Posted by admin on Apr 11, 2008 in
Feloniousness,
Foolery Oh dear, it would be almost too much to resist. One small pen stroke could do so much. Childish, destructive, petty, insulting, vulgar, all just ONE small stroke of the sharpie away.
Graffiti village name change plan
BBC NEWS | Published: 2008/04/09 08:56:34 GMT
Residents living in a graffiti-plagued village on Merseyside are being asked to consider changing its name to tackle vandals who alter signs in the village.
Lunt, which dates back to Medieval times, has been repeatedly targeted by vandals who change the “L” to a “C”.
However, the proposal to change the name has split the village with some residents insisting the vandals should not be allowed to ruin their heritage.
One suggestion is to change it to Launt which would be pronounced the same.
However, despite the dismay that the vandalism causes, some villagers are defiant at the thought of giving in to the vandals.
Standing firm
Parish councillor Steward Dobson, 84, said: “This village is very, very old and people don’t want the name changed.
“The vandalism has been done for years, it’s not children who are doing it.”
David Roughley, whose family has farmed in Lunt since 1851, added: “At the end of the day we live in Lunt and we don’t want to change because of a few yobs.
“It is the vandals who should change, not the village.”
According to the local website, the area was first documented in 1251 in the Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey where it was referred to as “de Lund”.
Posted by admin on Apr 9, 2008 in
Forteana According to reports Lali’s parents love her just as she is, and corrective surgery will NOT be performed. (perhaps it can’t) Below are more photos of Lali, who has been named since the last post. She’s been diagnosed as having craniofacial duplication. She is cute, you could say twice as cute as some babies. Lets hope Lali thrives and due her special attributes life gets a little better for her and her family. I’ve read life is hard and indoor running water rare in their part of the world. Even though the dollar is weak I’d gladly send a few bucks to improve the life of this family and help provide the quality health care Lali will need.
Posted by admin on Apr 9, 2008 in
Farewell,
Forteana 
As I peruse stories often, this headlines for this one have been particularly good. How do you sum up the story, respectfully and succinctly? As the wife of both men in question, or the wife of one heart, works in hospice care, perhaps she’s better equipped in some way to deal with death. Hmmm. Uhhhhh. Weird.
S.C., Ga. men shared heart, wife, manner of death
Monday, April 7, 2008 | www.charleston.net
HILTON HEAD ISLAND — Terry Cottle and Sonny Graham never met, but the two men shared two very important things — a heart and a wife.
They also died the same way: Cottle, 12 years ago from a self-inflicted gunshot at the Summerville home he shared with his wife, Cheryl; Graham, 69, died the same way last week outside the Vidalia, Ga., home that he shared with his wife, Cheryl.
When Cottle died at age 33, his organs were donated. Graham got Cottle’s heart, and nine years later he married Cottle’s widow.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Greg Harvey told The (Hilton Head) Island Packet that Graham was found Tuesday in a utility building in his backyard with a single gunshot wound to the throat. No foul play was suspected in the former golf tournament director’s death, Harvey said.
Graham, director of the Heritage Golf Tournament at Sea Pines Resort from 1979 to 1983, was on the verge of congestive heart failure in 1995 when he got a call that a heart was available in Charleston.
That heart was from Terry Cottle, who, after shooting himself, had been put on life support so his organs could be donated, Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad said.
Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor’s family to thank them. In January 1997, Graham and Cheryl Cottle, then 28, met in Charleston.
‘I felt like I had known her for years,’ Graham told The Island Packet in 2006. ‘I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I just stared.’
In 2001, Graham bought a home for Cottle and her four children in Vidalia. Three years later, they were married after Graham retired from his job as a plant manager for Hargray Communications on Hilton Head.
From their previous marriages, the couple had six children and six grandchildren scattered across South Carolina and Georgia.
Cheryl Graham, now 39, has worked at several hospices in Vidalia. A telephone message left Sunday at a listing for Cheryl and Sonny Graham in Vidalia was not immediately returned.
A Georgia native, Graham moved to Hilton Head Island in the mid-1960s. He helped raise money for the local high school, and its football field is named for him.
Posted by admin on Apr 8, 2008 in
fatu·ous·ness,
Forteana There’s a grindingly slow paced tv show called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, and apparently the Smithsonian Institute would lose.
F.Y.I. there is no ONE Smithsonian Museum, rather it’s comprised of a series of specialized museums. The “castle” depicted on their literature is an old building used for administrative purposes. If planning a visit to the National Mall, do some research first. Do not drag your friends past the Air & Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History et. al. in search of THE Smithsonian Museum because they ALL are Smithsonian Museums.
Lastly, Kenton Stufflebeam, is a fabulous name.
5th-Grader Finds Mistake at Smithsonian
April 4, 2008 | AP
ALLEGAN, Mich. (AP) — Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? On a winter break trip with his family to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the 11-year-old southwestern Michigan boy noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, mistakenly identified the Precambrian as an era.
Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum’s Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Kenton was the first to point out the error.
Kenton, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, said his fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake about the Precambrian in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.
“I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn’t tell all these students” bad information, the boy told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story published Wednesday.
So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the museum’s information desk to report Kenton’s concern on a comment form.
Last week, the boy received a letter from the museum acknowledging that his observation was “spot on.”
“The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time,” the letter says.
The solution to the problem would not involve advanced science but rather simply painting over the word “era,” the note says.
While no previous visitors to the museum had brought up the error, it has long rankled the paleobiology department’s staff, who noticed it even before the Tower of Time was erected 27 years ago, said Lorraine Ramsdell, educational technician for the museum.
“The question is, why was it put up with that on it in the first place?” Ramsdell said.
Excited as Stufflebeam was to receive the correspondence from museum officials, he couldn’t help but point out that it was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam.
Posted by admin on Apr 7, 2008 in
fatu·ous·ness,
Foolery What the hell made USA Presidential candidate, Mr Obama bowl in public when he obviously can’t? As a man, as a politician, as a sane person surrounded by the media and handlers, it’s amazing he made such a public display of his lack of skill in this area. Hilary Clinton even challenged him to a bowl off on April Fools Day.
Miss Fidget is a very, very bad bowler – averages in the mid 60s. It’s hard to imagine HOW BAD Mr Obama was to score a paltry 37. Why did he focus on his “Fred Flintstone twinkle toes form” that got him nothing but gutter balls? If he just stood there and did a bend over tween the legs “granny roll” he coulda hit some pins. Perhaps flashbulbs and spectators hurt his performance, still.
Could his bowling be a metaphor to how he handles problems as a public official? Focus on your form-make sure you look good in the papers even if its completely ineffective and a 10 yr old girl actually does it better than you? Oh dear, time will tell.
Girl who knocks down more pins than Barack Obama offers bowling tips
Wednesday, April 2nd 2008, 4:00 AM | www.nydailynews.com | BY STEPHANIE GASKELL and MICHAEL McAULIFF
Gabriella Lamas, 10, gives Barack Obama some bowling tips.
Barack Obama scored an embarrassing 37 out of 300 at a Pennsylvania bowling alley last weekend. He may want to take a few pointers from Gabriella Lamas.
She racked up a 47 – and she’s only 10 years old.
“I get up close and aim for the middle arrow and then throw it as hard as I can,” said the fourth-grader from West New York, N.J., who studies at Columbia Grammar School in Manhattan.
“It’s pretty easy,” she crowed as she and her 48-year-old stay-at-home mom, Hilda Lamas, bowled at 300 New York at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan yesterday.
Like Obama, Gabriella got a few gutter balls, but she kept trying and eventually bested the 46-year-old presidential hopeful by 10 points.
Her biggest tip for Obama to improve his score the next time he heads to the lanes: “You have to look at the pins when you throw it.”
Gabriella said she didn’t see news coverage of Obama bowling but guessed that he probably “looked kind of funny.”
“It’s cool that he bowls,” she said.
Being a good bowler doesn’t make you a good President, she said.
“The President should be someone who cares and someone that’s going to do what’s best for people,” she said. “It would be good for the President to bowl sometimes – to have fun – but not all the time.”
Gabriella, who’s been bowling since she was 5, said her mom taught her the sport.
“It’s kind of sad because bowling is something everyone did growing up as a family – and it was affordable,” Lamas said, adding that she hasn’t decided who will get her vote.
“Now it’s all video games and cell phones. It’s nice to be able to get out and do something with the kids. Bowling is a nice, pure sport that the whole family can do together.”
With Gabriella showing how easy a victory over Obama would be, at the alleys at least, rival Hillary Clinton jokingly challenged him to a Democratic version of “Kingpin.”
“I am challenging Sen. Obama to a bowl off, a bowling night right here in Pennsylvania, winner take all,” Clinton said in an apparent April Fools’ offer while stumping in Philadelphia.
Clinton even offered to “spot him two frames,” a joke that let her play the jock card against the avid hoops player.
“It’s time for his campaign to get out of the gutter, and for all the pins to be counted,” she quipped.
Posted by admin on Apr 4, 2008 in
Foolery,
Found photos A giggle is long overdue, so here’s some redneck humor sent to me by the DARH-ling Stephen. As these are mainly found photos they belong here. I wondered if the word was spelled redneck or Red Neck or red neck or Redneck. According to the AP stylebook:
redneck: From the characteristic sunburned neck acquired in the fields by farm laborers. It refers to poor, white rural residents of the South and often is a derogatory term.
I don’t consider redneck a bad word, or people called rednecks bad people. The universal asshole rate is about same for all groups, thus some rednecks are assholes.
Further, if these pictures were labeled “Yankee Engineered” or “New England blah blah blah” they would be free of the regional bias redneck has. Both thrifty yankees and rednecks are working class white people doing the best with what they have and having fun doing it. But the thrifty yankee thinks he’s superior to the redneck, whereas the redneck thinks ALL yankees are assholes. Thus the yankee is a bigger asshole than the redneck.
Redneck Cooler (I’ve actually done this at parties myself)
Redneck Cellar (or spare room)
Redneck Garden
Redneck Limo Camper (suspected photoshop)
Redneck Mailbox
Red Neck Toddler Time Out
Redneck Wiener Roast
A redneck Thanksgiving (if Norman Rockwell had been a redneck).
Posted by admin on Apr 3, 2008 in
Feloniousness,
Foolery 
Huh, so God seems to have a drinking problem, explains a lot doesn’t it? This case brings to mind the burden and expectations that can come with a name. The late renowned Jazz bagpiper Rufus Harley named his son Messiah. Dang, thats a lot to live up to!
A MAGISTRATE today issued an arrest warrant for a man who failed to turn up to court because he is “God” and above the law.March 27, 2008 | www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph | By Tony Keim
Richard James Howarth was remanded to appear in the Ipswich Magistrate’s Court to answer a string of traffic offences, including four counts of driving with a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit.However, his lawyers said he failed to appear after having earlier informed them he would not talk to them because he is was the almighty and above answering to Queensland laws.
Early this month, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service solicitor Kevin Rose, for Howarth, told the court his client refused his office’s attempts to talk to them.
A court and a mental health expert have already deemed Howarth was mentally fit for trial, but Mr Rose maintained he has obvious mental health issues.
Mr Rose said he did not doubt Howarth genuinely believed he was God.
The court was told the Crown, including the Attorney-General and state prosecutors, were proceeding with numerous criminal charges against Howarth.
Mr Rose said his office continued to struggle to make contact with Howarth.
“We have trouble getting lucid instructions (from Howarth),” Mr Rose told the court.
Howarth is yet to enter pleas to four counts of driving under the influence of liquor, two of dangerous driving and failing to stop and one of speeding.
Mr Rose today said Howarth had yet to give them any instructions regarding whether he intended to plead guilty to the charges or defend them.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had instructions (from Howarth),” he said.
Magistrate Matthew McLaughlin said he had little option but to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Posted by admin on Apr 1, 2008 in
Forteana Having first heard of this story on April 1st, I wondered if it were true, and a little digging has revealed it seems to be. This baby girl was born in the same region of India, Bihar, as Lakshmi, the girl who successfully underwent surgery to remove extra limbs earlier this year. One does wonder if there is something literally in the water of this poverty stricken region of India, or it is just a statistical coincidence. On the bright side, the baby is regarded as divine and should get extra care and attention. Seriously, the odds of healthy, viable, living and thriving 8 limbed girl and a 2 faced girl being born in the same region within 2 years of each other must be staggering.
Photos from dailymail.uk unless otherwise noted. More photos at this more recent post.
above photo from abc.com
above photo from www.skewsme.com perhaps from FOx originally
Seeing double: Indian baby born with four eyes, two mouths and two faces
By DEBRA KILLALEA | Last updated at 20:11pm on 15th March 2008 | www.dailymail.co.uk
To some she may seem an oddity, but to one Indian couple their newborn daughter is simply a God reincarnated.
Their as yet un-named four-day-old baby girl was born with two faces, two mouths and four eyes in the rural Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, 50km north east of New Delhi.
Her parents, Vinod and Susham Singh from a village called Sani, said their little girl was “a gift from God”.
Excited villagers claim she is the reincarnation of the Indian God Ganesha and celebrated her arrival with clapping, cheering and offerings of gifts and money.
Doctors who delivered the baby said she appeared to be in good health, but said further tests will need to be carried out to determine any long-term health problems she may have.
They are also unable to say if she will be able to eat and function normally.
The excitement surrounding her arrival comes two years after the birth of another little girl, from the poverty stricken region of Bihar, who was born attached to her headless twin.
In a 40 hour operation, doctors successfully removed the lifeless body from Lakshmi Tatma, who was hailed as a reincarnation of Vishnu.
The extraordinary eight-limbed baby was born on the day devoted to the celebration of the four-armed Hindu deity Vishnu.
Since the operation Lakshmi has successfully taken her first steps.
Her mother Poonam Tatma said she believed her daughter was “a miracle”.