Archive | April, 2010

World’s Tallest Horse-Big Jake

30 Apr

Whoa, that is a big horse. Sounds like we should stay tuned for the world’s biggest TEAM of horses.

    • Nine-year-old Belgian gelding Jake towers over Melissa Schrock, a co-owner of Smokey Hollow Farm, and miniature stallion Nemo in January. Jake was being measured that day to see if he is the tallest horse in the world. Lyn Jerde/Daily Register

    Big Jake is world’s tallest living horse
    By Lyn Jerde, Daily Register |  April 13, 2010  |  www.wiscnews.com

    Friday will be a big day for Big Jake.

    That’s when he’ll be officially presented, to thousands of horse lovers, as the Guinness World Record-holder for world’s tallest living horse.

    CLICK HERE for a previous story and video of Big Jake.

    The 9-year-old Belgian gelding from Smokey Hollow Farm near Poynette stands 20 hands, 2.75 inches – that’s one quarter inch short of 6-foot-11 – from the bottom of his unshod hooves to his withers. He’s taller than the previous record-holder, a Clydesdale from Texas named Remington, who’s 20 hands tall.

    Jerry Gilbert, co-owner of Smokey Hollow Farm, said a certificate from Guinness World Records in England arrived at the farm, by express delivery, in late March.

    But Jake’s coronation as a world record holder will officially take place Friday, at the Midwest Horse Fair, scheduled for Friday through Sunday at the Alliant Energy Center, Madison.

    The official announcement will be made just before the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Rodeo, scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

    Jake also will appear – along with his sidekick from Smokey Hollow Farm, a miniature stallion named Nemo – at the Kids Korral throughout the show.

    Gilbert said people are welcome to take Jake’s picture, but probably won’t be allowed to stand next to him for a height comparison, because Jake, like many horses, may not be accustomed to strangers.

    Gilbert said people who view Jake at the Kids Korral will be invited to contribute to the Ronald McDonald House in Madison in Jake’s honor. It provides a “home away from home” for families of children younger than 18 who are undergoing medical treatment in the Madison area.

    (more…)

    Conjoined Gaza twins lose battle for life

    29 Apr

    Modern medicine allows for more and more conjoined twins to be separated. When they can’t be, it’s a reminder of how special those children are and how difficult those surgeries are. One can’t help but wonder if living in the troubled Gaza, and their impoverished start has anything to do with their loss of life. Condolences to the family.

    Rital and Ritaj

    Inseparable … even in death: Gaza twins lose battle for life
    By ARAB NEWS  |  Apr 11, 2010

    RIYADH: A pair of conjoined Palestinian twins who came to the Kingdom from the Gaza Strip to undergo separation surgery died in Riyadh on Saturday, said Saudi Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah.

    Al-Rabeeah, who is also head of the medical team that was to perform the operation, said Rital and Ritaj died at 4 p.m. in King Abdul Aziz National Guard Medical City. “Their situation worsened as the medical team had expected,” he said. He said the two could not be separated surgically because they had a bacterial infection in their chests and because their hearts, livers and digestive systems were intertwined.

    The two girls were born on March 27 — the first ever in the impoverished Gaza Strip where doctors lacked the resources to treat them. They requested help from Saudi Arabia, which has world-renowned facilities for separating conjoined twins.

    Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah heard about the twins through the media and ordered they be brought to the Kingdom for surgery. King Abdullah has funded such surgeries in the Kingdom from other parts of the world.

    The twins ran into obstacles in getting there. They had to obtain passports from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, permission from Israel and approval from the Egyptian government to open the border out of Gaza.

    “Tests confirmed that the condition of the twins Rital and Ritaj is very critical and their health is not stable,” said hospital spokesman Sami Al-Shalan in a previous statement. They were examined on arrival in Riyadh by a medical team headed by Al-Rabeeah, who has personally carried out many separation surgeries.

    Promising research resuming in hallucinogens

    28 Apr

    Interesting… as more and more people turn to pharmacology for help with their feelings it makes sense to resume and expand research in  hallucinogens.

    Dr. Clark Martin in his home in Vancouver, Wash. Image Alan S. Weiner for The New York Times

    Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
    By JOHN TIERNEY  |  New York Times  |  April 11, 2010

    As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried.

    Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.

    Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

    After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.

    “All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”

    Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

    (more…)

    Munchkin coroner actor dies at 94

    27 Apr

    He had a hell of a life. I would have loved to have read his biography.

    Meinhardt Raabe dies at 94; one of the Munchkins in ‘The Wizard of Oz’
    He played the coroner in the 1939 classic film and proclaimed that the Wicked Witch of the East was ‘really most sincerely dead.’
    latimes.com  |  Times Staff And Wire Reports  |  April 11, 2010

    Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in “The Wizard of Oz” and proclaimed that the Wicked Witch of the East was “really most sincerely dead,” has died. He was 94.

    Raabe died Friday morning at a hospital in Orange Park, Fla., after an apparent heart attack, said his caregiver, Cindy Bosnyak.

    Raabe — pronounced RAH’-bee — was one of 124 Munchkins in the 1939 classic film and one of only nine who had speaking parts.

    He portrayed the Munchkin official who solemnly pronounces the witch dead after Dorothy’s farmhouse lands on her: “As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, and she’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.”

    (more…)

    Crafty lass makes prom dress from coffee filters

    26 Apr

    One of the better prom dresses made from unexpected materials.

    Oh isn’t she lovely, and handy!

    Teen pours heart into coffee filter prom dress
    May 28, 2009 | www.wtop.com

    UNDATED – She’s known as “the girl with a coffee cup.” Aimee Kick, who spends lots of time in coffee shops, took her moniker to the limit, crafting an elaborate senior prom dress out of coffee filters.

    The senior at Missouri’s Francis Howell North High School says she wanted to wear something creative that wasn’t fabric. Because she wanted to dance and be comfortable at the prom, she eliminated the idea of making her dress out of vegetables, tea bags, stamps, bubble wrap or aluminum foil.

    “When I really started to notice how into making the dress I got was the day before a large (and tedious) research paper was due, I kept saying to myself, ‘Just finish the paper and then you can work on the dress as much as you want,’” Kick says.

    (more…)

    Motel guest uses snake as weapon in SC

    25 Apr

    When snakes are outlawed only outlaws will have snakes.

    Tony Smith used his snake as a weapon.

    Motel guest hit in face with snake, Rock Hill man charged

    By Kimberly Dick – The Herald  |  April 15,2010  |  www.heraldonline.com

    A man “deathly afraid” of reptiles was attacked by a snake-wielding man using the four-foot long python as a weapon, police say.

    Tony Smith, 29, of 1920 Corwin Drive, Rock Hill was charged with assault and battery after an altercation at the Executive Inn on North Anderson Road Tuesday night, according to a Rock Hill police report.

    Smith is accused of hitting Jeffery Culp, 47, in the head with the snake on the balcony of the motel, police said.

    “I almost had a heart attack,” Culp said. “I dropped to my knees and actually crawled back into my room.”

    (more…)

    Woman Develops Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder After Wii Fit Injury

    22 Apr

    Editors of the world, please do some research. There is a HUGE difference between being a “sex addict” as most articles peg Ms Flowers and her diagnosis of suffering from “Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder.”

    Wii Fit accident made me a sex addict: U.K. woman
    By QMI Agency  |  Thursday, April 15, 2010  |  www.torontosun.com

    A woman in the United Kingdom says she has the urge to have sex up to 10 times a day after she fell off her Wii Fit board.

    “It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm,” Amanda Flowers of Manchester told the

    U.K.’s Daily Star. “With no cure I just have to try to control my passion by breathing deeply.”

    A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome, saying she likely damaged a nerve in the fall.

    She told the Daily Star that small vibrations, like the one from her cellphone or a food processor, turns her on.

    Flowers is single, but hopes to find a boyfriend.

    Horse Drawn Carriage Crash in Philly

    21 Apr

    The latest word is that the 70yr old driver is going to be officially charged. Witnesses say he was driving very aggressively. What a maroon, evil, old, mean, grumpy, impatient maroon.

    Want to see one of the images larger? Click on it.

    3 injured in crash of car, horsecarts

    No passengers onboard; horses OK

    By STEPHANIE FARR | Philadelphia Daily News | Apr. 20, 2010 | farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

    At least three people were injured when modernity and antiquity clashed near Independence Mall yesterday in an accident involving one car and several horse-drawn carriages.

    The crash occurred about 9:20 a.m. at 6th and Race streets when a driver plowed into one of three carriages that had stopped at a red light, causing a chain reaction that damaged the two others, police said.

    But Michael Kates, director of operations for the 76 Carriage Co., owner of the carriages, said there were actually five carriages stopped together at the light, all of which had left the stables 15 minutes before the accident.

    (more…)

    Iranian cleric: Promiscuous women cause quakes

    20 Apr

    Well if promiscuous women cause earthquakes then what on earth could have caused the Boxing Day Tsunamis? Maybe Thai tranvestites and transsexuals.

    Doing an image search for Iranian women yielded some amazing, diverse images. Click on any thumbnail to view it larger.

    Iranian cleric: Promiscuous women cause quakes
    By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI  |  AP  |  April 19, 2010

    BEIRUT — A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

    Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

    “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.

    Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair.

    “What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

    (more…)

    TSA agent punished for “white powder” prank

    19 Apr

    When a good prank goes bad…

    Student not amused by Philly TSA prank
    AP  |  January 24, 2010

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia’s airport by a Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to plant a plastic bag of white powder in her carryon luggage.

    The worker is no longer employed by the TSA after the incident this month, a spokeswoman said.

    Rebecca Solomon, 22, a University of Michigan student, wrote in a column for her campus newspaper that she was having her bags screened on Jan. 5 before her flight to Detroit when the employee stopped her, reached into her laptop computer bag and pulled out the plastic bag, demanding to know where she had gotten the powder.

    In the Jan. 10 column for The Michigan Daily, she recounted how she struggled to come up with an explanation, wondering if it was bomb-detonating material slipped in by a terrorist or drugs put there by a smuggler.

    (more…)

    A new theory of dreaming-we do it all the time

    18 Apr

    Wow.
    dream1comp

    A Dream Interpretation: Tuneups for the Brain
    By BENEDICT CAREY  |  NY times.com  |  November 10, 2009

    It’s snowing heavily, and everyone in the backyard is in a swimsuit, at some kind of party: Mom, Dad, the high school principal, there’s even an ex-girlfriend. And is that Elvis, over by the piñata?

    Uh-oh.

    Dreams are so rich and have such an authentic feeling that scientists have long assumed they must have a crucial psychological purpose. To Freud, dreaming provided a playground for the unconscious mind; to Jung, it was a stage where the psyche’s archetypes acted out primal themes. Newer theories hold that dreams help the brain to consolidate emotional memories or to work though current problems, like divorce and work frustrations.

    Yet what if the primary purpose of dreaming isn’t psychological at all?

    In a paper published last month in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Dr. J. Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and longtime sleep researcher at Harvard, argues that the main function of rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, when most dreaming occurs, is physiological. The brain is warming its circuits, anticipating the sights and sounds and emotions of waking.
    (more…)

    Butt Print Bandit Caught

    17 Apr

    A great silly criminal.

    Nebraska’s ‘Butt Bandit’ suspect faces charges
    Tuesday, November 25, 2008 www.foxnews.com

    VALENTINE, Neb. —Ten misdemeanor counts have been filed against a man Cherry County authorities believe is the vandal some townspeople have dubbed the “Butt Bandit.”

    Cherry County Attorney Eric Scott said that on Tuesday he filed nine counts of public indecency and one count of disturbing the peace against 35-year-old Tom Larvie, of Valentine. All are misdemeanors.

    Larvie is suspected of leaving greasy, graphic imprints of his naked behind, and sometimes his groin, on the windows of stores, churches and schools in Valentine since the spring of 2007.

    The marks were made with lotion or petroleum jelly.

    Scott said Larvie was caught in the act by police early Wednesday morning.

    Larvie could not be reached to comment.

    _____

    “Butt Bandit” Case Cracked

    Cops: Nebraska man left private parts prints on business windows

    www.thesmokinggun.com

    NOVEMBER 25–Nebraska’s notorious “butt bandit” was charged today with a public indecency spree in which he allegedly lathered his private parts in baby lotion and then left “butt and penis prints on local business windows” in the city of Valentine. Thomas Larvie, named today in a nine-count misdemeanor criminal complaint, was arrested last Wednesday after Officer Dana Miller spotted him “trying to hide in the shadows” near a parking lot. A detailed (and gross) probable cause affidavit, a copy of which you’ll find below, notes that Larvie, 35, was wearing a handkerchief over his face and had a 16.5 ounce bottle of “Baby Magic Baby Lotion” in his pants pocket when approached by Miller at around 3:30 AM. Oh, and Larvie’s “erect penis was partially protruding” from his unzipped pants. A subsequent police investigation determined that eight Valentine businesses–including the post office, a livestock firm, and a pharmacy–had been left with butt and/or penis prints on their doors and windows. Some of the firms also had pages from a pornographic magazine stuck on the exterior of their premises. Jay Hollenbeck’s Farm Bureau was hit particularly hard, with “penis prints on a west window, a butt and penis print on a south window, a penis print on a west window, and a penis print on the door.” According to the Cherry County Attorney, police had spent several months probing prior lotion incidents before Larvie’s November 19 bust. Following his arrest, Larvie told police, “I’m mental, I think I will kill myself.” After being booked into the county jail, Larvie was transported for “emergency protective custody” to Great Plains Regional Medical Center. (2 pages)

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