.



My scream reflex kicked into gear. Rich slammed on the brakes, hollering "What? What happened? Should I stop?" "No," I managed to get out between screams, "just keep driving. Rudy's biting me, but we've got to get to

the vet. Just go!" Rich turned his attention back to the road, where Officer Mike took a turn we hadn't expected, and we followed. After a few minutes Rudy let go, and as I stopped screaming, I looked up to discover that we were wandering aimlessly through an industrial park, in and out of empty parking lots, past little streets that didn't look at

all familiar.



"Where's he taking us?" I asked. "We should have been there ten minutes ago!"



Rich was as mystified as I was, but all we knew to do was follow the police car until, finally, he pulled into a church parking lot and we pulled up next to him. As Rich rolled down the window to ask Officer Mike, where are were going, the cop, who was not Mike, rolled down his window and asked, "Why are you following me?"



Once Rich and I recovered from our shock at having tailed the wrong cop car and the policeman from his pique at being stalked, he led us quickly to the emergency vet, where Mike greeted us by holding open the door,

exclaiming, "Where were you guys???"



It was lucky that Mike got to the vet's ahead of us, because we hadn't thought to call and warn them about what was coming. (Clearly, by this time we weren't really thinking at all.) We brought in the kitchen sink containing Rudy, and the garbage disposal containing his head, and the clinic staff was ready. They took his temperature (which was down 10

degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet declared, "This cat is in serious shock. We've got to sedate him and get him out of there immediately." When I asked if it was OK to sedate a cat in shock, the vet said grimly, "We don't have a choice."



With that, he injected the cat. Rudy went limp and the vet squeezed about half a tube of K-Y jelly onto the cat's neck and pulled him free. Then the whole team jumped into "code blue" mode. (I know this from watching a lot of ER.) They laid Rudy on a c art where one person hooked up IV fluids, another put little socks on his paws ("You'd be amazed how

much heat they lose through their footpads," she said), one covered him with hot water bottles and a blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up Rudy's now very gunky head. The fur on his head dried in stiff little spikes, making him look pathetically punk as he lay there, limp and motionless. At this point they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in the waiting room while they tried to bring Rudy back to life. I told Mike he didn't have to stay, but he just stood there, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like this," he said again and again.



At about 3 a.m., the vet came in to tell us that the prognosis was good for a full recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight to re-hydrate him and give him something for the brain swelling they assumed he had, but if all went well, we could take him home the following night. Just in time to hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished with his real police work and concerned about Rudy.



Rich and I got back home about 3:30. We hadn't unpacked from our trip, I was still intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn't prepared for my 8:40 class. I need a vacation," I said, and while I called the office to leave a message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis.



I slept late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy's condition until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I was working on the suitcases when the phone rang.



"Hi, this is Steve Huskey from the Norristown Times-Herald," a voice said. "Listen, I was just going through the police blotter from last night. Um, do you have a cat?" So I told Steve the whole story, which interested him immensely. A couple hours later he called back to say that his editor was interested, too; did I have a picture of Rudy? The next day Rudy was front-page news, under the ridiculous headline "Catch

of the Day Lands Cat in Hot Water."



There were some noteworthy repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr.Huskey had somehow inferred that I called 9-1-1 because I thought Rich, my husband, was going into shock, although how he concluded this from my comment that "his pads were turning blue," I don't quite understand. So the first thing I had to do was call Rich at work--Rich, who had worked tirelessly to free Rudy--and swear that I had been

misquoted.



When I arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been calling my secretary all morning to inquire about Rudy's health.



When I called our regular vet (whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up appointment for Rudy, the receptionist asked, "Is this the famous Rudy's mother?"



When I took my car in for routine maintenance a few days later, Dave, my mechanic, said, "We read about your cat. Is he OK?"



When I called a tree surgeon about my dying red oak, he asked if I knew the person on that street whose cat had been in the garbage disposal. And when I went to get my hair cut, the shampoo person told me the funny story her grandma had read in the paper, about a cat that got stuck in

the garbage disposal.



Even today, over a year later, people ask about Rudy, which a 9-year-old neighbor had always called "the Adventure Cat" because he used to climb on the roof of her house and peer in the second-story window at her.



I don't know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this adventure" cost me $1,100 in emergency vet bills, follow-up vet care, new sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage disposal--one with a cover. The vet can no longer say he's seen everything but the kitchen sink.



I wanted to thank Officers Tom and Mike by giving them gift certificates to the local hardware store, but was told that they couldn't accept gifts, that I would put them in a bad position if I tried. So I wrote a letter to the Police Chief praising their good deeds and sent individual thank you notes to Tom and Mike, complete with pictures of Rudy, so

they could see what he looks like with his head on.



And Rudy, whom we originally got for free (or so we thought), still sleeps with me-under the covers on cold nights, and, unaccountably, still sometimes prowls the sink, hoping for fish.

---

Edited by: Big Dummy at: 10/28/04 2:42 pm

[urnofosiris]

That´s a Dutch technological institution.



Have you zoomed in? You can read the number plates of the cars in the streets. If you zoom in to the right and the middle of the picture there is a long white building. At the end of it there is a street lantern with a small yellow sign indicating it is a bus stop, a little to the left there is pole with a round blue street sign. Well if you have found that, you will have noticed the guy in the dark grey shirt just coming around the corner of the building and if you look to the left you will notice his second bodiless head and shoulders floating in the air.

Edited by: DrG at: 11/16/04 2:11 pm

[Warduke]

I came across this.



Now I have seen some big pictures on the internet, but this one takes the cake

---

Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[skittles]

Dr. G, I thought you were going to say that you were in the picture....

skittles



Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more….. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…. and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

[xita]

wow , that's a big picture. I thought garfield was going to say his favorite donkey was in the picture!

- - - - - - - - - - -
"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[Still Waters Run Deep]

The last time I was out in California I happenned to be sitting in the olde english atmosphere of the Pelican Inn at Muir Beach, north of San Francisco, supping a pint of honest to goodness genuine Bass, when I came across that months edition of the Coastal Press... a free monthly paper for the more 'progressively minded' of Marin County. Amongst the very serious missives on the Iraq war, Bush, and Marin County environmental problems I found this article which really made me laugh, and so, having found it on the web I now offer it up for yor edification. Enjoy.









Extra Biscuits, Extra Crispy KFC

Stoned Chicken Fans Lose In Mill Valley

By Stephen Simac



The drive thru at the KFC in Mill Valley seemed much busier than that fast food chain's fried chicken outlets elsewhere. It turns out it wasn't the biscuits, but the "extra biscuits" that were drawing the traffic.



The stoner behind the drive thru counter was killing two fried birds with one bag. Evidently marijuana was being sold to drivers in the know who asked for "extra biscuits" with their "extra crispy" thighs and legs.



Carlos Ayela, the entrepreneur behind the KFC drive thru sales was busted recently by the Marin Major Crime Task Force for selling baggies of pot to anyone who ordered with those code words. Lt. Rick Russel of the sheriff's dept. reportedly said he was selling herbage to "anyone who used the correct verbiage." No need for correct grammar.



If sheriff's reports can be relied upon he was turned in by an irate customer who really wanted extra biscuits and was upset to find two baggies of pot packaged with his or her greasy chicken.



It's unlikely that ganja was handed over without a significant exchange of green first. More likely it was an irate customer who wasn't happy with the quality or quantity of the "biscuits" or a pissed off girlfriend who turned him into the Mill Valley police.



They notified the task force which went to the KFC near Tam High School and made "biscuit" buys and ate chicken for nearly a month before arresting Carlos on his way to work.



Now imagine the consternation at KFC, which used to be called Kentucky Fried Chicken, (until they began serving genetically modified critters that "taste just like chicken" but are far cheaper, according to an Internet rumor). The Marketing department recognized the genius of this low paid wage slave who had single-handedly increased sales by an eighth or more.



Not only were extra customers generated by "extra biscuits" but extra buckets were being sold to those same customers with the marijuana munchies.



Jim Nicol, a regional KFC manager reportedly said "We'll do a full investigation, find out what's cooking and fix it." They must be wondering if they can duplicate it by adding cannabis to their secret spices. More likely they will have to rely on the entrepreneurial initiative of their workers trying to supplement their incomes. After all the drive thru attendant wasn't making enough to even afford to live in Marin. He had to commute from Vallejo.



This kid is probably facing some hard time unless he can claim that he was dealing "medical marijuana." He's got a chance if he points out he was supplying his "patients" with dyspepsia, the recognized calmative effect of cannabis on an upset stomach. There's nothing like fast food to cause this bilious stomach upset, with or without Pepsi and nothing like pot to cure it.



The Task Force made a big deal out of these sales because the KFC was so near a high school, endangering our youth who were getting "extra crispy" during lunch hour. Considering the epidemic of obesity in America's teens the real danger to their health is the fast food outlet itself, not the "extra biscuits." Cannabis for all the propaganda by drug liars is the least harmful of all intoxicating substances on the planet.

-----------------------------------

love and kisses

Still Waters



"just an old, saggy cloth cat. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams, but Emily loved him"

[WebWarlock]

Can't believe this. Ok. Yes I can.



Grilled Cheese Super Hero Maybe Virgin Mary Sandwich



Warlock

Web Warlock, web.warlock@comcast.net, The Other Side.

Liber Mysterium: The D20 Netbook of Witches & The Dragon and the Phoenix: New Adventures of Willow and Tara

"I am the eggman, they are the eggmen. I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob." - The Beatles.

[Tempest Duer]

It's not there anymore. What was it?

It's insulting to the whole gender[sic] of rap.



~Eminem

[WebWarlock]

Well, this is neat.



www.chicagotribune.com/ne...i-news-hed

Quote:

---

$50,000 Cloned Kitten Truly Isn't One of a Kind

A Texas woman whose cat died pays a Northern California biotech company for a replica. 'I have not been able to see one difference,' she says.



By Alan Zarembo

Times Staff Writer

Published December 23, 2004



A Texas woman who said she paid $50,000 to a Northern California biotech company received an 8-week-old clone of her dead cat, Nicky, the first known sale of a cloned pet.



Genetic Savings & Clone Inc., based in Sausalito, handed over Little Nicky, a Maine coon cat, this month at a company holiday party in San Francisco.



"He is identical. I have not been able to see one difference," said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Julie.



The company has been working for more than four years on the cat cloning process. Its founder, Arizona billionaire John Sperling, funded the research at Texas A&M University that led to the 2001 cloning of the first cat, CC, or Carbon Copy.



Company spokesman Ben Carlson said four other people had cats on order — at $50,000 each. He said the clones were expected to be ready by spring.



The announcement of Little Nicky sparked criticism from some animal protection groups, who saw the event as opening the door to new problems.



"There are millions of cats being killed in shelters every year," said Michael Mountain, president of Best Friends Animal Society. "There is no shortage of cats; so why do they have to do this?"



Mountain described the cloning of animals — still a complex procedure that can result in deformities and genetic abnormalities — as an inhumane game of trial and error.



"You're dealing with a Dr. Frankenstein situation," he said.



Lou Hawthorne, chief executive of Genetic Savings & Clone, said there was no denying the desire of some pet owners to bring back their deceased companions.



"We're not curing cancer, but we believe we are adding to the sum of joy in the world," Hawthorne said.



Dr. Michael Grodin, a psychiatrist and director of medical ethics at Boston University School of Medicine and Public Health, said he saw no ethical problem with the procedure.



"Many people have a better and stronger and more humane relationship with their pets than they do with other human beings," he said. "Who am I to say that somebody shouldn't clone their cat?"



The original Nicky died in September 2003 at age 17.



"He was very beautiful," Julie said. "He was exceptionally intelligent. He knew 11 commands."



Julie, who said she worked in the airline industry, began investigating the possibility of cloning Nicky in 2001 after reading about the birth of CC. She said she called Texas A&M the day of CC's announcement.



When Nicky died, she sent a genetic sample to Genetic Savings & Clone. Little Nicky was born Oct. 17.



"When Little Nicky yawned, I even saw two spots inside his mouth — just like Nicky had," Julie said. "Little Nicky loves water, like Nicky did, and he's already jumped into the bathtub like Nicky used to do."



Little Nicky is the fourth cat the company has cloned. The first three were born this year and have been displayed at cat shows.



Since scientists cloned the first mammal — Dolly the sheep in 1996 — they have repeated the feat with mice, pigs, horses and bulls.



The cloning of a cat was the result of a failed effort to clone a dog. Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, wanted to clone a friend's dog, Missy.



In 1998 he funded researchers at Texas A&M to pursue the project. Discouraged by the slow progress, he started Genetic Savings & Clone in 2000, while continuing to fund the Texas scientists.



The company uses a technology known as chromatin transfer, a variation of a standard cloning technique known as nuclear transfer. The nucleus of an egg cell is replaced by genetic material from a donor cell that has first been chemically treated. The egg is then placed in a surrogate, which carries it to birth.



The process has its pitfalls.



Hawthorne said that about one-third of the clones did not survive past 60 days.



As with in vitro fertilization for humans, it may take many tries to achieve a pregnancy. The quality of the surrogate eggs and donor cells, as well as timing, are important factors.



"It's like a combination lock," Hawthorne said. "Until you figure out the combination, you've got to spin the dial many times."



There also are genetic factors that can make clones and originals different.



CC's coat, for example, varied from that of its original.



When two kittens, Tabouli and Baba Ganoush — both clones of a cat named Tahini — were born to separate surrogate mothers in June, their markings were both identical to their original, Hawthorne said.



Gregory Stock, director of the program on medicine, technology and society at UCLA, said that the similarity between original and clone should resemble that of identical twins, who were genetically identical but had separate personalities.



Whatever the expectations, a "high-end market for cloned pets" is inevitable as technology advances, Stock said.



There are concerns that the process of cloning can create subtle abnormalities. Dolly the sheep, for example, died relatively early — at the age of 6 — and suffered from arthritis.



Hawthorne said the $50,000 price to clone a cat would eventually fall. Several hundred people have paid between $295 and $1,395 for the company to store genetic material from their dogs and cats to create clones if the procedure becomes more affordable.



The next frontier is to clone a dog, which has proved to be more difficult than a cat. Dogs ovulate infrequently, and their eggs are not mature upon release from the ovaries.



Hawthorne said the expectation was that dog owners would be willing to spend more to clone their pets. He said the company planned to charge its first customers at least $100,000.



Copyright © 2004, The Los Angeles Times

---

Of course to put it in terms close to me, 50Gs could get me 8 RealDolls. Not that I have looked them up at all. Or priced them. Or even configured models...



Warlock

Web Warlock, web.warlock@comcast.net, The Other Side.

Liber Mysterium: The D20 Netbook of Witches & The Dragon and the Phoenix: New Adventures of Willow and Tara

"But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight"

- "Lovers In A Dangerous Time", Bruce Cockburn.

[urnofosiris]

Rich people...I love my cats, but I´ll be damned if I would ever spend that amount to clone them. It will never be the same cat, it would be just like identical twins, they may look the same, but can be vastly different in character. That aside, there are always influences during pregnancy that determine one´s development as well. You never get the exact same cat/human/whatever because you can´t copy the original pregnancy and you cannot copy a character or a memory.



I am very sceptical whether this is even true btw, whether that cat is really a clone, but assuming it is, is that legal in the US? Is god ok with that and all? I mean Bush seems to have no problem to force his beliefs on others even at the expensive of their civil rights, even at the expense of possibly curing horrible diseases to protect a clump of cells. I do have a big problem with this type of cloning though, harvasting eggs really is not fun or without risk in people, I doubt it will be much fun for the mother cat either, but that does not matter I guess if you really love your own cat.

Edited by: DrG at: 12/23/04 10:11 pm

[Warduke]

From Yahoo...

Quote:

---

Egyptian Doctors Remove Baby's Second Head



By Amil Khan





BENHA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian doctors said they removed a second head from a 10-month-old girl suffering from one of the rarest birth defects in an operation Saturday.



Abla el-Alfy, a consultant in paediatric intensive care, told Reuters at the hospital in Benha, near Cairo, that Manar Maged was in a serious but improving condition after the procedure to treat her for craniopagus parasiticus -- a problem related to that of conjoined twins linked at the skull.



"We are still working on the baby. After surgery ... you get unstable blood pressure, you get fever. But she is stabilizing," Alfy said. "We have some improvement."



As in the case of a girl who died after similar surgery in the Dominican Republic a year ago, the second twin had developed no body. The head that was removed from Manar had been capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life, doctors said.



Video footage provided by the hospital, a national center in Egypt for children's medicine, showed Manar smiling and at ease in a cot with the dark-haired "parasitic" twin, attached at the upper left side of the girl's skull, occasionally blinking.



After the 13-hour operation, Reuters journalists saw the baby, her head swathed in bandages and body wreathed by tubes, in an intensive care ward. A separate twin sister, Noora, is healthy after initial problems with the birth on March 30.



Alfy said the 13-strong surgical team separated Manar's brain from the conjoined organ in small stages, cutting off the blood supply to the extra head while preventing increased blood flow to Manar's heart, which would have risked cardiac arrest.



Benha, 40 km (25 miles) north of Cairo, was chosen for its equipment and proximity to the girl's family. "The family of the child are from near here, we have the equipment, we assembled a team, so why not have the operation here?" she said, explaining the choice not to work in Cairo or at centers abroad with more experience with conjoined twins.



MONTHS OF PREPARATION



Alfy said Manar's skull had been reconstructed during surgery and her skin had been joined over the bone, leaving no need for further reconstructive surgery.



The doctors decided not to carry out Manar's operation soon after her birth: "We studied the babies well," Alfy said. "We had to study how the blood supply of the parasite is working."



She plans to keep Manar in intensive care for up to 10 days and remains cautious: "Things are getting better but ... at any time things can go wrong."



The condition occurs when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but fails to complete the process and one of the conjoined twins fails to develop fully in the womb.



The second twin can form as an extra limb, a complete second body lacking vital organs, or, in very rare cases, a head.



Last February, seven-week-old Rebeca Martinez died in the Dominican Republic after surgery to remove a second head.



The leader of that team, Jorge Lazareff of the University of California at Los Angeles, noted on viewing one picture of the Egyptian baby that the face of the undeveloped twin was "very well developed" compared to that in Rebeca's case.



"Rebeca ... had a more vertical sibling, whereas (in) this the second growth is tangential," he told Reuters, while noting he had not previously been aware of the Egyptian child.

---

Check the link for pics, real freaky. I hope this one is a complete success.

---

Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[urnofosiris]

I just saw it on the news and wanted to post about it, but I suspected you might have beaten me to it. I must admit I am fascinated by the strange twists and turns of mother nature. That looks like a pretty complete and perfect second head to me, I find it hard to call it a parasitic twin, though strictly speaking it is correct. I can´t help wondering how aware that twin was. I really hope she will survive and grow up healthy.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/19/05 3:25 pm

[amber 4 prez]

I saw that too!



Alright, didn't know if I should put this here, or the joke thread...so I post it here cause its "strange but true"



www.sensualism.com/gay/

[Warduke]

From Yahoo...

Bangladesh doctors remove rare twin foetus from teenage boy


DHAKA (AFP) - Doctors in Bangladesh removed a dead foetus weighing several pounds (kilograms) from a teenage boy in a rare case of a so-called inclusion twin lodged in his abdomen, a surgeon said.

The 16-year-old patient was admitted to hospital Saturday after complaints of severe stomach pains. During an operation, the medical team removed the dead foetus of his twin brother that the teen had carried in his abdomen since birth, M.A. Mazid, the head of the surgery department at Bangabandhu Medical University hospital, said.

"After the operation we found a dead child weighing two kilograms (4.5 pounds) in his abdomen. Except the head, all other limbs of the baby were developed," Mazid said.

The condition appeared to be a "foetus in foeto" or inclusion twin, said Nurun Nahar, assistant professor of the gynecology department at the university.

The condition is extremely rare, Nahar said, and happens when two foetuses are conceived as conjoined twins in the uterus of the mother. One enters into the other during pregnancy.

"In this case the foetus of the baby entered into the foetus of the boy and continued to grow like a tumour in the boy's abdomen," Nahar said.

[Warduke]

Finally!

Giant Squid Caught on Film.

[urnofosiris]

Interesting, but kind of hard to appreciate it´s size without anything beside it to put it in perspective. Did they really need to use those nasty hooks to secure the bait used to lure the creature. Severing two of it´s tentacles can´t be good for it´s health.

[bytrsuite]

This has been all over the news for some reason.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/20 ... ossod.html

http://www.eepybird.com/dcm1.html

I must say, I'm tempted to try it. I wonder if it works with those sour mentos.