tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22771574080577376572024-03-18T20:29:56.413-07:00Offbeat Blogmikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.comBlogger1458125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-71033251854671452132011-08-18T23:27:00.000-07:002011-08-18T23:50:31.442-07:00Parade of Cadillacs Stretches a Mile, Sets New World Record<dl id="article-titles" class="clear clearfix"><dd id="title-container" class="title">
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<br /></dd><dd class="share-block"> <dl id="social-media-block" class="clear clearfix"><dd id="print"><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/cars-bikes/parade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.html?print=true" title="Print"><span>Print</span></a></dd><dd id="email"><a title="Email"><span>Email</span></a></dd></dl> </dd></dl> <div class="article-share-tools"> <div id="pre-share-tools-container" class="clear clearfix"> <div class="facebook-like-container"> <div class="fb-recommend-page"> <span></span> </div> </div> <div class="share-toolbar-container"> <div class="facebook-share share-partition"><span class="facebook-share-button"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdsc.discovery.com%2Fcars-bikes%2Fparade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.html" title="facebook" target="_blank">facebook share</a></span><span class="facebook-share-count">6</span></div> <div class="twitter-share"><span class="twitter-share-button"></span></div> </div> </div></div> <div id="article-body"> <div id="body-copy" class=""> <div id="attachment_8058" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 632px"><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/cars-bikes/parade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.html" rel="attachment wp-att-8058"><img style="width: 400px; height: 324px;" src="http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2011/08/caddyparade.jpg" alt="Record-Setting Parade of Cadillacs" class="size-full wp-image-8058" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Photos: Cadillac</p></div> <p>So how does one go about drumming up interest for the local fair in a hometown of the founding father of a major car company? Simple, have a parade.</p> <p>That is what the folks in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton,_Vermont">Barton, Vermont</a> did for their <a href="http://www.orleanscountyfair.net/">Orleans County Fair</a> in honor of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Leland">Henry M. Leland</a> who founded <a href="http://www.cadillac.com/">Cadillac</a> in 1902.</p> <p>What started out as a simple honor to Leland and a promotional event for the fair led to a new Guinness World Record Aug. 17 as 298 vintage and new Cadillacs formed a parade that stretched nearly a mile long and included vehicles from across the U.S. and Canada.</p> <p>The idea for the parade came from Lorie Seadale, superintendent for the Floral Hall Arts and Crafts department of the fair. “Our initial goal was for the fair but it’s become a dual-purpose event to honor Henry Leland’s legacy and contribution to this country with his inventions, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit,” Seadale said. “It’s great to bring the world record back the United States where it belongs.”</p> <p>The previous record of 102 Cadillacs went to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leimuiderbrug">Leimuiderbrug, the Netherlands</a>, for a parade on Aug. 18, 2002.</p> <p><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/cars-bikes/parade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.htmllead" rel="attachment wp-att-8059"><img style="width: 400px; height: 324px;" src="http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2011/08/caddyparadelead.jpg" alt="1959 Cadillac Convertible" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8059" /></a></p> <p>Doug Leland, a descendant of the honoree, and his wife Sally rode in the pink 1959 Cadillac convertible that led the record-setting parade. Several of Leland’s descendants still reside in the area and participated in the parade. </p> <p>“He was a unique individual. They called him the ‘Master of Precision’ because he had such high standards,” said David Leland, great great nephew of Henry Leland and a resident of Shelbourne, Vt. “It’s nice to see him recognized like this.”</p> <p><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/cars-bikes/parade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.htmlpolish" rel="attachment wp-att-8060"><img style="width: 399px; height: 323px;" src="http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2011/08/caddyparadepolish.jpg" alt="Parade prep on a 1941 Cadillac" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8060" /></a></p> <p>“Cadillac congratulates the residents of Barton and all of the Cadillac owners who participated in the parade for setting the world record in Henry Leland’s home town,” said Cadillac Vice President of Marketing Don Butler. “The success of this event demonstrates that Cadillac still fuels the same passions that Henry Leland inspired in the brand.”</p> </div> </div><dl id="article-titles" class="clear clearfix"><dd id="entitlement-container" class="entitlement"><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/cars-bikes/parade-of-cadillacs-in-vermont-sets-new-world-record.html">Original here</a>
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<br /></dd></dl>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-26302218339952704372011-07-11T01:33:00.000-07:002011-07-11T01:41:20.761-07:00Shuttle Diplomacy: Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson Explain How the Space Shuttle Was Never Really About Science<p style="text-align: left;" class="details">Posted by <a href="http://motherboard.tv/profiles/alex_pasternack">Alex_Pasternack</a><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><ul style="text-align: center;" class="slides"><li class="first last"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="media"> <ul class="slides"><li class="first last"> <img style="width: 271px; height: 152px;" alt="03tyso_ca0_600_large" src="http://assets.motherboard.tv/post_images/assets/000/010/083/03tyso_CA0_600_large.jpg?1310129371" /> </li></ul> </div> <div class="social_apps"> <a style="text-decoration: none;" name="fb_share" type="button_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmotherboard.tv%2F2011%2F7%2F8%2Fshuttle-diplomacy-watch-neil-degrasse-tyson-explain-how-the-space-shuttle-was-never-really-about-science&t=Shuttle%20Diplomacy%3A%20Watch%20Neil%20deGrasse%20Tyson%20Explain%20How%20the%20Space%20Shuttle%20Was%20Never%20Really%20About%20Science%20%7C%20Motherboard&src=sp" target="_blank"><span class="fb_share_size_Small "><span class="FBConnectButton FBConnectButton_Small" style="cursor: pointer;"><span class="FBConnectButton_Text"></span></span></span></a><br /></div> <p>Among those gloating over the demise of the Space Shuttle are none other than scientists, who argue that the costly and overly complex program was sapping valuable resources from real space science and sending them up on <a target="_blank" href="http://motherboard.tv/2009/11/17/latest-shuttle-mission-trash-the-urine-recycler">toilet repair missions</a> instead.</p> <p>But this animosity is based on a false premise, astrophysicist and Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson reminded us at the World Science Festival. The Shuttle was never really intended to promote research or fulfill NASA’s goal of space exploration. Instead, like the Apollo missions to the moon, the $160 billion Shuttle program was the product of politics.</p> <p>As inspiring as the grandeur of the spaceship has been to legions of young people – and as important as it was in fixing the Hubble telescope – it was actually the Western battle against the Soviet Union – and later, other diplomatic interests – that left <span class="caps">NASA</span> operating this amazing low-orbit dump truck. To criticize the Shuttle for not doing more science, or to say that that the Shuttle budget should have been devoted to science, is to misinterpret reality. The money wouldn’t have existed at all if the program <em>hadn’t</em> been political.</p> <blockquote> <p>We’re afraid to say that to ourselves. We know that if we say we’re going to do science with it, that’ll sort of gather more adherents. And we feel more comfort in selling it that way. But selling it that way was the delusion… There are reasons for doing things in this world that are not driven by science.</p> </blockquote> <p>Watch:</p> <p> </p> <h4>Read <a target="_blank" href="http://motherboard.tv/2010/3/4/pluto-s-a-dwarf-get-over-it-q-a-with-star-physicist-neil-degrasse-tyson--2">an interview with Neil</a> and visit <a target="_blank" href="http://motherboard.tv/search/posts?keyword=neil+degrasse+tyson&commit=Search">the Neil deGrasse Tyson Motherboard</a>.</h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://motherboard.tv/2011/7/8/shuttle-diplomacy-watch-neil-degrasse-tyson-explain-how-the-space-shuttle-was-never-really-about-science">Original here</a><br /></div></li></ul>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-51767953699184664372011-07-11T01:31:00.000-07:002011-07-11T01:32:57.424-07:00Joan Parker Nailed for Assault After Kissing Homophobe Preacher at Gay Pride RallyBy Cory Zurowski in <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.truecrimereport.com/police_bungling/"> Police bungling</a>, <a href="http://www.truecrimereport.com/bad_clergy/"> bad clergy</a><br /><br /></span><span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"><table class="image left" border="0" width="150"><tbody><tr><td><img alt="kiss-grandma_opt-1.jpg" src="http://www.truecrimereport.com/kiss-grandma_opt-1.jpg" height="100" width="150" /></td></tr></tbody></table></span>Bible-thumping preacher James Belcher abhors felching and anyone who partakes in a sharing of the love. He's also a hater of bi's, trannies, bull dykes and sodomites. Packed with that full matching set of unmagnanimous baggage, the Man of God took to the streets recently...<br /> <br /><a name="more"></a> <div>The event which attracted the attention of the 49-year-old Belcher's devout crosshairs was the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Day in Salisbury, North Carolina, a town located about 45 miles southeast of Charlotte.</div><div><br /></div><div>On a flawless Saturday afternoon beneath the big sun of a hot southern day, approximately 2,000 prideful and flaming homosexuals, cross-dressers and bisexuals sashayed down the town streets in solidarity, shouting slogans like, "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Also on hand was roughly 200 raging homophobe protestors, Belcher among them.</div><div><br /></div><div>As the day's colorful and vocal festivities were rocking and rolling, there was Belcher calling out the sodomites, who he said were doomed to an eternity in Hades because they won't marry within heterosexual circles, have kids only to divorce, and scar their offspring with worthiness issues for the rest of their lives.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the pride day's participants -- 74-year-old Joan Parker -- spotted Belcher ranting and raving and not playing nice. Instead of hollering back at the preacher man, the AARP card-carrying uber lesbian decided to show Belcher some love. </div><div><br /></div><div>After all, isn't that what Jesus would do?</div><div><br /></div><div>Belcher turned to squawk at a man who was about to snap a photograph of him. It was at that same time when Parker embraced Belcher and planted a big wet one, her lips snuggling up to his cheek.</div><div><br /></div><div>With a Bible clasped in one of his hands, Belcher then thrust his arms skyward, turning towards a nearby police officer who witnessed the lip-to-cheek-trespass.</div><div><br /></div><div>Belcher was soon telling police that <span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span>he wanted to press charges; Police Chief Rory Collins agreed.</div><div><br /></div><div>"... [I]t wasn't done as a show of affection," he said. "It was an unwanted touching."</div><div><br /></div><div>Parker was slapped with one count of misdemeanor simple assault. If convicted, the sentence for a first-time offender is a max of 30 days of community service. She's due back in court Sept. 12.</div><div><br /></div><div>Belcher argues that Parker's disingenuous kiss move "was just one of the many attempts to silence the preaching to those in need of salvation who practice a death style that they call a lifestyle."</div><div><br /></div><div>Parker counters by simply saying, "I thought he needed a hug. So I gave him a hug."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.truecrimereport.com/2011/07/joan_parker_nailed_for_assault.php">Original here</a><br /></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-17353489175353384952009-12-20T04:00:00.000-08:002009-12-20T04:05:27.333-08:00Man Attacked by Rabid Bobcat Strangles Animal to Death With Bare HandsBy James King in <a href="http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/animal_use_and_abuse/">Animal Use and Abuse</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtt-3ziD-hX_CaGcbPfW9C31V-Dm9T1912zGe5U5sfvshVYuoCJsZ5QWKXbPlVWoE7_WnqdnPqVlMRLQQBYeecpGSc8AInPAnQbUbJpoXUCi4g4LZEcA0m7niSNI2UI46Sa0L5vjtg_8u0/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtt-3ziD-hX_CaGcbPfW9C31V-Dm9T1912zGe5U5sfvshVYuoCJsZ5QWKXbPlVWoE7_WnqdnPqVlMRLQQBYeecpGSc8AInPAnQbUbJpoXUCi4g4LZEcA0m7niSNI2UI46Sa0L5vjtg_8u0/s400/3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417288057474660770" border="0" /></a>Officials at the Arizona Game and Fish Department say a Yavapai County man was attacked by a rabid bobcat on Monday. Rather than panic, he strangled it with his bare hands.<br /><br />The man's name is not being released because of privacy laws, but AGFD officials say the attack happened in the front yard of his Crown King Trail home, about 12 miles north of Lake Pleasant.<br /><br /> <a name="more"></a> "This was particularly unusual because the gentleman killed the animal with his bare hands, and that was very advantageous because the animal wasn't out potentially exposing other people to rabies," Randy Babb, spokesman for the AGFD, tells <a href="http://www.kpho.com/news/21979273/detail.html"><i>CBS 5 (KPHO).</i></a><br /><br />Arizona is seeing record numbers of rabid animals in 2009, with 244 that have tested positive for the disease. That is an increase from the 176 cases reported last year, which was the previous record.<br /><br />However, Arizonans prove to not be backing down to these rabid rascals.<br /><br />Just last month, a Chino Valley woman was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7712306.stm">attacked by a fox</a> while she was jogging. The fox bit down on her arm and wouldn't let go, so the woman kept jogging for about a mile and a half, with the fox clamped into her flesh.<br /><br />She finally reached her car with the fox still attached, where she managed to pry the thing off and put it in the trunk. It was later determined that the maniac fox had rabies.<br /><br />Officials at the AGFD, however, don't recommend taking matters into your own, um, hands if you can help it. They say that if confronted by an animal that has allowed you to get close to it, or has no problem with getting close to you, get the hell away as fast as you can because it may be rabid.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2009/12/man_attacked_by_a_rabid_bobcat.php">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-6442987162287378122009-12-20T03:58:00.001-08:002009-12-20T04:00:39.663-08:00Killer Tripped on Baggy Pants, Plunged to Death after Slaying Three<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQg3Z8bUgZf6aY8zYYAeR7E70iPz-Ms8xa_gXDUDHsVHkNY0t8U8LoCOBje31GNYxk-cgpQngv-MGJHSwnt_DI25V2PJjKfT8_8Qzj-0WPYATiO67Anh99GqtKQcza8vlle8q3XU-wj9A/s1600-h/dpg_stock_national_news_20090303105425807_320_240.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifQg3Z8bUgZf6aY8zYYAeR7E70iPz-Ms8xa_gXDUDHsVHkNY0t8U8LoCOBje31GNYxk-cgpQngv-MGJHSwnt_DI25V2PJjKfT8_8Qzj-0WPYATiO67Anh99GqtKQcza8vlle8q3XU-wj9A/s400/dpg_stock_national_news_20090303105425807_320_240.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417286802294253202" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="fontStyle47">By LARRY CELONA, JOHN DOYLE, and LAURIE KAMENS</p> <p>(The New York Post) - A career criminal who slaughtered three members of a family in their apartment in New York's trendy Upper West Side Thursday plunged to his death after tripping over his baggy pants.</p> <p>The bloodshed began when the killer barged into the family's third floor apartment and opened fire at around 1:45 p.m. Thursday, near a string of upscale shops.</p> <p>Gunman Hector Quinones blew away 24-year-old Carlos Rodriguez Jr., and his father Carlos Rodriguez Sr., 52, and then repeatedly stabbed grandfather Fernando Gonzalez, 87, to death before the elder Rodriguez's wife and adult daughter walked unwittingly into the carnage in the apartment they all shared.</p> <p>As soon as Gisela Rodriguez, 49, and her daughter, Leyanis, 28, walked inside, Quinones, 44, opened fire again at the mother, grazing the back of her head, police said.</p> <p>He then went after Gisela's daughter, who scrambled for safety and ran to a nearby bedroom. The killer was inches away from grabbing her but tripped over his low-slung pants, sources said.</p> <p>The horrified woman managed to slam and lock the door just in time, only to find the bloodied bodies of her brother and dad inside.</p> <p>A relentless Quinones kicked the door in and lunged for Leyanis, but she was able to make it to a fire escape, screaming for help to construction workers on the roof of the building next door.</p> <p>"She just ran in and told the contracting guys there was a shooting, there's somebody who got shot," said the building manager, who declined to identify herself. "She was hysterical, she couldn't talk."</p> <p>Meanwhile, her wounded mother scrambled to safety out the front door.</p> <p>Fleeing empty-handed, Quinones ditched his gun, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets, and made a dash down a rear fire escape.</p> <p>But again, his low-slung pants fell to his ankles, tripping him and sending him falling three stories to his death, authorities said.</p> <p>Investigators found a "significant amount" of heroin and a smaller amount of cocaine inside the apartment, as well as a cash-stuffed lockbox that police confiscated, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.</p> <p>The suspect, who has 14 prior arrests for offenses that include manslaughter, assault, drugs and robbery, knew Rodriguez Sr. from when they were in prison together, sources said.</p><p><a href="http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpps/news/dpgonc-NY-Killer-Tripped-Pants-Plunged-Death-fc-20091218_5152028">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-29992683749452046082009-12-20T03:55:00.000-08:002009-12-20T03:58:08.744-08:00Top 7 insane homeowners association rules<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJatmAFsJGW1Xg0NPuQPUlnNkqOb4QS45O1PQ-BLDVXGKenV0hhQS4VsBygNJbZmD_bL_IGh2exVpM8HwRN5_zGXYtFsnQgfy1w0aP9HHwsEW2ZhR-ZAKyEUtn78wFppXMqJK-msv-K0Qm/s1600-h/the_week_16361_27.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJatmAFsJGW1Xg0NPuQPUlnNkqOb4QS45O1PQ-BLDVXGKenV0hhQS4VsBygNJbZmD_bL_IGh2exVpM8HwRN5_zGXYtFsnQgfy1w0aP9HHwsEW2ZhR-ZAKyEUtn78wFppXMqJK-msv-K0Qm/s400/the_week_16361_27.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417286203788561634" border="0" /></a><br /><p>The astonishingly restrictive ways of homeowners associations (HOAs) came under scrutiny this month when a Sussex Square, Virginia, HOA demanded that a 90-year-old World War II vet<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120904393.html"> remove an unapproved flag pole</a> from his front yard. After receiving support from members of Congress, and even the Obama administration, Medal of Honor recipient Van T. Barfoot, who once singlehandedly took on three Nazi tanks, triumphed in his quest to fly Old Glory. Other homeowners haven't been as lucky in their battles against their own HOAs' "<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/cox08132008.html">fascist"</a> rules. Here are seven of the most controversial commandments:</p> <p><strong>1. Thou shalt not plant too many roses</strong><br />A Rancho Santa Fe, California, homeowners' association <a href="http://loan.yahoo.com/m/primer13.html">targeted</a> Jeffery DeMarco for exceeding the prescribed number of rose bushes allowed on his four-acre property. When DeMarco balked, the HOA levied monthly fines, threatened foreclosure, and ultimately defeated DeMarco in court. After a judge ruled that the willful rose enthusiast had violated the community's architecture design rules, DeMarco was forced to pay the HOA's $70,000 legal bill — and lost his home to the bank.</p> <p><strong>2. Thou shalt not use "inconsistent" shingles — even after a plane destroys thy house</strong><br />After a plane crashed into the Sanford, Florida, home of Joe Woodard, killing his wife, Janise, and their infant son, he decided to rebuild a new home on the same lot. But his reconstruction came to a screeching halt when his HOA <a href="http://www.wesh.com/news/17432965/detail.html?rss=orl&psp=news">informed him that he'd positioned the new structure unacceptably and failed to achieve a perfect shingle match with his neighbors' homes</a>. Threatened with a lawsuit, the grieving widower told a local reporter that he'd hoped to change things up to avoid "reliving" painful memories — but eventually capitulated to the unsympathetic HOA.</p> <p><strong>3. Thou shalt not post a "For Sale" sign</strong><br />When Denise Hicks placed a "For Sale" sign in front of her Lebanon, Tennessee, residence, the Spence Creek homeowners association <a href="http://thatismessedup.com/2009/06/12/hoa-rules-ban-for-sale-sign/">quickly reprimanded her for a breach of contract</a>, citing a rule prohibiting signs, banners or billboards. Ultimately, Hicks was forced to display her realtor's signs in her home's windows, hidden from view.</p> <p><strong>4. Thou shalt not offer thy homeless granddaughter shelter</strong><br />Assuming guardianship of their six-year-old granddaughter, Kimberly, after her drug-addict mother was ruled unfit, Jimmy and Judy Stuttler brought the child to live with them in their Clearwater, Florida, retirement village. Since Kimberly was not technically "over 55" or arguably "retired," the alarmed HOA <a href="http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2009/10/22/retirement-community-tries-to-evict-six-year-old-girl/">tried to force the girl out</a>. Attempting to move, the Stuttlers failed to sell their home even after slashing its price from $250,000 to $129,000 and were eventually sued by the HOA. Kimberley's fate is now in the hands of the courts.</p> <p><strong>5. Thou must carry thy dog at all times</strong><br />After Pamela McMahan, a geriatric who walks with a cane, was fined $25 every time she failed to carry her cocker spaniel through the lobby of her Long Beach, California condominium, which <a href="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13107752">stipulates that pets' feet must never touch the floor of common areas.</a> "There are just too many things going on in the lobby," said Stormy Jech, the building's assistant property manager. "The dog might jump on someone or go to the bathroom." After racking up hundreds of dollars in fines, McMahan was forced to move.</p> <p><strong>6. No smoking — even in thy own bathroom</strong><br /><a href="http://www.smokefreeapartments.org/">HOAs' ban on smoking</a> in all public areas — including balconies, patios, courtyards, and swimming pool areas — has recently been extended into residents' homes. Citing the negative health effects of secondhand smoke, multiple court hearings have ruled in favor of HOAs. <a href="http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20041027_clearingair.htm">As Realty Times points out</a>, "The Constitution does not guarantee Americans the right to smoke in their homes...."</p> <p><strong>7. Thou shall maintain a consistently green lawn</strong><br />The Beacon Woods Civic Association in Bayonet Point, Florida, <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article847365.ece">took 66-year old resident Joseph Prudente to court</a> for failing to properly maintain his lawn after a $600-per-month increase to his adjustable rate mortgage threw him on hard times. Though Prudente was ultimately jailed for failing to resod his lawn, other members of the community <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article850257.ece">took pity on the faulty landscaper</a>, and paid for new sod, flowers, mulching, and functioning sprinklers. Their charity was enough to spring their elderly neighbor from the slammer, but Prudente still faces court and association fines.</p><p><a href="http://www.theweek.com/article/index/104150/Top_7_insane_homeowners_association_rules">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-88606104480225275072009-12-20T03:53:00.000-08:002009-12-20T03:55:55.722-08:00When I grow up I want to be just like mom, a letter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0KAYIWWsiN79OHaqF_9lh5OgGGuWdaZObqH5YqcRN0vPSqNVjPIqtCQ5dwsX-UtQcNFlh7BrnfuHVpkU2WzIPqi2Q_jsdPN2u5mXEw1VziJg_0TZD9go5uCTrH83zclS_Fu34EGs3IJg/s1600-h/pole.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0KAYIWWsiN79OHaqF_9lh5OgGGuWdaZObqH5YqcRN0vPSqNVjPIqtCQ5dwsX-UtQcNFlh7BrnfuHVpkU2WzIPqi2Q_jsdPN2u5mXEw1VziJg_0TZD9go5uCTrH83zclS_Fu34EGs3IJg/s400/pole.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417285689870310434" border="0" /></a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-14728937437969038472009-10-04T10:40:00.000-07:002009-10-04T10:41:46.550-07:00The Plot Thickens, The Legend Grows: Camano Island Teen Suspected of Idaho Airplane TheftBy Damon Agnos<br /><br /><span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"><table class="image left" border="0" width="127"><tbody><tr><td><img alt="catchmeifyoucan.jpg" src="http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/catchmeifyoucan.jpg" height="129" width="127" /></td></tr></tbody></table></span>It's hard to tell if this kid is really <a href="http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/09/catch_me_if_you_can.php" target="_blank">an epic fugitive along the lines of Jason Bourne and Frank Abagnale, Jr.</a> or just a convenient scapegoat for sundry thefts in the rural Northwest. Colton Harris-Moore is now <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009989816_webcolton03m.html" target="_blank">suspected of stealing a plane in Idaho, "hard-landing" it in Granite Falls, and walking away</a>. This followed a series of thefts--in which he is apparently suspected--of handguns, food, and beer at an airport in Creston, B.C. Who knows what the international element could add to his chase, but the cross-state foray has brought the FBI to the list of those investigating him, which already includes local law enforcement and the Federal Aviation Administration. <a name="more"></a> <p>If he is indeed guilty of the crimes of which he's accused, someone has to make a movie of his unprecedented run. He's an unlikely super-fugitive, having grown up in a trailer in the woods and honed his skills stealing equipment form his middle school. But, police allege, he quickly moved on to stealing and flying planes, having taught himself to do the latter by reading flight manuals and Internet articles. And he jumped from a stolen Mercedes he was driving during a police chase, letting it crash into a grocery store while he disappeared into the woods, laughing at his pursuers. </p> <p>Of course, all of this sucks for the victims of his crimes. But time heals wounds and Hollywood loves a precocious lawbreaker. See you on the big screen, Colton.<br /></p><p><a href="http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/10/the_plot_thickens_the_legend_g.php">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-31975887395154131972009-10-04T10:38:00.000-07:002009-10-04T10:39:55.639-07:00School bus crashes into Wis. home, flees the scene<div class="byLine">By Emily Kaiser in <a href="http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/whats_wrong_wit/">What's Wrong with Wisconsin?</a></div> <div class="entryDate"><br /></div> <span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image" style="display: inline;"><table class="image center" border="0" align="center" width="500"><tbody><tr><td><img style="width: 400px; height: 317px;" alt="2698587677_4670eac028.jpg" src="http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2698587677_4670eac028.jpg" /></td></tr><tr><td class="credit">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/niosh/2698587677/" target="_blank">NIOSH</a></td></tr></tbody></table></span> A 49-year-old man is in custody after he <a href="http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20091002/APC0101/91002020/1979">crashed an empty school bus into the side of a Kaukauna, Wis. home this morning</a> and then tried to flee the scene in the bus. We've tried to outsmart police while driving a damaged bus too. Totally escaped. You just head to a school and blend in with the yellow sea of mayhem.<br /><br />Richard Kleiber is being held on charges of eluding an officer and reckless endangerment. Might have just been smarter to stay on the scene of the crash, dude.<br /><br />Kleiber crashed the school bus into a home around 7:10 a.m. The home was occupied by one woman and two children who were nearly hit by the bus as it crashed into the room they were sleeping in.<br /><br />When police arrived on the scene, Kleiber tried to take off in the bus lodged in the house. He managed to free the damaged bus and take off through a backyard nearby. <div><br /></div> <a name="more"></a> More from the <a href="http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20091002/APC0101/91002020/1979" target="_blank">Post-Crescent</a>: <blockquote>"The driver was told several times to stop the bus and get out," Shepardson said. <br /><br />But Kleiber freed the bus from the house and drove away from officers through the backyard of 634 State St., in the process hitting the front end of a Kaukauna squad car.<br /><br />After a short chase the bus turned south and pulled over on Fairway Street, but started to pull away from that location until police blocked his escape route with a squad car. </blockquote> Police say there is no indication of alcohol involved in the crash and the bus wasn't stolen.<br /><br />Check out photos of the scene <a href="http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=U0&Date=20091002&Category=APCNEWS&ArtNo=910020804&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=1">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2009/10/school_bus_cras.php">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-1460387071698851232009-10-04T10:33:00.000-07:002009-10-04T10:38:04.002-07:007 Hilariously Failed Attempts at Politically Correct Toys<span class="border">By <a ref="nofollow" href="http://www.cracked.com/members/ScenicAnemia">Adam Brown</a>, <a ref="nofollow" href="http://www.cracked.com/members/hereinidaho">Kristi Harrison</a><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7eXSklb6aCA6_47e5uBc3nC1qCCmovDKZpzpmn0O1JCNz45XzyrLwicB37meIDQDcE9z1iTtA8CXUkVYRq679qGl11GdUdGpPfIvmMRWlNxvnUqk3vBIMz62TRl-_du-ytlve5kLPorQU/s1600-h/3545.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 83px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7eXSklb6aCA6_47e5uBc3nC1qCCmovDKZpzpmn0O1JCNz45XzyrLwicB37meIDQDcE9z1iTtA8CXUkVYRq679qGl11GdUdGpPfIvmMRWlNxvnUqk3vBIMz62TRl-_du-ytlve5kLPorQU/s400/3545.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388799638171257474" border="0" /></a><br /><p>Sometime in the 1970s, toy makers realized that not all the children of the world are rich, healthy, white Americans. Eager to get their hands on some non-white dollars, they got busy redecorating their dolls with new ethnicities, diseases and unwanted teen pregnancies.</p> <p>And really, who better to handle sensitive racial and social issues than toy makers? As it turns out, just about anyone.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#7.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Happy Family Pregnant Midge</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/1/3561.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Wanting to stay vigilant at the forefront of producing children's toys that make everyone horribly uncomfortable, Mattel identified three universal truths about little girls:</p> <p>1. They love dolls.<br />2. They value - no, cherish - no, <em>get high on</em> the institution of marriage.<br />3. They love uncapping pregnant bellies to get sneak peeks at unborn fetuses.</p> <p>Using this wisdom as a blueprint, Mattel conceived (get it?!) Happy Family Pregnant Midge and Baby (her original name "Unwed Janet and Bellysack Full Of Jason the Blockbuster Clerk" was deemed too controversial).</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/2/3562.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>The pretty picture of wholesomeness starts unraveling the minute you lift up Midge's dress, which every single one of us would do within two seconds so there's no point in denying it.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/3/3563.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>She looks pretty much the same as our moms did, minus the tattooed stretch marks and appendix scars. Things don't get offensive until the kids want to play C-section with Midge, which by the way <em>they totally fucking can</em>. Her baby gut is magnetic, so snap that son of a bitch off and boom, it's upside-down fetus time.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/4/3564.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Whip that placenta-less baby out and it's ready to play dress up, but don't forget to snap Midge's skinny belly back on or else Daddy will have to beat the pretty back into her.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/5/3565.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The quickest way to tight abs? Child birth, apparently.</span></p> <p>Shockingly, Knocked-Up Midge and her creepy ass baby were scrapped shortly after their launch.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#6.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Chinese New Year Barbie and Amazonia Barbie</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/4/9/3549.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Much like Madonna, Barbie is super great at bastardizing other people's heritages in the sexiest, most gap-toothed way possible, and Mattel decided she needed to give the ladies of China and the Amazon a makeover. Check out the picture above; the Chinese is practically radiating from her body.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Barbie's visit to the southern hemisphere yielded similar results in the form of a doll that doesn't look a thing like Megan Fox.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/1/3551.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Clearly modeled on actual people living near an actual river called the Amazon.</span></p> <p>Mattel captures the spirit of both of these mighty nations flawlessly, from the feathers atop Amazonian Barbie's sleek, gleaming hair and the tribal tattoos on her pasty white thighs to the distinctly European facial features of Chinese Barbie, these dolls scream EFFORT from the get-go.</p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>In the case of Amazonia Barbie, "effort" means crapping out a design of a white woman wearing enough make-up to pass for a gay guy passing for a white woman posing as an Amazonian disco queen.</p> <p>Looking at authentic pictures of Amazonian women, we can see where there'd be some confusion:</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/2/3552.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>And their depiction of a Chinese woman can be excused provided that your definition of "Chinese" is "Catherine Zeta-Jones."</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/3/3553.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Chinese.</span></p> <p>Besides the full-on disregard for a major physical trait of Asian races (THE SHAPE OF THE FUCKING EYES), Mattel went through the trouble of actually painting on eyebrows that were distinctly lighter than the color of the doll's hair, as if they weren't quite ready to go "full-Chinese" just yet.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/0/3550.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>It's much better to imply that this pale-skinned, sedately smiling beauty is gently aware of the people of China and honors them with her wig and Mandarin dress, but at the end of the day she can still take all that shit off and go back to being white.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#5.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">TheSock Obama and Cuddle with Me Lil' Monkey</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/9/3569.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>During the presidential election race in 2008, a Utah-based company called TheSock Obama Co. released what they referred to as "historical presidential memorabilia" and what everyone else in the world referred to as "a sock monkey Barack Obama."</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/7/0/3570.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Basically the same thing.</span></p> <p>They began selling the doll on their website <a href="http://www.thesockobama.com/">www.thesockobama.com</a>, proving that some marketing campaigns never move beyond the weed-fueled play on words they began with.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 396px; height: 264px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/7/1/3571.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"Dude, you know what totally rhymes with Barack? Like... sock. Do we have any more cheese?"</span></p> <p>Meanwhile, Brass Key Keepsakes, a company known primarily for manufacturing children's dreams in the form of Disney Princess dolls, recently introduced a line called Cuddle with Me, which features racially diverse infants packaged together with a stuffed animal companion.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/7/2/3572.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">This can do nothing but succeed.</span></p> <p>Depending on which version you buy, that companion is either a panda bear or a monkey, animals that rank just below "crocodile" and "scorpion" on the list of things you should never let anywhere near your children. Both dolls were available in white, black and Hispanic and were sold in Costco warehouses, presumably bundled together with 200 AA batteries and a triple pack of Frosted Flakes.</p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>This may come as a surprise to people who've lived their lives completely isolated from all black people and black culture as a whole, but they tend not to like the "black people are monkeys" thing. Yes, it's truly political correctness run amok when you can't even stereotype an entire race as subhuman.</p> <p>As you may have noticed, both Barack Obama and the Lil' Monkey baby doll are in fact black people. Media outlets across the country picked up the story on both, as tends to happen with this sort of thing.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/7/3/3573.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"Damn! They're on to us!"</span></p> <p>TheSock Obama Co. defended their product, calling it "cute and cuddly" and insisting they hadn't meant to upset anyone with their "charming association" between a black man and a monkey.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 389px; height: 260px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/7/4/3574.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Pictured: charm.</span></p> <p>In fact TheSock Obama is still available for sale online along with a sock monkey Joe Biden, which was probably meant to be given as a gift to misbehaving children.</p> <p>Lil' Monkey, meanwhile, was pulled from stores and the line was discontinued, presumably teaching Brass Key Keepsakes to spend a little more time developing their next product before unleashing it on an unsuspecting public.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#4.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Spirit and Airborne, Native American G.I. Joes</div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 394px; height: 225px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/6/3556.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Hasbro upped the racist ante in the early 80s with not one, but two Native American G.I. Joes. On the left up there is Charlie Iron-Knife, AKA "Spirit," a mystical tracker. On the right is Franklin E. Talltree, a thrill-seeking airborne specialist creatively nicknamed "Airborne."</p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>Despite their somewhat confusing and stereotypical last names (Talltree, OK, fine, but Iron-Knife... what?), there doesn't seem to be anything immediately objectionable about these two NavaJOES. Except for, well, Spirit has an eagle on his arm and seems to be wearing an apron for no reason... but Native Americans get those standard issue on the reservation, right? Maybe his file card clears that all up:</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 293px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/7/3557.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>"Spirit comes from a family so far below the poverty line that they never realized they were poor." Yes, seemingly unhappy with the regular old "Indians are poor" stereotype, they decided to go all-out and have Spirit be so <em>fucking broke he doesn't even know it.</em></p> <p>He was a hunting guide, because hunting is all Native Americans know how to do, and after Vietnam he rejoined the Army for "reasons inexplicable to anyone but a Native American mystic warrior," which might as well read "because of some <em>Dances with Wolves</em> bullshit."</p> <p>Sadly, Airborne fares no better:</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 398px; height: 243px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/8/3558.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>See? He's wealthy, he's smart, an accomplished lawyer-OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD:</p> <p><em>You look at him and sometimes he's looking right through you. Must be the Indian in him. The Navahos</em> [sic] <em>call it "the far-seeing look." Spooky!</em></p> <p>Those crazy Native Americans. If they're not summoning spirit devils with their mystic mind powers, then they're just looking at you, <em>all aloof-like</em>. Damn them and their crazy injun ways!</p><div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#3.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Pink Ribbon Barbie</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/6/3566.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>In 2006, Mattel (<em>again</em>) had the nutty idea that they should honor breast cancer fighters/survivors with a special Pink Ribbon Barbie and donate a percentage of the profits to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which is so noble that 17 bald eagles exploded when you read that sentence.</p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>Imagine creating a doll whose sole purpose was to honor people born with flipper arms, but instead of crafting actual flipper arms for your doll you give her the most beautiful arms mankind had ever seen and a withering, condescending smile to beam back at the mutated horror-children she is meant to honor. This Barbie is kind of like that.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/7/3567.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Mattel's approximation of someone with cancer.</span></p> <p>Women battling breast cancer frequently lose their hair from chemotherapy and, in extreme cases, end up having one or both breasts removed as a last ditch effort to save themselves from the disease.</p> <p>So "honoring" survivors with a fully coiffed pink princess and two gigantic, perfect boobs, who's on her way to the Healthy Lady Ball didn't quite sit well with a few people.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/8/3568.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>What makes this more confusing is the fact that the creator of Barbie, Ruth Handler, was a breast cancer survivor herself. So why was Mattel--who had the nerve to mass produce a doll with a fetus inside of it--too squeamish to make a toy actually depicting the symptoms suffered by the very woman who created it?</p> <p>Oh right, because nobody would've fucking bought it.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#2.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Preemie Cabbage Patch Dolls</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/4/3554.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Following the phenomenal success of the Cabbage Patch Kids, Coleco chose to expand the doll line in a new direction, wisely targeting the whimsical joys of life-threatening premature births.</p> <p>The Cabbage Patch Preemie dolls featured smaller bodies than their full-term counterparts, tiny diapers and baldish heads that smelled like they'd been rolled around in baby powder for seven hours.</p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>You know what's not all that cuddly? A one and a half-pound infant fighting for its fragile life in a coffin-shaped incubator with more tubes and machines attached to it than Weapon X. Don't forget the bandages that keep the light out of its underdeveloped eyes, or the little heating beds it has to lay in because it can't maintain its body heat. Toss in some weeping parents and a couple of nurses probing and prodding its frail little body and you've got the must-have toy of the season.</p> <p>Coleco didn't even remotely try to emulate actual premature babies, which was probably for the best because other dollmakers have and this is what they ended up with:</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 396px; height: 120px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/5/3555.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Transforming delicate babies into big, fat-headed Cabbage Patch dolls is hardly endearing to preemie parents, but Coleco stepped up to the plate with this brilliant commercial, telling us once and for all that all it takes to keep a premature baby alive is a shitload of cookies:</p> <p align="center"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5VZO4fod2t0&hl=en&fs=1&"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5VZO4fod2t0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#1.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Oreo Barbie</div> </div> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/5/9/3559.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p><em>Sigh</em>. Yeah, we had a sneaking suspicion that we weren't done with Barbie.</p> <p>In 1997, Mattel joined forces with Nabisco in a cross-promotional effort that delighted fat little girls nationwide. And to prove once again that Mattel has the racial sensitivity of a package of Handi Snacks, they picked the <em>one cookie in the universe</em> that could ever be construed as offensive, ever.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/4/8/3548.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Not a Photoshop.</span></p> <p>Marketed as a toy that girls could feed their Oreos to after school (what?), Mattel manufactured both white and black dolls each sporting clothes that had "Oreo" written all over them as if they had just been attacked by a crazed team of Nabisco executives armed with magic markers. Early plans to pair the white doll with Ritz and stencil the word "Cracker" all over her clothes were nixed before production.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/5/6/0/3560.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Cracker Barbie.</span></p> <p><span class="Title">So What's the Problem?</span></p> <p>"Oreo" happens to be a derogatory term used within the African-American community to describe a black person who, on the inside, really wants to be white. Get it? Because an Oreo is a chocolate cookie with white filling. It's the kind of thing it would take the whitest toy design team in the world to miss.</p> <p>That's why it wasn't until the dolls were on shelves and baffling people across the country that Mattel realized their mistake (thanks to a collective "Are you shitting me?" from members of all races).</p> <p>The Oreo Barbies were yanked from stores and discontinued, immediately turning them into sought after collectibles and leaving us with the riddle of what ethnic group Mattel will offend with their next promotion.</p><p><a href="http://www.cracked.com/article/137_7-hilariously-failed-attempts-at-politically-correct-toys/">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-73611449885844072672009-09-17T00:04:00.000-07:002009-09-17T00:06:37.338-07:00Denmark: Selling a lie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOvxsSY80LwBlMVaRPThpK8Kiqk-Zwd8tLTUUDdE7rAdVRbtxbr7-nt6jil_jXYTgc0Y6LQXwl8OR6vVJr9saWqrYglUoE5DlG9212hwN4rsASCGo8vdEQ6tuMhOQTgkemBpcFBYVWxSM/s1600-h/KAREN_376037c.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOvxsSY80LwBlMVaRPThpK8Kiqk-Zwd8tLTUUDdE7rAdVRbtxbr7-nt6jil_jXYTgc0Y6LQXwl8OR6vVJr9saWqrYglUoE5DlG9212hwN4rsASCGo8vdEQ6tuMhOQTgkemBpcFBYVWxSM/s400/KAREN_376037c.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382329051586399698" border="0" /></a><br /><div class="billedetekst_top" style="padding-top: 3px;"> Selling Denmark with a lie: Karen and August as they appear on YouTube. But Karen is a Danish actress, and August is not her son - it was all a tourist gimmick.. - Foto: Privatfoto </div> <div class="facts"> <div class="facts-padding" style=""> <div class="box-head-std sect-top-newsinenglish">Læs også</div> <div class="box-body-nopad clear"> <div style="border-bottom: 2px solid white; width: 100%;"> <div style="padding: 3px 5px;"> <a style="" href="http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article788476.ece"> VisitDenmark removes bogus video </a> <span class="time"> <span class="time" style="float: none;"> (14. sep.) </span> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="story bread"> <div><b>A Youtube video purporting to represent a pretty young Danish single mother looking for the foreign father of her son, may have garnered Denmark’s national tourist agency VisitDenmark some 800,000 clicks – but the story behind the video is a lie. </b><br /><br />According to confirmed reports, the national tourist agency VisitDenmark generated the story of a one night stand with a foreign man producing a son, to get more people to visit the home of Shakespeare's 'To be or not to be'.<br /><br />The video, however, is definitely 'Not to be' – the young woman in the video is a Danish actress and the baby is not hers.<br /><br />”I don’t understand the advertising agency that has produced this story. What do they think people will think,” says Roskilde University Sociologist and Women’s Affairs Researcher Karen Sjørup.<br /><br />”They’re obviously trying to sell a type of promiscuous Danish woman and exploit the idea that you can lure quick, blonde Danish women home – without a condom,” Sjørup says, adding however that foreigners who come to Denmark with that idea will be very disappointed.<br /><br /><b>Broad-minded<br /></b>VisitDenmark disagrees.<br /><br />”Karen’s story shows that Denmark is a broad-minded country where you can do what you want. The film is a good example of independent, dignified, Danish women who dare to make their own choices,” says VisitDenmark CEO Dorte Kiilerich.<br /><br /><i>Why have you chosen to market Denmark as a country with drunken women who have unsafe sex with casual acquaintances?</i><br /><br />”That is not a story that I recognise. We tell a good and sweet story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibilty of her actions. And she uses a modern social medium,” Kiilerich says.<br /><br /><b>Ad agency<br /></b>The Grey advertising agency that produced the video says it is a major success.<br /><br />”It is the most successful viral advert ever. We have got through the media noise and it cost the same as a 30-second spot shown a couple of times on TV2,” says Peter Helstrup from Grey’s.<br /><br />Since last Thursday, the video has notched up 1.9 million Google searches, 773,000 YouTube viewings and is linked to 83,000 websites.<br /><br /><b>No reproach<br /></b>In the video, the young woman, claiming to be called Karen says: ”I don’t reproach you, but I think you should know that (a young boy called) August is here.”<br /><br />Karen, however, is the actress Ditte Arnth Jørgsensen, the baby is not hers, and the viral advert was produced using taxpayer’s money.<br /><br />The fabricated story behind the video is that the young woman met a tourist by chance in the Nyhavn area of Copenhagen, introduced him to the Danish concept of ’hygge’ or cosiness. The next morning his side of the bed was empty when she woke up, and nine months later the now one-and-a-half-year-old August appeared on the scene.<br /><br /></div> </div> <!-- ISI_LISTEN_START --> <div style="padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 10px;"> <i>Edited by <a href="mailto:julian.isherwood@pol.dk">Julian Isherwood</a><br /><br /><a href="http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article788087.ece">Original here</a><br /></i></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-41895237749281073492009-09-16T23:55:00.000-07:002009-09-17T00:03:13.277-07:00The 5 Most Maddeningly Unresolved TV Plotlines<span class="border">By <a ref="nofollow" href="http://www.cracked.com/members/Theta">Dan Seitz</a><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaX3lHQ6KyGcJkqmh_ejQSbZxk2ngBQxec8ceSfC7bGetWwWeiKzCgxVhoP0EVBEidzyETojQV97TKfCyJX__KS4AeIVNYKbsbpv1YRY6O96CNFb3Lb5gy_KY06chMuLK6QDt1R5ZXHQ7y/s1600-h/2872.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 83px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaX3lHQ6KyGcJkqmh_ejQSbZxk2ngBQxec8ceSfC7bGetWwWeiKzCgxVhoP0EVBEidzyETojQV97TKfCyJX__KS4AeIVNYKbsbpv1YRY6O96CNFb3Lb5gy_KY06chMuLK6QDt1R5ZXHQ7y/s400/2872.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382327012149866386" border="0" /></a><br /><p>Writing TV shows is hard. We think. Actually it probably depends on the show.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/7/9/2879.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Either way, with all those characters and plotlines going on it's apparently really easy to lose track of what you're doing. That's why even good shows have plotlines that they've just discarded like so many Egg McMuffin wrappers on the street.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#5.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Peter from <em>Heroes</em> Dumps his Girlfriend... in the Future</div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 403px; height: 134px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/2/2882.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>In season two of <em>Heroes</em>, superpowered protagonist Peter Petrelli and his girlfriend Caitlin time-travel to a virus-riddled, post-apocalyptic New York City.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 294px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/4/2894.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Peter's time travel powers conveniently wonk out, stranding Caitlin in the future. Once back in the present, Peter thwarts the world-ending pandemic, thereby altering the timestream, saving humanity and scoring another cheap victory for bullshit TV physics.</p> <p>But wait! Before you uncork that champagne, Peter, we have one big elephant in the room to address: Where the hell is your time-displaced girlfriend?</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/6/2896.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p><span class="Title">Why It's Maddening:</span></p> <p>Who knows? And frankly, who cares? Certainly Peter doesn't, seeing as how he never mentions Caitlin again.</p> <p>It's not actually Peter's fault here. Caitlin was a casualty of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike. NBC aired only half the season's episodes, effectively shelving <em>Heroes'</em> spring storylines.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/9/2889.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>When the next season rolled around, <em>Heroes</em> creator Tim Kring was eager to jump-start the flagging series, sans time travel and pointless tertiary love interests. When asked if Caitlin would ever return, he blithely responded, <a target="a" href="http://www.cracked.com/article/117_the-5-most-maddeningly-unresolved-tv-plotlines/%20http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_display/39212?q=node/39212">"No, we passed it, we leapfrogged it."</a></p> <p>Fair enough, but Peter's total lack of concern for Caitlin raises some disturbing implications for his character. At best, he's left her in a hellish alternate reality where 93 percent of humanity is dead. At worst, he's erased her from existence, or at least consigned her to some unfathomable living death.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/1/2881.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Any way you cut it, he's whatever the diametric opposite of a hero is. What's that term? Oh right: douchetard.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/8/2888.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Though if NBC had renamed the show <em>Heroes</em> (<em>and One Huge Douchetard</em>) it would probably still beat <em>Chuck</em> in the Nielsen ratings.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/4/2884.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"For the last fucking time, I am NOT Jim from <em>The Office</em>."</span></p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#4.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">A Loose End Bugs <em>Buffy The Vampire Slayer</em></div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 133px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/7/7/2877.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Early in season one, Xander Harris, Buffy's endearingly pathetic sidekick, catches the eye of a substitute teacher who's really a giant, sex-hormone-secreting praying mantis. Sadly, this fling is the apex of Xander's sexual competence throughout the entire series.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 150px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/5/2885.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>She mates with virginal men and kills them post-coitus, thereby sparing them either the embarrassment of losing one's virginity to a giant insect, or at least the burden of a lifelong giant insect fetish, Spider-Woman notwithstanding.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/7/2887.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">We know spiders aren't insects. We just felt like posting some classy art.</span></p> <p>Luckily, Buffy saves the day and preserves Xander's innocence. Unluckily for Sunnydale High, the episode ends with a cache of hidden she-mantis eggs hatching in the science room!</p> <p><span class="Title">Why It's Maddening:</span></p> <p>We never see the creepy sex-mantises again.</p> <p>Plenty of lesser shows allow minor plots to meander off into nothingness, but this is <em>Buffy</em>, a show notorious for never, ever letting plot threads die, no matter how mind-bendingly convoluted (see: Dawn, Buffy's magical, whiny real-not real hallucination of a sister).</p> <p>So yeah, Joss Whedon, we're calling you out on this: Where the hell are our sex bugs? And while we're at it, can we have Eliza Dushku too?</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/5/2895.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Scratch that. You can keep the sex bugs.</span></p> <p>We get that the episode's statutory rape subplot may not have jibed with the WB's family-friendlier fare, but this is <em>Buffy</em>. Every other week some vampire/demon/yeti tries to kill Buffy/enslave mankind/take Willow to a gay pride parade. In Sunnydale terms, some Mary Kay Letourneau action would register on the low end of the weird-o-meter.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#3.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Mr. Turner Eats Pavement on <em>Boy Meets World</em></div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 133px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/7/6/2876.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>During the season five finale, Cory's motorcycle-riding "cool" teacher Mr. Turner discovers that sometimes, despite the charm of that old Irish saying, you really don't want the road to rise up to meet you. Indeed, he crashes his bike off-screen and ends up in critical condition.</p> <p align="center"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uGFGSvvt_JU&hl=en&fs=1&"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uGFGSvvt_JU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></p> <p>As far as season finales go, it's a doozy. The episode concludes with Mr. Turner still laid up, a young Ben Savage blissfully unaware of his future unemployment, and Topanga looking equal parts totally hot and totally like Janice from <em>The Muppets.</em></p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 245px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/0/2890.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Our libidos have no idea what to make of this.</span></p> <p>Like getting gored in the torso with a flaming scimitar, this finale is heartwarming and heartrending. Surely, Mr. Turner will make a full recovery!</p> <p><span class="Title">Why It's Maddening:</span></p> <p>Aaaaaaand that's the last we hear of Mr. Turner. Ever.</p> <p>In most cases we'd accept this turn of events, as characters on sitcoms vanish <a target="a" href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrotherChuck">all the freaking time</a>. Hell, Topanga's older sister Nebula had already disappeared from the <em>Boy Meets World</em> cast.</p> <p>The crazy thing here is that Mr. Turner was one of Cory's favorite teachers and an important, recurring character on the show. By the time the season six premiered, Mr. Turner's name was completely <em>verboten</em>. It's like everyone discovered he was a kiddy-fiddler during the off season.</p> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/1/2891.jpg?v=1" /><br /><div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#2.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Tony Soprano's Unkillable Russian</div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 133px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/6/2886.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>In the 2001 episode "The Pine Barrens," Tony Soprano's nephew Christopher and capo Paulie shake down Valery, a mouthy Russian mobster.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 259px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/3/2893.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Valery proceeds to piss off Tony's muscle to such an extent that Paulie smashes the Russian's prized universal remote control. And his wind pipe.</p> <p>A broken universal remote is a tragedy, but a broken Russian is all in a day's work for Christopher and Paulie, so they drive to the New Jersey Pine Barrens to dump the body. Unfortunately, Valery isn't dead and promptly beats Paulie's ass with a shovel. As usual, Paulie totally overreacts and puts a bullet in the Russian's head.</p> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/7/8/2878.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>To everyone's surprise, Valery shrugs off the headshot and capers off into the woods. At this point, the mooks get a concerned call from Tony:</p> <p align="center"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4OakqPbUj0&hl=en&fs=1&"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4OakqPbUj0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></p> <p>According to Tony, Valery is a nigh unkillable ex-Russian military man. And what's this? Christopher's car has been stolen! Looks like the NJ Turnpike will run red with borscht and blood tonight!</p> <p><span class="Title">Why It's Maddening:</span></p> <p>This episode hints at an epic <em>Goodfellas</em> versus <em>Eastern Promises</em> style mob war. Valery is bulletproof, Tony's browning his trousers out of fear, and chances are Viggo Mortensen is en route for some naked wrastling with Edie Falco. There's enough material here for a decade worth of story arcs.</p> <p>That is, if Valery ever reappeared on the show. Seriously, the one guy who could bring the full brunt of the Red Mafia down on the Soprano family never appears again.</p> <p>Discounting some half-assed foreshadowing from Tony by episode's end ("Paulie, [...] he's your problem, not mine."), the entire cast totally forgets that there's an invincible Ruskie on the loose, plotting his revenge. What's the deal? Is chronic amnesia an obscure Italian stereotype we've never heard of?</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/0/2880.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"I cut off your leg and I don't-ah know why!"</span></p> <p>Anyway, fan reaction to Valery's disappearance has irritated the show's writers so much that they'll <a target="a" href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20038366_3,00.html">just tell you to piss off</a> should you dare bring him up.</p> <p>Which is too bad. Imagine if instead of the "cut to black" series finale, we got a gunshot to Tony's head, and a pan up to the missing Russian mobster! Holy shit! We'd have bought multiple copies of the DVD just so David Chase could have the extra cash.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#1.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"><em>24</em> Silently Impeaches the President</div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 400px; height: 133px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/7/5/2875.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>In season four, President John Keeler suffers an audacious aerial assault on Air Force One. He survives, but is hanging onto his life by a thread! To make matters worse, Charles Logan, Keeler's Machiavellian vice president, now controls the Oval Office! Will Keeler pull through?</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/8/3/2883.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p><span class="Title">Why It's Maddening:</span></p> <p>Eh, he's just the leader of the free world. Who gives a rat's ass?</p> <p>See, <em>24</em> pulls this stunt so often that fans have a slang term for it: "<a target="a" href="http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Behroozed">Behroozing,</a>" after Behrooz Araz, a key player from the fourth season who inexplicably vanished from the face of the franchise. This example is particularly insane as the character the writers "Behrooz" is the goddamn President of the United States.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/7/2897.jpg?v=1" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Behrooz, prior to his Behroozing</span></p> <p>We realize that a lot of exciting stuff happens in the world of <em>24</em>. Heck, it's so thrilling that no one has the time to drop a deuce. But the fact that Logan was permanently installed as president kind of indicates that, you know, <em>the actual President fucking died</em>.</p> <p>Not that the show mentions it, ever again, in any capacity. In the universe of <em>24</em> the passing of the leader of the free world was met with no media coverage, no national day of mourning, no <em>US Weekly</em> retrospective. Hell, the writers didn't even bother to placate us with a throwaway line here and there ("We need the extra security for the President's funeral!")</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/article/8/9/2/2892.jpg?v=1" /></p> <p>Then again, in the world of <em>24</em> <a target="a" href="http://www.gunaxin.com/the-presidents-of-24/8940">they've been through <em>nine</em> presidents in seven seasons</a>, so maybe we can't blame them for reporting a dead president somewhere under the hockey scores.</p><a href="http://www.cracked.com/article/117_the-5-most-maddeningly-unresolved-tv-plotlines/">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-56268836233698497062009-09-16T23:53:00.000-07:002009-09-16T23:55:23.047-07:00Bulgarian lottery repeat probed<div class="mxb"> <h1><br /> </h1> </div> <!-- S BO --> <!-- S IIMA --> <table border="0" align="right" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="226"> <tbody><tr><td> <div> <img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46390000/jpg/_46390955_-19.jpg" alt="Bulgarian lottery shop" border="0" height="170" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="226" /> <div class="cap">The chance of the same numbers appearing were one in four million </div> </div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> <!-- S SF --><p class="first"><b>The Bulgarian authorities have ordered an investigation after the same six numbers were drawn in two consecutive rounds of the national lottery.</b></p><p>The numbers - 4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42 - were chosen by a machine live on television on 6 and 10 September. </p><p>An official of the Bulgarian lottery said manipulation was impossible. </p><p>A mathematician said the chance of the same six numbers coming up twice in a row was one in four million. But he said coincidences do happen. </p><!-- E SF --><p>Minister of Physical Education and Sport Svilen Neykov said the commission established to investigate would provide answers towards the end of the week. </p><p>The lottery organisers described it as a freak coincidence and pointed out that the numbers were drawn in a different order. </p><p>Nobody won the top prize in the first draw. </p><p>But a record 18 people guessed all six numbers in the 10 September draw. </p><p>Each will win 10,164 leva (5,196 euros; $7,643).<br /></p><p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8259801.stm">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-44521389523593386262009-08-14T11:47:00.000-07:002009-08-14T11:48:40.278-07:00Boy's Poodle 'Fried to Death' at Ohio Dog Groomer<span id="sharethis_0"><a st_page="home" href="javascript:void(0)" title="ShareThis via email, AIM, social bookmarking and networking sites, etc." class="stbutton stico_rotate"><span st_page="home" class="stbuttontext"></span></a></span> <div class="gallery_container short"><div style="text-align: center;"> <a class="gmain" id="gmain_0" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539289,00.html#" onclick="rst.gmain(this);return false;"><img src="http://www.foxnews.com/images/552226/0_61_081309_miles.jpg" alt="" id="gallery_main" /></a></div> <p class="credit" id="gallery_credit"> MyFOXNational</p> <br /> <p class="caption" id="gallery_caption">Miles, the toy poodle, who "fried to death" at an Ohio dog groomer.</p> </div> <span name="intelliTxt" id="intelliTXT"> <p><strong> Young Josh Jones was excited for his best friend Miles, a toy poodle, to receive a new haircut at the groomer. In a horrible turn of events, though, the dog never came home.</strong></p> <p>When Jones’ cousin arrived to pick up the dog Friday afternoon at Pet’s Choice in Parma, Ohio, groomers nervously told her the dog was dead, according to MyFOXNational. The dog had “fried to death” in the blow-dryer.</p> <p>“The groomer left the dog in the drying cage and left… didn’t tell anybody,” Pet’s Choice owner Jim Detlich told MyFoxNational. The dog was in the blow-dryer for almost an hour, much longer than the standard 10 to 15 minutes.</p> <p>Jones’ mother, Narsina, was horrified. She said the boy and dog were “inseparable.”</p> <p>"We told him, of course, we'll get him a new dog, but for him to accept it is really hard. And that's what hurts the most," Narsina told MyFOXNational.</p> <p>Authorities said that Ashley Weaver, 22, has been charged with animal cruelty, and is expected in court this week. She has been fired from Pet’s Choice.</p><p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539289,00.html">Original here</a><br /></p></span>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-3172566117068863972009-08-14T11:44:00.000-07:002009-08-14T11:46:04.052-07:00Woman Sets Herself On Fire in Miami Mall<h5 class="author">By <a href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/results/?keywords=%22TODD+WRIGHT%22&author=y&sort=date">TODD WRIGHT</a></h5><br /><div class="image_embed"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="overlay_wrap_lead" id="jqm_trg_1"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="dropshadow mainLeadImageWidth"><div style="text-align: center;"> <span class="bordermask"><img style="width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://media.nbcmiami.com/images/410*307/onfire.jpg" alt="" title="" class="storyImage1" border="0" /></span></div> </div> <div class="caption_background" id="imgCaptionWrp_1"> <span class="credit overlay_caption_text">Miami Herald</span> </div> </div> </div> <!-- \\ IMAGE OVERLAY // --> <p id="paragraph1">A woman walked into a crowded Miami mall on Thursday and lit herself on fire as shocked shoppers watched in horror.</p> <p id="paragraph2">Cecilia E. Casals, 42, walked around the Mall of the Americas while lit and evetually made it out of the mall and into the parking lot, according to witnesses. Several concerned people who saw the amazing and disturbing sight were burned while trying to put out the flames.</p> <p id="paragraph3">Witnesses said Casals was completely engulfed in flames and her clothes were melted off, yet she did not scream. It was like a scene from a movie, said one man who had his hands burned when he tried to help the woman.</p> <p id="paragraph4">"It looked like a big fireball," eyewitness <a class="informTopicLink" title="John Torres" href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/topics?topic=John+Torres">John Torres</a> said. "I know she lost all her clothing."</p> <div id="storyInline" class="mediaLeft"> <div id="storyMedia2" class="storyMediaPos video_release"> <div class="video_embed"> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#jqm_wrp_2') .jqDrag('.jqDrag') .jqm({ trigger: '#veTrigger_2', ajax: 'http://www.nbcmiami.com/i/dispatcher/?command=LoadVideo&id=53173542&seq=2&refsec=/news/local-beat', target: '#jqm_cont_2', overlay: 0, onShow: function(h) {h.w.css('opacity',1).fadeIn("fast");}, onHide: function(h) {h.w.fadeOut("fast",function() { if(h.o) h.o.remove(); }); } }); }); </script> <div class="jqm jqm_abs_wrapper_2"> <div id="jqm_wrp_2" class="jqmNotice jqm_ex_video jqmID2"> <div class="jqmnTitle jqDrag"> <p> Shoppers React to Woman on Fire </p> </div> </div><!-- end of 'jqmNotice' --> </div> <div id="veTrigger_2"> <div class="dropshadow thumbImage"> <span class="bordermask"><img src="http://media.nbcmiami.com/images/120*90/onfire_640x480.jpg" style="margin-left: -60px;" alt="Shoppers React to Woman on Fire" /></span> </div> <span class="mediaLink"><a href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/false" title="Shoppers React to Woman on Fire"><span>WATCH</span></a></span> <p class="overlay_caption_text" id="imgCaption_2">Shoppers React to Woman on Fire</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <!--end of storyInline div --> <p id="paragraph5">Casals was eventually extinguished before she left the mall but still managed to make it to the parking lot where <a class="informTopicLink" title="Miami-Dade County" href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/topics?topic=Miami-Dade+County">Miami-Dade</a> fire rescue personnel found her with severe burns over most of her body. She was transported to <a class="informTopicLink" title="Jackson Health System" href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/topics?topic=Jackson+Health+System">Jackson Memorial Hospital</a> with what is considered life-threatening injuries.</p> <p id="paragraph6">Investigators believe this was a suicide attempt known as self-immolation. They have no motive for the horrible public display.</p><a href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Woman-Sets-Herself-On-Fire-at-Mall-53166242.html">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-71122602074449928762009-08-14T11:38:00.000-07:002009-08-14T11:43:36.697-07:006 Cheap Acting Tricks That Fool The Critics Every Time<span class="border">By <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cracked.com/members/ScenicAnemia">Adam Brown</a><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Q7Qc9TzGFNpD8_GgfRJ9Yo9P3d5p346vRXwt-jOezqlNGdgndPVeptuz-3-TKvI0D1JxMSHXa5ggzpnTmNB0GXUaBMeTTLlvBZK2C5_IW9uuz9p6mewM8C6mB-edu2YKnnAhhyDhs1sS/s1600-h/oscarheaderL.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 83px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Q7Qc9TzGFNpD8_GgfRJ9Yo9P3d5p346vRXwt-jOezqlNGdgndPVeptuz-3-TKvI0D1JxMSHXa5ggzpnTmNB0GXUaBMeTTLlvBZK2C5_IW9uuz9p6mewM8C6mB-edu2YKnnAhhyDhs1sS/s400/oscarheaderL.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369891134411977186" border="0" /></a><br /><p> There comes a time in every major actor's career when they attempt to put the lighthearted comedies and inane chick flicks behind them and tackle a more serious role. The kind of role that will get them the one thing that every Hollywood actor craves: free cocaine. And also an Academy Award nomination. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/stat.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> The award is made entirely of golden cocaine [citation needed] </span></p> <p> Sometimes, it works. Other times, not so much. </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#6.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"> The Biopic </div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/bioheader.jpg" /></p> <p> There is a famous Hollywood rule that we made up for this article that goes like this- if it worked for Gary Busey, there is no reason it won't work for you. </p> <p> How effective is the biopic in earning Hollywood credibility? Busey actually scored a Best Actor nomination for playing Buddy Holly in the aptly titled <em>The Buddy Holly Story</em>. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/busey.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> Yeah, <em>this</em> guy </span></p> <p> This simple formula rarely fails. Pick a deceased (or soon to be deceased) musician, artist or mathematician, make sure they're the sort of person the New York media could conceivably refer to as <em>brilliant</em>, insert a big name actor (or Gary Busey) to play the role; watch movie critics and audiences far and wide go apeshit. </p> <p> The best thing about the biopic is that Hollywood is free to embellish the back story as much as they would like. How do you know Ray Charles didn't really walk on the moon? Were you there? No, so shut up and watch the movie. Speaking of Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx took home a Best Actor trophy also for his heroic portrayal of a young Stevie Wonder <em>playing</em> Ray Charles. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/foxx.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> Seriously, <em>this</em> fucking guy </span></p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p> Prior to 2005, Reese Witherspoon was best known for playing the ditzy lawyer in <em>Legally Blonde</em> or for playing the ditzy ______ in _______. Then came <em>Walk the Line</em>. By simply adopting a southern accent, dying her hair black and not cringing as Joaquin Phoenix spent two hours making Johnny Cash look like the victim of severe head trauma, Witherspoon walked away with her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. </p> <p><strong>Other Famous Examples Include:</strong></p> <p>Robert Downey, Jr. in <em>Chaplin</em></p> <p>Bill Paxton in <em>Apollo 13</em></p> <p>Cate Blanchett in <em>Elizabeth</em></p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/line.jpg" /></p> <p> Hell, Phoenix got nominated for Best Actor also. Seriously, this shit cannot fail. Unless you make one crucial mistake (foreshadowing alert!). </p> <p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule:</span></p> <p>As insane as he may be, you have to admit Russell Crowe is also a pretty shitty musician. Fortunately for him, he's an actor. Up to a few years ago, Crowe got nominated every time he managed to leave the house without hurling a phone at somebody. Hell, it almost seemed like cheating when he took the starring role in the biopic <em>Cinderella Man</em>, in which he played a blue collar boxer who gave America something to root for during the Great Depression. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/nope.jpg" /></p> <p> Crowe's depiction of former heavyweight boxing champ James J. Braddock was almost universally praised. After SAG and Golden Globe nominations, he put on his Oscar crapping diapers and got ready for an Academy Award nomination ... that never came. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/cman.jpg" /></p> <p> Crowe forgot that to get your biopic performance lauded as ingenious, you have to pretend to be someone the Academy has heard associated with the word <em>genius</em>, or at the very least someone they've heard of in the first place. Braddock was a blue collar boxer and a family man. Hell, the guy didn't even have a heroin problem. Crowe might as well have been playing Gandhi.</p> <p>Astute readers will point out that Ben Kingsley took home an Oscar for playing Gandhi, and that Robert De Niro took home an Oscar for playing a decidedly non-brilliant boxer. But astute readers are about to get served by trick number five ... </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#5.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Physical Transformation (a.k.a. Hot Chick Goes Ugly, Hot Dude Starves Himself/Gets Fat) </div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/uglyheader.jpg" /></p> <p>Yes, Kingsley and De Niro both utilized the Christian Bale principle of "dropping and gaining weight like a high school wrestler = extraordinary acting ability." </p> <p> By comparison, the ladies have it easy. Many actresses who have built their careers on being pleasant to look at finally decide the only way to be taken seriously is to ugly it up for a role. "See? I intentionally ruined my beauty, yet still enthralled audiences! I'm not just a pretty face and pair of perfect boobies!" </p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p> If there was a Mt. Rushmore for hot chicks who uglied it up for respect, all four faces would be Charlize Theron. In <em>Monster</em>, she didn't just apply a little extra facial hair or gain a few pounds. That wouldn't do the trick. Instead, she went from this... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/theron.jpg" /></p> <p> To this... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/theron2.jpg" /></p> <p>The woman found the forest where the wood for ugly sticks is grown, then went crashing through it while strapped to the grill of a semi. That's dedication to the craft if we've ever seen it. </p> <p> Would <em>Monster</em> have been an awesome flick if she still looked her normal, outrageously fuckable self? Absolutely. But Charlize went the extra mile, and Hollywood noticed. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/sexy.jpg" /></p> <p> Up to that point, Theron could be found slumming it in horseshit like <em>Reindeer Games</em> and <em>The Curse of the Jade Scorpion</em>. </p> <p><strong>Other Famous Examples Include:</strong></p> <p>Salma Hayek in <em>Frida</em></p> <p>Cameron Diaz in <em>Being John Malkovich</em> </p><p>Nicole Kidman in <em>The Hours</em></p> <p>Christian Bale in <em>The Machinist</em></p> <p>Robert De Niro in <em>Raging Bull</em></p> <p>Ben Kingsley in <em>Gandhi</em></p> <p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule :</span></p> <p> You may have noticed that women can get away with wearing a less attractive Halloween mask, but we expect our men to actually undergo physical transformations. Mel Gibson found out the hard way that it doesn't work both ways when he made his directorial debut with <em>The Man Without a Face</em>, a film that asked audiences to imagine a world in which women didn't want to fuck Mel Gibson. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-i.dmdentertainment.com/funpages/cms_content/17608/mannoface.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> FAAAAKE! </span></p> <p>Despite turning in a strong performance in a movie that <a target="c" href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930825/REVIEWS/308250301/1023">Roger Ebert was gay for</a>, the only recognition the film got were a couple of acting nods from <a target="c" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107501/awards">The Young Artist</a> awards, and even they went to the kids in the movie. Having learned his lesson, Gibson went on to sweep the Oscars a few years later with a historical biopic that climaxed with Gibson getting disemboweled for 15 minutes.</p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#4.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"> The Comedic Actor Turned Serious </div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/comheader.jpg" /></p> <p> Much like the beautiful woman who learns to hate the fact that people find her beautiful, so does every comic actor eventually grow to hate the sound of laughter. "If the audience REALLY loved me," they think while making cocaine snow angels on their floor, "then they wouldn't CARE if I made them laugh or not!" </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/angel.jpg" /></p> <p>Thus, they take on their obligatory serious role. Some make the transition easier than others. Robin Williams, for example, seamlessly morphed from obnoxious "funny" guy to creepy weirdo while remarkably never breaking character. Could it be that Robin Williams has been creepy and off putting his entire career? (Yes.) </p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p> Bill Murray briefly flirted with dramatic acting in 1984's <em>The Razor's Edge</em>, a film that damn near nobody saw because they were busy seeing <em>Ghostbusters</em> for the 15th time. After that brief dabbling in drama, Murray took on an endless array of comedic roles, some of them were classics in <em>Groundhog Day, What About Bob</em>), some of them were <em>Space Jam</em>. But he finally hit dramatic gold with 2003's <em>Lost In Translation</em>. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/lostin.jpg" /></p> <p> His role as jaded actor Bob Harris earned him a Best Actor nomination. The film itself was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Murray would subsequently chuck his new found serious actor cred right out the goddamn window by taking on the lead voice role in <em>Garfield</em>. But hey, how many times has Will Ferrell been nominated for an Oscar? </p> <p><strong>Other Famous Examples Include:</strong></p> <p>Will Smith in <em>6 Degrees of Seperation</em> </p> <p>Tom Hanks in <em>Philadelphia</em> (His previous credits included sitcoms, <em>Big</em> and <em>Splash</em>)</p> <p>Eddie Murphy in <em>Dream Girls</em> </p> <p>Adam Sandler in <em>Punch Drunk Love</em></p> <p>Jamie Foxx in <em>Any Given Sunday</em> (The role that put him on the map, thus allowing him to exploit rule #6)</p> <p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule :</span></p> <p> We're not sure why it is, but "Being Jim Carrey" seems to be the only exception to this rule. As laughable as the thought may be today, we can say with complete sincerity that Jim Carrey should be an Academy Award Best Actor winner. After 1998's <em>The Truman Show</em> cleaned up at the Golden Globes, including a Best Actor win for Carrey, it was all but certain that he would at least get a Best Actor nod at the Academy Awards later that year. Inexplicably, he did not. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/carrey.jpg" /></p> <p> Instead, the award went to the clearly insane Roberto Benigni who proceeded to give the most obnoxious acceptance speech in Hollywood history. Carrey didn't give up on his serious actor dream though. He played the <em>brilliant</em> comedian Andy Kaufman in the biopic <em>Man on the Moon</em>, doing his damnedest to not be funny the entire time. In 2001, he played the lead role in <em>The Majestic</em>, a film that would have garnered a mountain of awards if the Academy recognized outstanding achievement in the field of making audiences want to punch a film projector until it explodes.<br /></p><div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#3.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"> The Outsider Who Inspires a Ragtag Group of Kids </div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/outheader.jpg" /></p> <p> Everybody needs a little inspiration from time to time. Some people (us) draw their inspiration from the magic of Jagermeister and truck stop speed. For those with slightly more concern for the well-being of their liver, nothing is quite as inspiring as a tale of long odds overcome, courtesy of a teacher or principal who is out of his element. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/cool.jpg" /></p> <p> Also, for whatever reason, it seems to help if the teacher in question has his own naturally occurring dermatological challenge to overcome. Hey, we don't make up the rules people.</p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p> Before making the leap to the silver screen, acne scarred Edward James Olmos was already pretty well respected as an actor. In 1985, he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his portrayal of Lieutenant Martin Castillo, the only non-hilarious character on <em>Miami Vice</em>. But as Don Johnson would soon learn, it's a long road from television star to film star. That road is littered with bumps, potholes and unintentionally hilarious movie posters. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/bang.jpg" /></p> <p> But Olmos was not fucking around. Olmos cemented his place as a respected actor with his role in the 1988 film <em>Stand and Deliver</em>. His portrayal of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher who turns a rebellious group of East L.A. school kids into calculus wizards, earned him a Best Actor nomination. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/stand.jpg" /></p> <p> He would go on to enjoy a career filled with well respected roles in films like <em>American Me, My Family/Mi Familia</em> and <em>Selena</em>. Granted, it's no <em>Nash Bridges</em>, but it's a living. </p> <p><strong>Other Famous Examples Include:</strong></p> <p>Robin Williams's chest hair in <em>Dead Poets Society</em></p> <p>The weird stuff on Morgan Freeman's face in <em>Lean on Me</em> (the role which took him from soap operas to <em>Driving Miss Daisy</em>) </p><p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule :</span></p> <p>Like an inverted version of rule five, the less people want to have sex with you, the better this role works. Meryl Streep managed to get an Oscar nod for <em>Music of the Heart</em>, when she was well past the age that anyone wanted to see her naked. Antonio Banderas got laughed out of theaters in <em>Take the Lead</em>. Everybody was pretty sure <em>Freedom Writers</em> was terrible, which is about how certain most people are that they'd have sex with its star Hillary Swank. And the one objectively hot actress who tried it made <em>Dangerous Minds</em>, one of the most objectively ridiculous movies of the 90s.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/minds.jpg" /></p> <p>It should be noted that, just as we expect our good looking actors to actually disfigure their bodies, we expect our ugly actors playing teachers to <em>actually</em> have weird shit going on with their skin. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/kevin_spacey.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"I will teach you to pay it forward with my face burns."</span> </p><div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#2.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"> Get Retarded!</div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/tardheader.jpg" /></p> <p> Movie goers love the mentally challenged. Or rather, the quirky, innocent versions who show up in one inspirational movie after another. This is most likely because rooting for them on screen makes us feel better for avoiding them at all costs in real life. </p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p>Before building a successful career playing himself in a string of blockbuster films, Billy Bob Thornton actually stretched a bit to play the role of Karl Childers, a mentally impaired man who befriends a young boy in <em>Sling Blade</em>. Not only did Thornton get nominated for Best Actor, he also won an Oscar for Best Screenplay and nailed Angelina Jolie. Repeatedly! And he didn't even have to adopt a fleet of kids to do it. Now that is success. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/bob.jpg" /></p> <p>Meanwhile the annals of Academy Award history are littered with actors who earned buku actor cred by playing mentally handicapped characters. Dustin Hoffmann won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in <em>Rainman</em>. Tom Hanks did the same with his role in <em>Forrest Gump</em>. Even the women got in on the act when Jodie Foster was nominated for her lead role in <em>Nell</em>. You 'member dat? </p> <p><strong>Other Famous Examples Include:</strong></p> <p>Leonardo DiCaprio in <em>What's Eating Gilbert Grape</em></p> <p>Giovanni Ribisi in <em>The Other Sister</em></p> <p>John Malkovich in <em>Of Mice and Men</em></p> <p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule :</span></p> <p> In 2001's <em>I Am Sam</em>, Sean Penn swung for the retard fences and came up short. Was his portrayal of a mentally retarded man accurate? Hell yes. If you met him on the street, you'd be fooled. Come to think of it, if you met Sean Penn on the street out of character you'd get the same result. But that's beside the point. Even though he was nominated, Penn still went home with no award. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/penn.jpg" /></p> <p> Why? As Robert Downey, Jr. famously warned in the comedy <em>Tropic Thunder</em>, taking on the role of a mentally handicapped person is tricky ("Never go full retard!"). To take home the gold you need to play the kind of mental handicap that just makes you quirky--or even better, gives you special powers somehow. You can't <em>actually</em> show audiences what life is like for these people. Who the fuck wants that? </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#1.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;"> When All Else Fails... Go Gay </div> </div> <p align="center"><img style="width: 399px; height: 83px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/gayheader.jpg" /></p> <p> Being the kind of movie star who can do both blockbusters and award-winners means treading a fine line. You need to go edgy, in the sense that your roles will touch on controversial subjects, but not so edgy that it will turn off middle-America. So you can't do two hours of you in a dark room, shitting on an American flag while off in one corner a robot molests a child, for instance. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/no.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> Or can you?</span></p> <p> Instead, you need to hit that controversial sweet spot where you're challenging the beliefs of <em>some</em> people out there, but not so many that you can't still fill many theaters with people who agree with you (and who will purchase a ticket as a means of congratulating themselves for being so enlightened). Once upon a time it was racism, and then abortion. But right now, gay rights are where it's at. </p> <p><span class="Title">For Example:</span></p> <p>Who the fuck is Hilary Swank? That's probably what most people were asking when word of mouth spread that they should probably check out this <em>Boys Don't Cry</em> flick. Before that, Swank had a brief run on <em>Beverly Hills 90210</em> and starred in <em>Karate Kid Pt. 4</em>, a film that we're pretty sure doesn't actually exist. </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/kk.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Except that there's evidence.</span></p> <p> She was paid a total of $3,000 dollars for her work in <em>Boys Don't Cry</em>, but the notoriety gained by playing a homely looking dude was priceless. Overnight, Swank went from nobody to Academy Award winning actress. Her immediate success can be attributed to the fact that she is one of the first to stack the above techniques by going gay, biopic and ugly in the same role. </p> <p> Holy shit, we're surprised they didn't just rename the Oscar after her. </p> <p><span class="Title">The Exception That Proves the Rule :</span></p> <p> Who are we kidding? </p> <p align="center"> This... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/phil.jpg" /></p> <p align="center"> Shit... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/bb.jpg" /></p> <p align="center"> Always... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/capote.jpg" /></p> <p align="center"> Works... </p> <p align="center"><img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/randall/roles/milk.jpg" /></p> <p> Read more from Adam at the Academy Award winning comedy site <a href="http://www.scenicanemia.com/">ScenicAnemia.com.</a>. </p> <p><em><strong>Want to be Internet famous? Cracked can help! Just go <a target="c" href="http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/27006/i-want-you-to-make-comedy-cracked">here</a> and sign up. No experience necessary. </strong></em></p><p><em><strong><em><strong>For careers that were destroyed after winning the big one, check out <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17071_5-great-careers-destroyed-by-post-oscar-curse.html">5 Great Careers Destroyed By The Post-Oscar Curse</a>. Or find out about some movies that were likely cursed, in <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_16541_insane-true-stories-behind-6-cursed-movies.html">The Insane True Stories Behind 6 Cursed Movies</a>.</strong></em></strong></em></p> <p><em><strong><em><strong>And stop by <a target="c" href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17673_top-picks-august.html">our Top Picks</a> to see Swaim's first gay role (he didn't know the cameras were on).</strong></em></strong></em></p> <p><em><strong><em><strong>And don't forget to follow us on <a target="c" href="http://twitter.com/cracked">Twitter</a> to get previews of upcoming articles and trick your friends into thinking you're psychic.</strong></em></strong></em></p><p><em><strong><em><strong><a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17608_p2.html">Original here</a><br /></strong></em></strong></em></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-7207021032585709342009-07-21T09:23:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:24:30.904-07:00Ex-Marine Kills 300-Pound Bear With Log<p> Chris Everhart just had a Father's Day he'll never forget. </p><div id="main-media" class="story-embed-left" style="width: 320px;"><img src="http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/abc_gma_killsbear_edit_070622_mn.jpg" alt="Marine" id="abc_gma_killsbear_edit_070622_mn.jpg" width="320" height="240" /><div class="main-desc"> (ABC News)</div></div><p> The ex-Marine saved the lives of his three young sons when a 300-pound bear attacked their Georgia campsite last weekend. </p><p> While cleaning up after dinner, the family came face to face with the large animal. </p><p> "From out of nowhere we heard this loud crash," Everhart said on "Good Morning America." "For a second, I didn't know what it was, but I realized it was a bear. I went to the back of the Jeep to get my pots and pans to scare the bear off." </p><p>At the same time, Everhart's 6-year-old son, Logan, tried to frighten the animal. Instead of running away, the bear turned on the boy. Logan's brother, Kyle, tried to help him. </p><p> "I threw about five rocks at the bear to keep him away," Kyle Everhart said. </p><p> Realizing his sons could be killed, Everhart grabbed a log and threw it at the bear's head, striking and killing him. </p><p>"I forgot all about pots and pans and picked up whatever I could to try to distract, fend off, do what I could to get this bear away," Everhart said. </p><p> </p><h4>Latest in a String of Bear Attacks</h4> <p>The Georgia campsite incident is the latest in a string of bear attacks. One week ago in Utah's American Fork Canyon, 11-year-old Sam Ives died after a black bear dragged him from his tent and fatally mauled him. </p><p> The same bear ripped through another couple's tent hours before the attack. It was later killed and airlifted out of the park.<br /></p><p> In upstate New York Monday, a black bear was caught strolling in and out of yards in a small residential neighborhood. </p><p> Jim Karpowitz of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources believes the abundance of bear sightings may be due to recent droughts. </p><p> "When it's hot and dry like this bears are short on food and they go looking for food and sometimes they create problems," he said. </p><p> For Everhart, the 300-pound bear that attacked his sons was almost a problem too big to handle. </p><p>"This one got a little too aggressive for me," he said. "If the bear had gotten near my kids, I would have just jumped on it. Knowing me, that's what I would have done, anything to make sure my kids were safe."<br /></p><p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3306263">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-11301596396417424172009-07-21T09:21:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:23:03.836-07:00Biggest Diamond Heist Suspect Found With Rough StonesBy Eliot Van Buskirk<br /><br /><p><object data="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/1813626064?isVid=1&publisherID=1564549380" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="404" align="right" height="436"><param name="id" value="flashObj"><param name="align" value="right"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=15404460001&playerID=1813626064&domain=embed&"><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com"><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="src" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/1813626064?isVid=1&publisherID=1564549380"><param name="name" value="flashObj"><param name="flashvars" value="videoId=15404460001&playerID=1813626064&domain=embed&"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"></object></p> <p>Last week, Milanese authorities found Leonardo Notarbartolo, the man accused of masterminding <a href="http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds">the world’s biggest diamond heist</a>, in possession of approximately 2.2 pounds of rough, uncut diamonds.</p> <p>Many of the stolen diamonds were never recovered, and Notarbartolo was detained for driving around with hundreds of diamonds stashed in his BMW, just a few months after being released from prison for the crime.</p> <p>Case closed? Not so fast.</p> <p>Due to the slippery nature of rough diamonds — and of Leonardo Notarbartolo himself — the alleged criminal mastermind could walk away scot free, with the confiscated diamonds back in his possession.</p> <p>Ever the charmer, Notarbartolo claims he purchased the diamonds legitimately for a mere 10,000 euros, as he told Wired’s Joshua Davis last week through an intermediary. (Davis <a href="http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds">wrote</a> about the heist in March.) On Monday, the alleged jewel thief contacted Davis again to say that the confiscated diamonds are not precious jewels, but rather industrial-grade diamonds used to manufacture cutting tools, which is why he paid only 10,000 euros for the whole pile.</p> <p>“Notarbartolo is saying, ‘These are my diamonds. I got them legitimately. Give them back.’ And he’s hired a lawyer, Basilio Foti, to advocate for the return of the diamonds,” explained Davis.</p> <p>Notarbartolo’s defense will likely hinge on the fact that rough, uncut diamonds are nearly impossible to trace. Polished diamonds typically have certified identities that accompany them during transport, and often contain laser-etched logos or certification numbers that are invisible to the naked eye.</p> <p>A rough diamond, on the other hand, is pretty much a rough diamond. Because they’re soon to be cut and polished, which changes their characteristics, they’re not certified by the industry. “To say with certainty that any rough diamond is the same rough diamond that was in a vault six years go is almost impossible,” explained Davis, who has reported extensively on the diamond trade.</p> <p>Despite the fact that the vast majority of the diamonds stolen six years ago were in rough form — and that the guy proven to have organized the crime was just found with a big pile of rough diamonds — authorities probably lack sufficient evidence to put Notarbartolo back behind bars, due to the early-untraceable nature of unpolished stones. Most likely, they will be forced to return the jewels to the convicted jewel thief and send him on his merry way.</p> <p>“I don’t understand the Italian legal system, of course,” explained Davis, “but speaking on purely logical grounds, if you can’t prove that the diamonds are stolen, then you would logically have to give them back.”</p> <p>In other words, Leonardo Notarbartolo, who famously liberated $120 million in diamonds and cash from a bank so “secure” it didn’t even need live security guards, may finally have found a suitable second act: freeing himself after being caught red-handed, six years later, with hundreds of what could very well be the very same diamonds.</p><p><a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/organizer-of-worlds-biggest-diamond-heist-found-with-rough-diamonds/">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-76826006242380684772009-07-21T09:16:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:21:41.013-07:007 Fatal Injuries (That People Somehow Survived)<span class="border">By <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cracked.com/members/Shoguncdn">Son Tran</a><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRID31X4-RJSO5tu9kSiwDZj4t4yRs_M8Vz0MhwPa2oMgtsK0A4nuunM0ZJGbZv4SC4hDf5mDXmviNfdZuGL_Uy9Mzf0lLUE8e1-uqy1Y6tDwCUUC0EgocBxh3RqAuujJfC2xPgbB5cXJt/s1600-h/survivorwidenew.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 83px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRID31X4-RJSO5tu9kSiwDZj4t4yRs_M8Vz0MhwPa2oMgtsK0A4nuunM0ZJGbZv4SC4hDf5mDXmviNfdZuGL_Uy9Mzf0lLUE8e1-uqy1Y6tDwCUUC0EgocBxh3RqAuujJfC2xPgbB5cXJt/s400/survivorwidenew.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360948370135778514" border="0" /></a><br /><p> The human body is a miracle; though you may disagree if you're sitting there in the throes of an allergy attack or a hangover. </p> <p> The truth is your body can take a <em>lot</em> of abuse, and we've all heard amazing stories of people living through hacked off limbs, extreme temperatures and even <a target="c" href="http://www.cracked.com/article_16497_7-people-who-cheated-death-then-kicked-it-in-balls.html">falling out of airplanes</a>. So how much punishment can the human body take? Well, under certain circumstances you can apparently survive... </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#7</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Getting Cut... In Half</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/half1.jpg" /> </p> <p> When you work on the railroad, you probably know that something terrible can happen. Maybe you'll break a bone, or lose a limb. Or maybe <a target="c" href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26834245/">you'll lose the entire lower half of your freaking body</a> </p> <p> That's what happened to Truman Duncan, who, after falling off of a moving train, was dragged underneath the wheels. They severed his body in half at the waist, incredibly leaving him alive and conscious to hear the machinery grinding his body in two as he was dragged 75 feet. </p> <p>Truman decided that screaming like a little girl was neither manly nor helpful and instead pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911 from right there under the train. Then, because it took rescuers 45 minutes to get him out from under the train, he placed a few calls to his family as well. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/half3.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Jesus, how do you start that conversation?</span> </p> <p> Doctors are unsure how he managed to survive the accident but suspect that the weight of the wheels may have kept him from bleeding to death (though not very well--he lost about half the blood in his body). It may also have been due to his Kryptonian ancestry, but we're just speculating. Still, it took 23 surgeries over four months before Truman could leave the hospital, minus his legs, pelvis and a kidney. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/half2.jpg" /> </p> <p> Today, Truman is back at work at a desk job. He says he can still do the things he did before the accident like swimming, playing with his kids and screaming, "Fuck you!" at every train he passes. </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#6.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Getting Shot... And Shot... And Shot</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 400px; height: 233px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/shot1.jpg" /> </p> <p> Despite what the NRA would have you believe, guns do kill people. Just not all people. </p> <p>After all, we've seen Bruce Willis get shot like five or six times in four movies, so clearly you can shrug off a couple of slugs. Rapper 50 Center got shot nine times and lived to rap another day. So how many shots can a man take before we declare him to be either a superhero or a zombie? </p> <p> How about 19? </p> <p> <a target="c" href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/doctor-tells-of-a-19-gunshot-wound-survivor/">New Yorker, Joseph Guzman</a>, took that many slugs and walked away (alright, he didn't exactly walk). Joseph's problems began back in 2006 when he was out at a bachelor party with some friends. </p> <p> According to Joseph, his friends had left the party reading quotes from the bible to each other and were on their way to assist the homeless. According to the police, the group was shooting off flamethrowers and wheeling a giant cannon down the street toward an orphanage. The truth is probably somewhere in between. </p> <p>One way or another, the cops started shooting. And once you get started with the shooting, well, it's kind of hard to stop. Fifty rounds were fired at Joseph. Thirty-one of them missed, but the police probably figured that the ones that hit home were more than enough to do the job. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/shot2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"<em>Another</em> one? Anderson, are you throwing the bullets<br />back in here just to fuck with me?" </span> </p> <p>Joseph was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered the 19 bullet-holes in his body. The attending physician later testified that Joseph was "probably in severe pain." Dr. Obvious likely went on to say that the red stuff pouring out of Joseph's body was "probably blood." </p> <p>After they determined that he was indeed bleeding, the doctors found seven bullets still inside him. He had been hit in the legs, chest, abdomen and one bullet shattered his cheekbone. A liter and a half of blood was drained from his chest and then he was given a tetanus shot, which is something we wish we could take credit for making up. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 399px; height: 384px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/shot3.jpg" /> </p> <p> By the way, not only did he survive the shooting, Joseph was still strong enough to be described as "combative" when he was wheeled into the hospital, possibly due to the doctor asking him if he was in any pain. Today, Joseph walks with a limp and a cane, but fortunately shows no signs of tetanus. </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#5.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Getting Shot... By A Rocket Propelled Grenade</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 398px; height: 265px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/rocket1.jpg" /> </p> <p>If you've watch news coverage of a war--or seen a war movie--over the last couple of decades you probably saw the bad guys using the above Rocket Propelled Grenades, which is a kind of shoulder-fired missile about the size of the head of a baseball bat. </p> <p>They're designed to take out tanks and jeeps and other things made of metal. You can imagine what happens when one of them hits a human being, unless that human being is living in the video game universe or is named <a target="c" href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3603057&page=1">Channing Moss</a>. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 400px; height: 409px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/rocket2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">We believe that's an "I survived a bazooka to the torso" awareness wristband</span> </p> <p> Moss was in the army busy putting his boots far up Taliban asses, when his convoy was caught in an ambush. In addition to the machine gun fire, the enemy also unleashed several of the ever-popular RPGs at the Humvee he was riding in. Moss felt something hit him in the side and when he looked down saw that he had a fucking smoking rocket jutting out from his body. </p> <p> Because there was a policy against evacuating people with bombs inside them, due to the whole explosion problem, his commanding officer <a target="c" href="http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=81648">told the helicopter crew the RPG was just some shrapnel</a>. </p> <p> When the doctors at the field hospital found out he had a whole, working rocket inside him, there was the usual panic and screaming until someone finally calmed down enough to try and save his life. This was despite the fact that the army manual called for him to be dumped far away from everyone and treated last. Seriously, nothing makes you more unpopular to a group than having a live bomb inside you. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/rocket3.jpg" /><br /></p><p>Upon closer inspection it turned out Channing had a bit of luck on his side, in that the exploding warhead part of the rocket was not in his body, just the rocket and detonator. So instead of the big exploding part, there was only the little exploding part left inside of him. A note on his file also states that the rocket propellant was "mostly expelled." </p> <p> Doctors finally sawed the fins off the rocket and then pulled the tube out of him, along with the wads of clothing and equipment that had been crammed into his guts by the impact. Incredibly, the huge projectile missed his vital organs and Channing lived. </p> <p> We mentioned Bruce Willis earlier; what's great about Channing's story is if in <em>Die Hard 5</em> you saw John McClane take a missile to the abdomen and walk away good as new, you'd be screaming bullshit so loud they'd have to drag you out of the theater. </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#4.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">A Gaping Hole... In Your Brain </div> </div> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 399px; height: 235px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/gage1.jpg" /> </p> <p> Come on, you knew we couldn't leave this one out. </p> <p>Number one on the list of things you don't want blasting a hole through your skull and brain is a giant cannon ball. However, a very close second on this list is a large metal spike. Just ask <a target="c" href="http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/">Phineas Gage</a>. </p> <p> Gage worked on a railroad crew back in the old-timey days. Part of his job was to blast holes in rocks with dynamite. Because this wasn't considered dangerous enough, the procedure also called for packing dirt in the holes with a metal pole after the dynamite was inserted, maybe to get the dynamite good and angry or something. The pole was called a "tamping iron" because calling it a "pointy suicide stick," while more accurate, tended to scare the employees. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 398px; height: 307px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/gage2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"Nothing can ever go wrong with this."</span> </p> <p>Probably to no one's surprise, one day this practice of smacking a metal bar against live dynamite caused an explosion. This resulted in the tamping iron, which was three-feet, eight-inches long and weighed about 13 pounds, being shot through Phineas's cheekbone and exiting through the top of his skull. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/gage3.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Looks bad but you probably don't feel much after the first 12 inches</span> </p> <p> Sometimes people get impaled by objects but miss the vital organs. Phineas was not this lucky, unless you consider the brain to not be a vital organ. When they found the tamping iron 30 yards away it had pieces of bone and brain stuck to it. </p> <p>Because medical science was about on par with the science of blasting holes through rock at the time, the only treatment Phineas received was having the huge tunnel through his brain cleaned out and wrapped in bandages, with the occasional draining of pus. Amazingly, five months after the accident Phineas was back to leading a fairly normal life, except for the giant hole in his head and probably a lot of new hats. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/gage4.jpg" /> </p> <p> His friends and family also reported that he was kind of a dick after the accident, and scientists have come up with all kinds of theories about the damage affecting his impulse control. But, holy crap, some of us turn into dicks after missing morning coffee. Can we not cut a guy some slack after surviving a fucking spike through the skull?<br /></p><div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#3.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Getting Punctured with a Dozen Nails... In Your Brain</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 399px; height: 194px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/nails1.jpg" /> </p> <p> Alright, so how does a guy top the whole "spike in the brain" thing? Two spikes? </p> <p> How about 12? </p> <p> Back in 2006, <a target="c" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12425803/">a guy in Oregon</a> got really depressed, probably because he realized he lived in Oregon. He decided it was time to end his life and after ruling out faster, better, more proven alternatives, he decided he would end it all by shooting himself in the head with a nailgun (we've all been there, right?). We're going to go out on a limb and assume that he was probably a bit disappointed when the first nail pierced his skull and he found himself still alive and in Oregon. </p> <p>He was serious about ending it all though and kept pulling the trigger on the nail gun like a guy waiting for an elevator. By the time he was done, he had a dozen nails embedded in his head. It's unclear why he stopped but a good guess is because it really hurts to shoot nails into your skull. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/nails2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"Eh, a gun is a gun, right?"</span> </p> <p>He finally went to the hospital and complained to the doctors that he had a headache. While this was technically true it's kind of like telling someone your buddy is a bit of a douche bag and then the guy turns out to be Spencer Pratt. </p> <p>The nails had gone so far into his brain that the doctors couldn't even see them until they X-rayed his head. Not only did they find 12 nails, but the nails were fired into both sides of his head--which meant he had to switch hands at some point (apparently nailguns get pretty heavy after a while). Doctors had to remove the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill. Yeah, the whole scenario was pretty much sponsored by Home Depot. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 377px; height: 251px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/nails3.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The tale probably involved caulk at some point as well</span> </p> <p> We'd like to say he is doing fine today, but last we heard he left the pysch ward against his doctor's wishes. Damn, we were so sure the 12 nails to the head story would have a happy ending. </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#2.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Getting Stuck Under Water... For an Hour</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 400px; height: 234px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/drown1.jpg" /> </p> <p>Your body has some pretty basic needs: food, water, air, some basic broadband Internet access. Of these the most important is without a doubt air. While you can go for weeks without food and days without water, most people get a serious case of death if they go for more than 15 minutes without breathing. Even guys who spend all their time training to hold their breath <a target="c" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/09/world-record-for-holding_n_213204.html">only last about 11.5 minutes</a> and they need two months to recover afterward to ponder whether they need a different hobby. </p> <p> This is why Michelle Funk caused the Journal of the American Medical Association to use the word "miraculous" when she was pulled out of the water after she staying under for more than an hour. A medical journal using the word "miracle" is the equivalent of "WTF?" in non-medical speak. If her awesome last name and amazing mutant half-fish abilities weren't impressive enough, consider <a target="c" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/science/the-doctor-s-world-ingenuity-and-a-miraculous-revival.html?pagewanted=all">she was only two-years-old when this happened</a>. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/drown2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"What the <em>fuck</em>?" </span> </p> <p> This was back in 1986, she had been playing near the creek when she fell in and by the time they found her an hour later, she had a core body temperature of 66 degrees and no heartbeat, both of which is supposed to mean "dead" according to everything science thinks it knows about the body. </p> <p>Doctors warmed Michelle's blood with a heart-lung machine (it actually removes the blood from the body to do it, which to the untrained eye would also seem like something you wouldn't live through). We assume that Michelle's blood was the consistency of a Slushie when it first came out. </p> <p> It took more than three hours before doctors were finally able to detect a heartbeat. No one is really sure how she survived, although one of the doctors thinks the cold water helped to freeze her so that her brain didn't suffer any permanent damage. This basically means she survived drowning to death by freezing to death first. </p> <p> Michelle has fully recovered and is living somewhere in Utah, pretty much a living "fuck you" to the world of medical science. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 350px; height: 437px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/drown3.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">"Screw it, we're going with 'miracle.'"</span> </p> <div id="Title_box"> <div class="Title">#1.</div> <div class="Title2" style="margin-left: 35px;">Dislocation... Of Your Head</div> </div> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/skull1.jpg" /> </p> <p> Alright, so we've confirmed that you can survive a whole range of foreign objects in your skull. How can we top that? Well... </p> <p>The word "decapitation" is one you never want to hear in your prognosis. It usually signals something really bad has happened to you, like a teen horror movie, or a French revolution. Shannon Malloy, however, was past her teens and nowhere near France when she was in a car crash a few years back, but still had the word "decapitation" turn up in her medical charts. OK, so her head didn't go rolling away like a bowling ball, but <a target="c" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18719316/wid/11915773?GT1=10008">it was pretty close</a>. </p> <p> When she was brought to the hospital after her accident, doctors discovered that she had severed every single ligament and tendon connecting her skull to her spinal cord. Her head was basically flopping around, connected to her body only by skin and muscle tissue (they call it an "internal decapitation"). The spinal surgeon who treated her said he had never seen anyone survive such an injury, because the head is a fairly important part of your body. </p> <p align="center"> <img style="width: 399px; height: 300px;" src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/skull2.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Yet her child remains unimpressed</span> </p> <p> However there was some good news for Shannon. Her spinal cord itself was actually still in good shape. Doctors worked hard to set her skull back on to her spine which is apparently no easy task as she told people she felt her skull slip off about five times during the procedure. We don't know what is worse, the fact it took them five tries to get it right or the fact that she was awake while they tried. </p> <p align="center"> <img src="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/survivors2/skull3.jpg" /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Actual photo of the surgery</span> </p> <p>Doctor Butter Fingers finally managed to get her skull in place though and they screwed everything in good and tight. Eventually she recovered from the ordeal and even avoided being paralyzed. She has suffered from some sight and speech impairment, but really what can you ask for considering, you know, decapitation.<br /></p><p><a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17573_7-fatal-injuries-that-people-somehow-survived.html">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-24894779286241149362009-07-21T09:15:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:16:33.825-07:00My alcoholic boy, facing death at 22<div id="dynamic-image-holder"><img title="Gary Reinbach" src="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00591/Gary_Reinbach_591039a.jpg" alt="Gary Reinbach" width="385" border="0" height="185" /></div> <!-- Remove following <div> to not show photographer information --> <!-- Remove following <div> to not show image description --> <!-- Remove following <div> to not show enlarge option --> <!----> <div id="pagination-container" class="pagination-container"> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- fCreateImageBrowser(nSelectedArticleImage,'landscape',"/tol/"); //--> </script> </div> <!-- Print Author name associated with the article --> <!-- Print Author name from By Line associated with the article --> <span class="small"></span><span class="byline"> Sarah-Kate Templeton<br /><br /></span><p>A MOTHER has made public the plight of her son who became a teenage alcoholic and is now dying because he is not allowed a liver transplant.</p> <p>Gary Reinbach started drinking alcohol with friends when he was 13. Now 22, his is one of the worst cases of cirrhosis of the liver among young people that his doctors have seen.</p> <p>His predicament may serve as a wake-up call to a generation of young drinkers who are downing large volumes of cheap alcohol.</p> <p>Doctors at University College hospital (UCH), in London, have given Reinbach the most advanced therapies, including a one-off treatment with an artificial liver from San Diego, California. But all have failed and they believe only a transplant will save him.</p><p>Reinbach, from Dagenham, Essex, does not qualify for an organ because official guidelines state that heavy drinkers must prove that they can be abstinent outside hospital before they are considered. His condition is so severe that he cannot be discharged to prove he can remain sober.</p> <p>His mother has chosen to speak out in an attempt to reverse the verdict that he is not entitled to a liver transplant, which would give him a 75% chance of survival. Without one his chance is about 30%, according to his doctors.</p> <p>Madeline Hanshaw, 44, his mother, said: “Gary didn’t know what he was doing when he was 13. He didn’t know it would come to this when he was 22. He didn’t know he was going to die. All his friends who were drinking with him are still at home, they are fine.”</p> <p>Hanshaw, who works as a kitchen assistant, says she worked full-time when her son was growing up and was initially unaware of the extent of his drinking. This is the first time he has been hospitalised for alcohol damage.</p> <p>One of Reinbach’s doctors, Professor Rajiv Jalan, a consultant hepatologist at UCH, said: “This is a young man who has never known any better. He has been drinking for eight or nine years and did not see what was coming to him. We feel this boy deserves a transplant because it is the first time he has come to the hospital with an alcohol-related problem.</p> <p>“Most of us feel that if the patient has been abstinent for a period of time, and not a repeat offender, they should be given an opportunity. The debate is whether there should be exceptions to that rule.</p> <p>“Gary has been in hospital for 10 weeks now and is teetering on the brink of death. He is in a catch22 situation because, if he does not get better, he is going to die in the hospital. He is never going to have the time to demonstrate he has been abstinent [outside hospital].”</p> <p>There was an outcry when George Best, the late Manchester United footballer, was given a liver transplant in 2002, only to return to binge drinking within a year. He was criticised for putting people off organ donation. More than 8,000 Britons are awaiting an organ transplant, 259 of whom require livers. More than 400 people died on the waiting list last year.</p> <p>The shortage of organs has been exacerbated by them being given to overseas patients who pay for the transplants. This year the health department was forced to investigate after it emerged that in the past two years the livers of 50 British donors had been given to foreign patients.</p> <p>Binge drinking among young people has led to a sharp rise in deaths from cirrhosis of the liver in the 25-34 age group and hospital admissions among young people have been increasing. In 2007-8 the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust dealt with 8,126 alcohol-related calls for 11 to 21-year-olds, a 27% increase on 2004-5.</p> <p>Reinbach’s doctors say cheap alcohol has contributed to the crisis. Raj Mookerjee, a consultant hepatologist at UCH and another of Reinbach’s doctors, said: “Young people can readily avail themselves of cheap alcohol in large volumes.</p> <p>“Gary was drinking when his mother thought he was at school. He was drinking with several other people. In less than 10 years he has developed advanced cirrhosis. This backs the suspicion we have had for a long time that the liver is more susceptible at a young age.”</p> <p>Reinbach enjoyed playing football and golf when he was younger but these sporting outings turned into binge-drinking sessions.</p> <p>Hanshaw added: “I think it is too easy for young people to get alcohol. You can buy a bottle of whisky for about £7.”</p> <p>A spokeswoman for NHS Blood and Transplant said: “This case highlights the dilemma that doctors [face] because of the shortage of donated organs. They have to make tough decisions about who is going to get the most benefit and who is going to take best care of this precious gift.”</p><p><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6719226.ece">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-86191129242831428712009-07-21T09:12:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:14:37.972-07:00Long-lost Love Letter Led to Couple Marrying After 16 yrs...By <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Daily+Mail+Reporter" class="author" rel="nofollow">Daily Mail Reporter</a><br /><br /><p>A couple have married after they were reunited when a long-lost love letter sent ten years ago was found unopened behind a fireplace.<br /></p><p>Steve Smith and Carmen Ruiz-Perez, both 42, walked down the aisle on Friday following a separation of 16 years.</p><p>The pair fell in love and got engaged in their 20s after Carmen moved to England as a foreign student.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> <img style="width: 400px; height: 612px;" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/19/article-1200726-05C4B8C2000005DC-250_468x716.jpg" alt="Newly weds: Steve Smith and Carmen Ruiz-Perez have married after a long lost love letter brought them back together after 16 years apart" class="blkBorder" /> </p><div class="clear"> </div><div class="thinCenter"><p class="imageCaption">Newly weds: Steve and Carmen have married after 16 years apart</p></div><p>But after a year-long relationship the couple drifted apart when she had to move back to France.</p><p>A few years later Steve wrote to her in a bid to rekindle their romance - but Carmen's mother put it on the mantlepiece and it slipped down the back of the fireplace.<br /></p><p>It remained there unopened for the next decade until the fireplace was removed for renovations.</p><p>Carmen - who had remained single and never forgot the love of her life - was given the letter in which Steve had written: 'I hope you are well. I was just writing to ask if you ever married and if you ever still thought of me?<br /></p><p> 'It would be great to hear from you, please great in touch if you can. Steve XXX.'<br /></p><p>Factory supervisor Steve said: 'I didn't write much because I assumed she would be remarried. I never thought it would take ten years to hear back.'</p><p>Carmen said she was initially too nervous to call as so much time had passed but plucked up the courage and the pair arranged to meet.<br /></p><p>They met up in Paris a few days later and have now wed - 17 years after they first fell in love.<br /></p><p>Steve, of Paignton, Devon, said: 'When we met again it was like a film. We ran across the airport into each other's arms.</p><div class="clear"> </div><div class="thinCenter"><div style="text-align: center;"> <img style="width: 395px; height: 241px;" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/19/article-1200726-05C44F68000005DC-850_468x286.jpg" alt="As they were: The couple were in a relationship in 1993 when Carmen was studying in the UK but drifted apart when she returned to France" class="blkBorder" /> </div><p class="imageCaption">As they were: The couple were in a relationship in 1993 when Carmen was studying in the UK but drifted apart when she returned to France</p></div> <p>'We met up and fell in love all over again. Within 30 seconds of setting eyes on each other we were kissing.<br /></p><p>'Now we're married, I'm just glad the letter did eventually end up where it was supposed to be.' <br /></p><p>Carmen, who is now living with Steve in Paignton, said the wedding was the pinnacle of an 'amazing' love story.<br /></p><p>She added: 'I never got married and now I'm marrying the man I have always loved.'</p><div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1200726/Couple-reunited-lost-love-letter-discovered-fireplace-years.html">Original here</a><br /></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-50702885052568646412009-07-21T09:07:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:11:21.312-07:00Oldest UK television discovered<div class="mxb"> <h1><br /> </h1> </div> <!-- S BO --> <!-- S IBYL --> <div class="mvb"> <table width="466" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="bottom"> <div class="mvb"> <span class="byl"> By Rory Cellan-Jones </span> <br /> <span class="byd"> Technology correspondent, BBC News </span> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table><img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/999999.gif" alt="" vspace="0" width="466" border="0" height="1" hspace="0" /><br /> </div> <!-- E IBYL --> <!-- Inline Embbeded Media --> <!-- This is the embedded player component --> <div class="videoInStoryB"> <div id="emp_8159774" class="emp"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/2.14.10344_10753/9player.swf" style="" id="embeddedPlayer_8159774" name="embeddedPlayer_8159774" bgcolor="#000000" quality="high" wmode="default" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="config_settings_language=default&config=http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/config/default.xml?1.3.114_2.14.10344_10753_20090720174228&playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Femp%2F8150000%2F8159700%2F8159774.xml&embedReferer=http://digg.com/odd_stuff&embedPageUrl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8159406.stm&config_settings_autoPlay=false&config_settings_showPopoutButton=false&config_settings_showUpdatedInFooter=true&config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_pageType=eav2&config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_edition=International&preroll=http://ad.doubleclick.net/pfadx/bbccom.live.site.news/news_technology_content;sectn=news;ctype=content;news=technology;adsense_middle=adsense_middle;adsense_mpu=adsense_mpu;rsi=;slot=companion;sz=512x288;tile=6&companionSize=300x60&companionType=adi&companionId=bbccom_companion_8159774" width="448" height="287"></embed></div> <!-- companion banner --> <div id="bbccom_companion_8159774" class="bbccom_visibility_hidden"> <div class="bbccom_companion_text">Advertisement</div> </div> <!-- END - companion banner --> <!-- caption --><p class="caption">Rory Cellan-Jones meets the owner of Britain's oldest working TV</p><!-- END - caption --> </div> <!-- end of the embedded player component --> <!-- END of Inline Embedded Media --> <!-- S SF --><p class="first"><b>Britain's oldest working television has been tracked down in a house in London.</b></p><p>The 1936 Marconiphone is thought to have been made in the months that Britain's first "high-definition" television service began. </p><p>The set belongs to Jeffrey Borinsky, an electrical engineer and collector of antique television and radio sets. </p><p>He bought the set, which has a 12-inch (30cm) screen from another collector 10 years ago and is still working on restoring it to its original state. </p><!-- E SF --><p>The screen is mounted inside a wooden cabinet. The image from the cathode ray tube, mounted vertically inside the cabinet, is reflected onto a mirror. </p><p>The few controls include volume and vertical hold, but there is no channel changer, as there was only one channel when it was made: the BBC. </p><p><b>Modern in part</b></p><p>The set appears to be in good condition, but Mr Borinsky aims to replace a number of modern components with originals. </p><p>"The cabinet was beautifully restored by the previous owner," he explained,' but my aim is to gradually restore its electronics to its true 1936 magnificence," he said.</p> <!-- S IIMA --> <table width="226" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr><td> <div> <img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46089000/jpg/_46089254_tv002229557.jpg" alt="TV camera at Alexandra Palace" vspace="0" width="226" border="0" height="360" hspace="0" /> <div class="cap">Marconi also made the "Instantaneous Television Camera" shown in 1936</div> </div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> <p>But the Marconiphone 702 still works as a modern television. </p><p>It has been hooked up to a Freeview box so that it can show digital channels, although Mr Borinsky has had to install a standards converter so that a modern television signal can be seen. </p><p>Mr Borinsky only keeps the set turned on up to two hours at a time, and he uses it to view films from the 1930s and 1940s. </p><p>He says he enjoys watching the kind of pictures that might have been seen by the original owners. </p><p>The National Media Museum in Bradford has a similar set, but does not use it to show television pictures for fear of damaging it. </p><p>Iain Logie Baird, the curator of television at the museum, said it is a thrill to see the Marconiphone working. </p><p>"It's very exciting to see the image the way people would have seen it in 1936, before television became ubiquitous as it is today," he said. </p><p>Mr Logie Baird, grandson of the television pioneer John Logie Baird, says this set would have been of huge local interest when it was first acquired at a cost of 60 guineas - the equivalent of £11,000 today. </p><p>"Television was a very exciting thing, it was something that the whole neighbourhood would come over to watch. People would crowd into the home of the owner." </p><p>The set was discovered as the result of a competition run by Digital UK, the body overseeing the switch to digital television. The aim was to publicise the message that just about any television, however old, can be used to show digital channels.<br /></p><p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8159406.stm">Original here</a><br /></p>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-33461417667813579332009-07-21T09:03:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:07:03.254-07:00Facebook Party Raided By Police Helicopter, Dogs, 70 CopsBy <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Colin+Fernandez" class="author" rel="nofollow">Colin Fernandez</a><br /><br /><p>A teenager whose party became a riot after it was gatecrashed by 150 revellers who saw it advertised on Facebook has boasted about how much it cost to break up.</p><p>It took 70 police officers, a helicopter and specialist dog handlers to stop the troublemakers after drunken youths began fighting in the street.</p><p>The helicopter alone costs around £500 for every hour it is in the air and estimates for the police operation as a whole have been put at up to £10,000.<br /></p><p>But far from regretting the damage and disturbance caused by the party, one of the teenage organisers said: 'It was wicked.'<br /></p><p>Jordan Wright, 17, said: 'I have no regrets at all. It was a great party and a great night. I am well proud that people are saying it cost the police £10,000.</p><p>'My mates are saying what a sick party it was - the best yet. Seventy or eighty police officers came down for a house party. I have put my street on the map.'</p><div class="thinCenter"><div class="clear"> </div><div class="thinCenter"> <img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/21/article-1200850-05C7F2F7000005DC-916_468x286.jpg" alt="Facebook party" class="blkBorder" width="468" height="286" /> <p class="imageCaption">No regrets: Jordan, second left, with friends at the party</p></div> <p> <img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/20/article-1200850-05C7FADF000005DC-765_468x286.jpg" alt="Police officers (on the right) take on troublemakers at a teenage party in Farnborough, which was gatecrashed by more than 100 people " class="blkBorder" width="468" height="286" /> </p><p class="imageCaption">Chaos: Police officers (on the right) take on troublemakers at a teenage party in Farnborough, which was gatecrashed by more than 100 people </p><p>The stepfather of the other host spoke of his dismay that she seemed 'proud' of the mayhem she caused - which he called 'stupid, unnecessary and embarrassing'. </p><p>Seva Nurueva, 15, held the gathering jointly with neighbour Jordan at their adjoining homes in Farnborough, Hampshire.<br /></p><p>Around a month before the event she had invited friends - but ignored her stepfather's instructions to keep the details off the internet. </p><p>By 10pm on Saturday youths from miles around descended on the gathering. Revellers smashed a table in Jordan's home and fights broke out outside.<br /></p><p>Officers had to be called in from the Hampshire and Surrey forces to disperse the crowd.</p><p>Jordan said: 'My mum is saying that after this I have got to have my 18th birthday party in a hall instead of at home but I am going to invite even more people to that.</p><p>'She says "no way" but just you watch me. Seva was crying most of the night. She invited about 40 people and I invited about 200 on Facebook.<br /></p><p>'She says the party was good but now she regrets it. But I don't. I don't really care. It was a great party.<br /></p><p>'The only thing I would change another time would be that the DJ could have got there earlier and the police shouldn't have gatecrashed the party. The party would have gone off the Richter Scale if the police hadn't arrived.'<br /></p><div class="clear"> </div><div class="thinFloatRHS"> <img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/20/article-1200850-05C7C510000005DC-202_235x378.jpg" alt="facebook party kids" class="blkBorder" width="235" height="378" /> <p class="imageCaption">Teenagers Seva Nurueva (right) and Jordan Wright in the garden where the Facebook party began</p></div> <p>Deborah Hunter, who lives on the street, said: 'We came home after an evening out and were confronted by hundreds of youths - male and female - spilling out on to the street from a party that was being held at the two houses. It escalated into a riot. </p><p>'There were more than 50 police officers in a shoulder-to-shoulder formation, pushing a crowd of 150 kids down the street. It was scary. </p><p>'It could have been really nasty had police not stepped in. There were children as young as 14 who were drunk.'<br /></p><p>Miss Nurueva's stepfather, who does not wish to be named, said he warned her not to publicise the party on Facebook. </p><p>He said yesterday: 'As soon as two kids know, 200 know, that's why I told her not to put it on Facebook. </p><p>'I think the kids were proud because they got on to the news. I told them it's nothing to be proud of. It was stupid, unnecessary and embarrassing.'<br /></p><p>He described violent scenes that erupted as partygoers poured into the quiet residential area. </p><p>'One girl hit the other on the head with a bottle. I couldn't control it,' he said. 'At half past ten the police turned up.' </p><p>He said officers confiscated cans of drink from revellers, before sealing off the road and marching in riot formation to clear the crowd. They finally left at 4am, after making five arrests. </p><p>Jordan was unrepentant last night about the trouble. He said: 'I have no regrets at all. I am well proud that people are saying it cost the police £10,000. My mates are saying what a sick party it was - the best yet.'</p></div><div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200850/Teenage-Facebook-party-street-brawl-sparks-raid-police-helicopter-dog-handlers.html">Original here</a><br /><br /></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-64441323987685570502009-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:002009-07-21T09:03:20.066-07:00Well, I've Sold The Paper To The Chinese<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7ReBBNYN14dZN1G-vqAbrN0cpqJ3iOossPchVsL46SW1sfm5zhHd-2rrQ9GHbA1thZ6T6t5vtcFBErqTAka_Q8dfXaQIPtvDVxydYwhUi0rtwlVuy44wF3Ppo-t-lV9tMk5oK5DJHwZ6/s1600-h/character7.article.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7ReBBNYN14dZN1G-vqAbrN0cpqJ3iOossPchVsL46SW1sfm5zhHd-2rrQ9GHbA1thZ6T6t5vtcFBErqTAka_Q8dfXaQIPtvDVxydYwhUi0rtwlVuy44wF3Ppo-t-lV9tMk5oK5DJHwZ6/s400/character7.article.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360944534315159122" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>By <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/view/zweibel">T. Herman Zweibel</a></strong><br /><br /><p>As the longtime publisher of this news-paper, it is my duty and unrestrained pleasure to inform you spittle-soaked readers that I have sold <i>The Onion</i> and all of its various holdings to a syndicate of industrious China-men from the deepest heart of the Orient. One of their representatives oozed and crawled from his dank hut to visit me in person at my bedside last week, and make known his superiors' desire to expand their clammy clutch into the Western world. After subjecting me to a good 20 minutes of infernal bowing and other assorted chinky-dinkery, he offered to pay me what I've been assured is an appropriately absurd parcel of riches to take this tiresome publication off my feeble hands for good.</p> <p>Naturally, I accepted his heathen bargain without the slightest twinge of regret, and why on earth not? When my ancestor Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel founded <i>The Mercantile-Onion</i> in 1756, he did so with the express purpose of fleecing its porridge-brained readers out of as much precious capital as could be wrung from their grubby, desperately toiling fingers, and I say bully and bully again to that. I may be a news-paper-man through and through, but I still have enough sense in my 141-year-old skull to abandon some silly centuries-old loyalty to the periodical page when there are spacious coffers to be stocked.</p> <p>Oh, how heavenly it shall be to never again hear the ungodly shriek of a printing press, or breathe the insufferable stench of a news-room full of unwashed scribes churning out mindless pap on the subject of photo-play actresses and their adopted African brood. And as far as the whimpering clods who have the temerity to call themselves "readers" are concerned, I do not suppose I shall miss their ilk in the slightest. Why, just imagining their pallid, toothless faces fills me with such colossal rage that at this very moment my nurse-maid is administering to me a near-lethal dose of laudanum just so I may find the composure to reach the end of this missive.</p> Any-way, I wish you all the best of luck making sense of the dis-jointed drivel contained in this inaugural issue of the Chinese <i>Onion</i>. If the new owner-ship does not suck the very blood from your veins, they'll surely dizzy you into stupefied obedience with their unnatural black Orient arts. Oh, and in accordance with the contractual terms of the buy-out, let me remind you all that Yu Wan Mei Fish Time is the best Fish Time, perfect eating for you and me and so delicious. That is all.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/well_ive_sold_the_paper_to">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277157408057737657.post-77613445499964576232009-05-02T11:52:00.000-07:002009-05-02T11:55:08.914-07:00Finances force sale of beacon Chez Vous<h2><span style="font-size:100%;">Dorchester venue behind on loan</span></h2> <div id="articleBodyTop"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div id="articleBodyImageH"><div style="text-align: center;"> <span id="articleImageH"></span> <img style="width: 399px; height: 238px;" src="http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/04/12/1239590718_0193/539w.jpg" title="Greer Toney, owner and general manager of Chez Vous, could lose her business to auction." alt="Greer Toney, owner and general manager of Chez Vous, could lose her business to auction." border="0" /><br /></div><br />Greer Toney, owner and general manager of Chez Vous, could lose her business to auction. (Matthew J. Lee/ Globe staff) </div></div> <span id="byline"> By <a href="http://search.boston.com/local/Search.do?s.sm.query=Matt+Collette&camp=localsearch:on:byline:art">Matt Collette</a><br /><br /></span>After years struggling to provide a haven for city youths, Chez Vous roller rink has again fallen prey to fiscal troubles and is set to go on the auction block on Wednesday, Greer Toney, the rink's owner and general manager, said yesterday.<br /><p>The 77-year-old Dorchester landmark will be sold, Toney said, because she failed to pay the latest mortgage bill. Chez Vous has faced foreclosure in the past and was operating on an agreement with its creditors that it would be auctioned off if it missed a mortgage payment. A letter from creditors at the beginning of the month warned that the auction would go forward if the payment is not made.</p><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Toney said she doesn't have the money to pay.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>She said she used the money, about $10,000, to finance the rink's second annual Peace Night, held last Wednesday. Rapper Bow Wow was slated to perform, but his manager cancelled the performance at the last minute, citing safety concerns.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>"I couldn't believe it," she said. "I can't believe that any superstar like Bow Wow would do this."</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>She said she had to refund 500 tickets, which cost $35 each. Because some expenses had to be paid for in advance, Toney said that she had to use personal funds to reimburse ticket-holders. Neither Bow Wow, whose name is Shad Gregory Moss, nor his manager could be reached for comment last night.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Toney said that Rhodes Street, where the rink is located, was shut down by police the night of the concert and that there were close to 50 people working security inside. The rink is behind the Area B-3 police station, which is at Blue Hill Avenue and Morton Street.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>The rink is an important part of the community because it offers an alternative to the gang culture that has dominated Dorchester and Mattapan, Toney said.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>The Peace Night concert was held to encourage youths to abandon violence. "I've gone to so many funerals, and I'm tired. I'm sick and tired," Toney said. "We came up with the idea to bombard these kids with peace."</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>In 2006, Chez Vous owed the city more than $80,000 in unpaid taxes, but city officials said they were committed to keeping the business open and set up a payment plan for the rink.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>In the past, Mayor Thomas M. Menino helped secure money to keep Chez Vous in business. But now, because of the financial problems plaguing the city, officials are unable to step in and help the rink stay open, said Nick Martin, a spokesman for the mayor. "This time around, the city is not in a financial position to help them out," he said.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Toney said teens often bring their homework to Chez Vous, and older students help younger ones with difficult coursework. She said parents are allowed in for free to encourage adults to be more active in the lives of their children.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>"They may be fighting [on the streets], but now you get to know someone in here," she said.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Chez Vous has not always been a haven for peace. In January 1994, hooded gunmen stormed into the rink and opened fire, injuring seven people.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Bruce Wall, pastor of Global Ministries Christian Church, conducted outreach and church services at Chez Vous from 1988 to 1992, when the rink was under different ownership. He described the venue as one of the last places teens could go to escape the streets.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>"It was one of the few places left where young people felt like they had a place, like they had a home," Wall said. "To not have that anymore, I feel like it's a major death."</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>At the rink last night, teens described Chez Vous as an alternative to gang culture.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Ty Avonterogers, 14, said a friend brought him to Chez Vous a few years ago. Now he comes so frequently that he owns his own skates.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>"I come here a lot. There's a gang on my street," Avonterogers said last night. "There used to be nothing for me to do."</p></div>"To me, it's a family," said 16-year-old Gerald Vick. He said he is afraid more young people will wind up back on the street if Chez Vous closes. "I think more kids will get in trouble. They won't have things to do," he said.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/13/finances_force_sale_of_beacon_chez_vous/">Original here</a>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11795058648208592841noreply@blogger.com0