Believe it, or not! Weird news and other Oddities

[xita]

Ok, I've been wanting to make this thread for a while. This thread is for any news item that you come across on the internet that is just too ridiculous, funny or just unbelievable.



I thought I'd start with one Pat gave me.



Parrot's oratory stuns scientists

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"Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off now!"

[maudmac]

That's so cool. That parrot is more intelligent and articulate than a lot of humans I know. I half-way want one now, but, whoa, that's like having a human child. Teaching them. Stimulating their little brains with new knowlege. I'd rather just walk a dog. That's about all the energy I'm willing to invest in a pet.



Plus, man, they live forever, don't they?



Is it Churchill's parrot or not? Either way, it's old.

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go         donut           go

[Tempest Duer]

That's pretty cool. Birds are way more fun than kids, especially since you don't have to drive them places all the time.



Actually, no, that is really cool.

Willow: Hey Buff. One more thing. Buffy: Yeah? Willow: I’m gay. Buffy: Okay, Will. Xander owes me ten bucks.

~Remember to Breathe by Yellow Crayon

[xita]

Hahaha, that's awesome

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"Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off now!"

Edited by: xita  at: 1/29/04 8:49 pm

[Warduke]

Quote:

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Thar she blows! Dead whale explodes

Taiwanese street, shops showered after gases built up inside



TAIPEI - Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.



The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.



Residents and shop owners wore masks while trying to clean up the spilt blood and entrails.



"What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful," a BBC News report quoted one Tainan resident as saying.

Taiwan Apple Daily via Reuters

The sperm whale was being carried by truck through Tainan.



The whale had died on Jan. 17 after it beached itself on the southwestern coast of the island.



Researchers at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan said enough of the whale remained to allow for an examination by marine biologists.



Once moved to a nearby nature preserve, the male specimen -- the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan -- drew the attention of locals because of its large penis, measured at some five feet, the Taipei Times reported.



"More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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If you want to see pictures of it, just go here.

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Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[urnofosiris]

Now that was not very smart. They really should have known that could happen. That scooter in the middle of that goo looks very clean though.

I find the fact that all those men want to check out his penis oddly amusing.

[Tempest Duer]

That's one weird story. But I mean, seriously, men and penises... it's such a strange phenomenon. I'm almost glad I don't have to deal with it.

Willow: Hey Buff. One more thing. Buffy: Yeah? Willow: I’m gay. Buffy: Okay, Will. Xander owes me ten bucks.

~Remember to Breathe by Yellow Crayon

[Renee85]

Quote:

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"More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported.

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Man, man, man that was pretty messy. I never thought that a whale could explode like that, makes me wonder if that happens to people, because if it does then I'm totally going to be cremated when I die. Which is a weird thought to have after reading about a whale but it was the first thing that came to my mind, kinda like a person watching a butcher and wanting to become a vegetarian.



Anyway, I want to read more stories like this...very interesting, very disgusting, and very COOL.



Thanks for posting it.

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." -J. Krishnamurti

[urnofosiris]

My morbid curiosity got the better of me, found this:





This site is offline but the message is funny: www.perp.com/whale/



and this site tells the story of another kind of whale explosion:

www.hackstadt.com/features/whale



Here you can download the video that goes with the story. You gotta see it to believe it...

perp.com/whale/video.html

[FloatingRose]

lol..that's..interesting..and very gross..at least it was dead before it exploded. *heads off to bed to try not to dream about exploding whales*

Sarah



"Some people like rhapsody in blue, but me I prefer my rhapsody in red." - The Dictionary Affairs

[xita]

For those keeping up with the cannibal story:



story.news.yahoo.com/news...annibal_dc



Cannibal Spared Life Sentence in Gory Trial

       

Fri Jan 30,10:51 AM ET



By David Crossland



KASSEL, Germany (Reuters) - A German cannibal was convicted of manslaughter but not murder Friday for killing and eating a man who had asked to die, and he was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail.



The court rejected the prosecution's plea for a murder conviction and life sentence because the victim had instructed Armin Meiwes, 42, to kill him. The act of sexual fetishism, which he recorded on video tape, has sparked shock and fascination around the world.



"Both were looking for the ultimate kick," said judge Volker Muetze, explaining the verdict in the central German court of Kassel. "This was an act between two extremely disturbed people who both wanted something from each other."



Meiwes could be out on parole in less than five years, but one expert said he doubted the cannibal would be released early.



About 100 journalists from Germany and abroad and dozens of people from Kassel attended the last day of the country's most sensational trial in years.



"It's too lenient, he should have got life," said Bernd Exner a local resident who queued up for hours to get into the court. "Society needs to be protected from people like that."



The prosecution, which had accused Meiwes of killing for sexual gratification a man he should have known was disturbed, said it would appeal. The case could ultimately go before Germany's Supreme Court because it has no legal precedent. The killing was premeditated, but the victim's agreement lessened the guilt. Psychiatrists found Meiwes deeply disturbed but sane.



The defense had sought a lesser conviction of "killing on request," a form of illegal euthanasia, but were still pleased.



"He's a model prisoner and if he stays that way he could be out by mid-2008," Meiwes's lawyer Harald Ermel told reporters. "He will voluntarily undergo psychiatric therapy to get away from his fetish for men's flesh. I'm sure he won't do anything like this again."



Meiwes, who said in court he had fantasized since puberty about consuming a man to fill the void caused by the sudden departure of his father, had been in touch with hundreds of people on the Internet, where he posted ads seeking fit men for "slaughter." His desires were such that he made models of limbs with marzipan.



He built a "slaughter room" complete with butcher's bench and meat hook and a cage in the sprawling half-timbered house in Rotenburg near Kassel left him by his late, domineering mother.



The judge said both Meiwes and his victim, a 43-year-old Berlin computer specialist named only as Bernd-Juergen B., had led double lives, with good jobs and "normal" friends who knew nothing of their fantasies, which grew stronger as they found like-minded people on the Web.



The fateful meeting came in March 2001 in Meiwes's house after Meiwes responded to Bernd-Juergen B.'s Internet ad seeking someone to bite off his penis and kill him.



With no trace of embarrassment, Meiwes told the court how the killing had begun with him trying unsuccessfully to bite off the victim's penis, then cutting it off with a knife.



They both tried to eat it raw, and then fried it, trying again unsuccessfully to eat it. Meiwes then waited for hours until the victim, weakened by loss of blood from his wound, fell unconscious shortly after calling out that he needed to urinate.



He then laid him out on his butcher's bench and cut him in pieces. He ate 20 kg (44 lb) of the body over the following months, defrosting pieces portion by portion. He kept the skull in the freezer and buried other body parts in his garden.



Legal experts expect the case to be appealed and say it could ultimately go to the Supreme Court because it creates a legal dilemma -- does killing a victim who wants to die constitute murder?



"We've seen people growing accustomed to a sub-culture that we couldn't imagine existed before this trial," Muetze said.



"We've opened a door we would rather close again but which shows how many people in need of help live out their fantasies on the Internet," he said.

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"Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off now!"

[Renee85]

Quote:

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A German cannibal was convicted of manslaughter but not murder Friday for killing and eating a man who had asked to die, and he was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail.

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Just eight and a half years!?! You've gotta be kidding me! Martha Stewart is facing more jail time than that! He may have asked for it but the guy still killed someone for heaven's sakes... I mean, the last time I checked murder meant killing someone and he KILLED the guy thus he should be convicted of MURDER...easy as ABC.

Quote:

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He then laid him out on his butcher's bench and cut him in pieces. He ate 20 kg (44 lb) of the body over the following months, defrosting pieces portion by portion. He kept the skull in the freezer and buried other body parts in his garden.

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Okay...this is REALLY disturbing, way worse than the whale exploding. People are really crazy out there... He actually kept the skull in the freezer?! So, every time he opened his freezer for ice-cream or something, there was a human skull staring back at him?!



I'm aghast right now, in complete disbelief. This guy needs to be locked up FOREVER, someone that insane ain't gonna just wake up and not want to eat people. He's going to go straight to McDonald's after he's let out and instead of buying a Big Mac he's going to go and eat the guy behind the cash register! I can see it happening already.



Man, okay...I need to breathe right now. *deep breath*



Still, interesting stuff! :-)

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." -J. Krishnamurti

Edited by: Renee85  at: 2/1/04 4:18 am

[The Smee]

I always didn't really know what to make of this case. Personally, I felt rather sick after reading the article the first time in the newspaper (especially that bit about frying and eating the penis while the guy was still alive) but I think I'll stop short of calling it 'murder'. Of course it was planned and premeditated, but the victim consented to this. That has been made very clear; in the court proceedings and the video that was made. That throws up a whole bunch of issues which make it difficult to have a black-and-white murder case.

I'm also not sure whether he's a sociopathic killer, either. I heard on Radio 4 that he had conducted interviews with other potentials, as it were, but they declined to be eaten, and he let them go without harm. Not the actions of a demented serial killer, then.

He still ate that bloke though.



*shudders*







Here are my contributions. Two stories. Both true.





Sometimes large, heavy military aircraft need assistance in taking off from short runways. A large, solid-fuel rocket, called a JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) is used to tow the planes and give that extra boost.



A few years ago (I don't have the exact date, but I know it was a while back) the Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff face at a height of 125 feet, 3 feet deep. Initital expectations thought it to be the remains of a low-flying light aircraft that had collided with the cliff, but further inspection revealed it to be a 1967 Chevy Impala (www.dealsonwheels.com/sea..._ID/203411 ). A certain amount of detective work found out how this unlikely accident had occured.



The driver of the car had somehow aquired a JATO rocket, and had bolted it to the roof of the Chevy. He then selected a long, straight road in the Arizona Desert, accelerated to a reasonable speed, then fired the JATO.



The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 pilots under full afterburners.



2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) later, he applied the brakes which immediately melted and blew all four tires, which explains the thick rubber marks on the surface of the road.



Things weren't looking good, especially when the car reached a bend and took off, flying for an extra 1.4 miles and finally impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, 3 feet deep.



No matter how much fun this sounds, don't try it at home, kids.







TWO LOCAL MEN INJURED IN FREAK ACCIDENT



Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday morning. Woodruff County Deputy Davey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midday Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.



The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on east-bound toward the White River Bridge.



After traveling approximately 20 miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right exiting the pavement and striking the tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his nuts off or we might have been dead", stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how the accident happened," said Snyder.



Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.





Smee out.





Edited to add: Turns out the JATO story is just an urban legend. Oh well, it's still funny, and no-one gets hurt this time.

This has been a message brought to you by SmeeCorp.

Edited by: The Smee at: 2/1/04 6:20 am

[xita]

Actually that last story is sort of a myth as well. Don't know if you watch the mythbusters on Discovery channel but they actually tried to replicate that. They actually managed to fire the bullet but they needed heavier than usual wire to do that. And they had to create a short, just turning on the car wasn't enough. I don't remember if they said it actually happened, but it would be very unlikely!



Thanks for the stories, those are fun.



About the cannibal, i get really nervous about unsupervised, potentially unstable people consenting to being murdered. This isn't Kavorkian putting an end to a termanlly ill person's misery.

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"Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off now!"

[urnofosiris]

About that cannibal guy, I´d feel easier if they did throw away the key. I doubt his appetite will be stilled by the time he gets out and maybe if he cannot find another volunteer he will find himself a less willing victim.

[The Smee]

The other one's false as well?



Oh, bollocks.

This has been a message brought to you by SmeeCorp.

[Tempest Duer]

Well, it's certainly a strange story, and I'm not really sure what to think, but... you're right, he's no Dr. Kevorkian.

Willow: Hey Buff. One more thing. Buffy: Yeah? Willow: I’m gay. Buffy: Okay, Will. Xander owes me ten bucks.

~Remember to Breathe by Yellow Crayon

[Still Waters Run Deep]

The two 'urban legends' can be found, along with other such nugets at this site:



www.darwinawards.com/



It's a site which celebrates the removal of stupid people from the gene pool by the manner of their death, usually through their own actions. Highly recommended.



You may also note that the majority of recipients are men..... but in my own defence I would stress that us intelligent ones are still here

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love and kisses

Still Waters



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

[cattwoman98111]

check this out...



Techie Names First Son Version 2.0





HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) -- Tacking Jr. or II onto a boy's name is too common, a new father decided, so the self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son.



Jon Blake Cusack talked his wife, Jamie, into naming their son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0.



Version 2.0 was born Tuesday at Holland Community Hospital, and the proud parents took him home Friday.



"I wanted to find something different to name him besides Jon Blake," Cusack, who is self-employed with Westshore Design and Cusack Music, told The Holland Sentinel.



He said he had the idea for a few months, and spent the better part of that time persuading his wife to go along.

Jamie Cusack said she didn't concede until the week before the birth. She said she had "picked out the theme of the baby's room and done other things. I decided to let Jon have this."



After 2.0's birth, the Cusacks sent out an electronic birth announcement.



"I wrote in the birth announcement e-mail stuff, like there's a lot of features from version 1.0 with additional features from Jamie," Jon Cusack said.

Your smile got stuck in my eyes and your mouth makes me forget what i'm saying and your lips make me wonder if your taken, so tell me, are you taken?

[maudmac]

I saw this a while back, but now there are more pictures.



Check out the slideshow.



Surgeons to Operate on Baby With 2 Heads

       

Thu Feb 5,10:17 PM ET

       



By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer



SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A team of surgeons made final preparations to operate on a Dominican infant born with a second head, a risky surgery that doctors say they believe to be the first of its kind.



Led by a Los Angles-based neurosurgeon, the medical team planned to spend about 13 hours Friday removing Rebeca Martinez's second head, which has a partially formed brain, ears, eyes and lips.



Eighteen doctors and nurses working in shifts were to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries and close the skull of the 7-week-old girl using a bone graft from another part of her body.



"The head on top is growing faster than the lower one," said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital. "If we don't operate, the child would barely be able to lift her head at 3 months old."



Lazareff said the pressure from the second head, attached on top of the first and facing up, would prevent Rebeca's brain from developing.



CURE International, a Lemoyne, Pennsylvania-based charity that gives medical care to disabled children in developing countries, is paying for the surgery, estimated at $100,000. The agency funds the Center for Orthopedic Specialties in Santo Domingo, where the surgery was to be performed.



The operation is risky because the two heads share arteries.



"When the doctors come out and tell us it's all OK we'll be filled with happiness," father Franklin Martinez, 29, told The Associated Press Thursday.



Lazareff was to lead the operation along with Dr. Benjamin Rivera, a neurosurgeon at the Medical Center of Santo Domingo and the Center for Orthopedic Specialties. Lazareff led a team that successfully separated conjoined Guatemalan twin girls in 2002.



Doctors say if the surgery goes well, Rebeca won't need physical therapy and will develop as a normal child.



Twins are born conjoined at the head when an embryo splits to make identical twins and then stops growing, leaving them fused. Such twins are rare, accounting for one of every 2.5 million births.



Parasitic twins like Rebeca are even more rare. They occur when one stops developing, leaving a smaller, partially formed twin dependent on the other.



Rebeca is the eighth documented case in the world of craniopagus parasiticus, said Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director at the Center for Orthopedic Specialties.



All the other documented infants died before birth, making it the first known surgery of its particular kind, according to Lazareff and the other doctors.



Martinez and his 26-year-old wife, Maria Gisela Hiciano, say doctors told them Rebeca would be born with a tumor on her head but none of the prenatal tests showed a second head developing.



Although the second head is only partially developed, its mouth moves when Rebeca is being breast-fed.



Martinez works at a tailor's shop. Hiciano is a supermarket cashier. Together they make about $200 a month. They have two other children, ages 4 and 1.

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Oh, God...the second head's mouth moves...

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[angelofinsanity]

omg. wow. jeez poor baby! the fact that the other head was developing really freaked me out. man. poor girl tho.

[urnofosiris]

Wow, that is the weirdest thing ever. I knew about parasitic twins, but I had never heard of anything like this. No wonder seeing as she only the 8th documented case ever. I can´t help but wonder whether there is any awareness in that second head. Not that it would change anything, it has to be done, I hope she will make it through and recover completely.

[Warduke]

From Yahoo...

Quote:

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Surgeons Remove Second Head From Baby

       

By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer



SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A team of surgeons performed a rare and risky operation Friday to remove the second head of a Dominican baby — a partially formed twin that threatens the girl's development.



The parents of 7-week-old Rebeca Martinez followed her to the door of the operating room and said a prayer over their baby, holding hands and gently caressing their daughter's head.



"Be strong, Rebeca. May God be with you," 26-year-old Maria Gisela Hiciano, said as she reached for her baby through the bars of the crib.



Led by a Los Angeles-based neurosurgeon, the medical team planned to spend about 13 hours removing Rebeca's second head, which has a partially formed brain, ears, eyes and lips.



The surgery is complicated because the two heads share arteries. Although only partially developed, the mouth on her second head moves when Rebeca is being breast-fed. Tests indicate some activity in her second brain.



Eighteen surgeons, nurses and doctors were to take several rotations to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries, and close the skull using a bone graft from another part of Rebeca's body.



By Friday evening, the operation was 90 percent complete, doctors said.



"They have taken out the extra brain and they're closing the cranium," said Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director of Santo Domingo's Center for Orthopedic Specialties, where the surgery was being performed. "The risks have dropped significantly, but we still can't celebrate."



The operation was critical because the head on top was growing faster than the lower one, said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the lead brain surgeon and director of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel Children's Hospital.



Without an operation, he said, "the child would barely be able to lift her head at 3 months old."



Lazareff said the pressure from the second head, attached on top of the first and facing up, would prevent Rebeca's brain from developing.



CURE International, a Lemoyne, Pa.-based charity that funds the orthopedic center and gives medical care to disabled children in developing countries, is paying an estimated $100,000 for the surgery.



The operation had been delayed for about four hours while doctors carefully administered anesthesia.



Rebeca's mother and father Franklin Martinez, 29, waited in a separate room, watching baseball on television and receiving visitors who brought flowers and stuffed animals. Psychologists also visited them.



"When she was born everyone said, 'Wow, two heads,' but to us she was just our baby Rebeca," Martinez told The Associated Press.



Lazareff, who led a team that successfully separated conjoined Guatemalan twin girls in 2002, was leading the operation along with Dr. Benjamin Rivera, a neurosurgeon at the Medical Center of Santo Domingo and the orthopedic center.



Doctors say if the surgery goes well Rebeca won't need physical therapy and will develop as a normal child.



Rebeca was born on Dec. 17 with the undeveloped head of her twin, a condition known as craniopagus parasiticus.



Twins born conjoined at the head are extremely rare, accounting for one of every 2.5 million births. Parasitic twins like Rebeca are even rarer.



Rebeca is the eighth documented case in the world of craniopagus parasiticus, Hazim said.



All the other documented infants died before birth, making it the first known surgery of its kind, according to Lazareff and the other doctors.



Martinez, a tailor, and his wife, who is a supermarket cashier, together make about $200 a month and have two other children, aged 4 and 1.



They say doctors told them Rebeca would be born with a tumor on her head but that none of the prenatal tests showed a second head.



Lazareff has refused to make a prognosis but said earlier this week that Rebeca's chances of survival are good.

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Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Renee85]

Wow! Very interesting story. I really feel for the baby and her family. But it's good to hear that her chances of survival are pretty good and that she might be okay, I hope for the best!

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." -J. Krishnamurti

[FlyingPoppy]

I just heard on the radio that this baby has died



ETA link to article.

For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision; but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
It's never too late to be who you might have been.

Edited by: FlyingPoppy at: 2/7/04 9:01 am

[Renee85]

Oh no....

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." -J. Krishnamurti

[Warduke]

Can't say that I'm surprised

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Firebird: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Warduke]

This is just bizarre...

Quote:

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American Airlines pilot calls on Christian passengers



NEW YORK (AFP) - An American Airlines pilot is facing an internal investigation after reportedly asking Christian passengers to identify themselves, and suggesting that non-Christians on his flight were "crazy."



Speaking Monday on CNN's "American Morning," several passengers said the Sunday flight from Los Angeles to New York had not yet taken off, when the pilot chose to address everyone on board.



"He said he'd recently been on a mission trip, and he'd like all the Christians to please raise their hands," said passenger Jen Dorsey.



According to fellow passenger Karla Austin, "He said, 'If you are a Christian, raise your hand.' He said, 'If you are not, you're crazy'."



Austin said no passengers raised their hands.



The pilot also asked passengers to look around at each other and use their flying time wisely.



American Airlines said the pilot, whose name was not revealed, had recently returned from a mission trip to Costa Rica.



In a statement, the airline said his comments amounted to a "personal level of sharing that may not be appropriate for one of our employees to do while on the job."



Passengers said the remarks had made them deeply uneasy and that many on board had reached for their mobile phones, fearing the pilot might take some sort of drastic action.



"Just given the history of what's happened on planes in this country, anything can happen at this point," Austin said. "There was definitely implication there that we felt that something was going to happen."



Complaints were relayed by flight attendants to the cockpit, and 45 minutes into the flight the pilot issued an apology, but one that was directed at his crew for having had to deflect the passenger criticism.

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[Tempest Duer]

My god, what a jackass. And coming from the pilot of all people! That's twisted. He's not a real Christian.

Willow: Hey Buff. One more thing. Buffy: Yeah? Willow: I’m gay. Buffy: Okay, Will. Xander owes me ten bucks.

~Remember to Breathe by Yellow Crayon

[Warduke]

Quote:

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Barbie and Ken 'Split' After 43 Years



By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL, Associated Press Writer



NEW YORK - Just like J.Lo and Ben, the romance is over for Barbie and Ken.



After 43 years as one of the world's prettiest pairs, the perfect plastic couple is breaking up. The couple's "business manager," Russell Arons, vice president of marketing at Mattel, said that Barbie and Ken "feel it's time to spend some quality time — apart."



"Like other celebrity couples, their Hollywood romance has come to an end," said Arons, who quickly added that the duo "will remain friends."



Arons denied that there was any truth to rumors that the breakup was linked to the Cali (as in California) Girl Barbie, arriving in stores now. To better reflect her single status, Cali Barbie will wear board shorts and a bikini top, metal hoop earrings, and have a deeper tan.



This new style already has attracted a new admirer, Blaine the Australian boogie boarder.



Barbie — the most popular fashion doll in the world, according to toy maker Mattel — met Ken on the set of a TV commercial in 1961, and they have been inseparable ever since.



Arons hinted Wednesday that the separation may be partially because of Ken's reluctance to get married. All those bridal Barbie dolls in toy chests around the globe are really just examples of Barbie's wishful thinking, she explained.



Another possible factor is Barbie's career. The doll who was "born" Barbie Millicent Roberts in 1959 has been everything from a rock star to a military medic, and she's currently marketed in more than 150 countries. According to Mattel, every second, three Barbie dolls are sold somewhere in the world.



So where does that leave Ken? Said Arons: "He will head for other waves."

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So Ken finally shaved his beard.

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