Cats born with 2 faces are called Janus cats after the roman god with 2 faces. Harvey Dent seemed healthy at first and despite trolls on the internet who called for the death of the “black abomination” they thought differently saying, “it shouldn’t be killed because it is a little different”. Alas, despite having a loving momma and accepting owners poor Harvey Dent died overnight. Janus cats can live a long happy life as proven by Frank Louie, who is mentioned at the start of one of the videos posted.
Kitten born with two faces Rare Janus cat born in Port Charlotte
Jan 31 2012 | www.local10.com
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -You’ve probably heard of cats having nine lives, but a Florida kitten was born with two faces.
The Janus cat is named Harvey Dent after the Batman character more commonly known as Two Face. Aaron Eckhart played Dent in the 2008 film The Dark Knight.
Janus cats are named after the mythical Roman god who had two faces. They are exceptionally rare.
“They simultaneously work together, the two faces. When he eats on one side it looks like he’s eating on the other. When he meows, it comes out of both sides,” said owner Nash Forsythe.
At least once a year in America groundhogs get looked to for long range weather prognostications. It seems we can blame the Germans for the weather forecasting rodent and the Christian church for the date, which is also Candlemas.
6 more weeks of winter in 2012 as predicted by Punxatawney Phil and interperted by his his caretakers, the Inner Circle. Many other groundhogs are now making their own predictions, but Phil and the Inner Circle have been prognosticating for 120 years. Image Gene J. Puskar / AP
This year more than 18,000 people clambered on Gobbler's Knob to see Phil's prediction. Image Gene J. Puskar / AP
Why we celebrate Groundhog Day Did you know Germans used hedgehogs as the original weather forecaster?
Feb, 2, 2012 | Meteorologist Brent Watts | www.wdbj7.com/
Every year at 7:20 AM, Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from his burrow to forecast the fate of winter.
The idea of Groundhog day began with the Germans who brought the legend of Candlemas day to the United States. Candlemas Day was a day where clergy in the churches would distrubute candles needed for the long winter months. The candles represented how long and how cold the winter would be.
Later, Germans selected the hedgehog as a means to forecast the weather.
Once the Germans came to America, they continued the tradition. However, they switched to groundhogs because Pennsylvania had so many of them at the time.
The first Groundhog Day celebration dates back to 1857. Punxsutawney Phil was named after King Phillip, but was originally named Briar Groundhog.
The legend says, if Phil sees his shadow at 7:20 AM on Groundhog Day, we’ll see 6 more weeks of winter. if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, Spring is sure to come soon.
Red rains are more common and easy to attribute to red desert sands being carried aloft then coming down with rain miles away from the desert. However, what could cause blue jelly like spheres? Florist supplies? Toys? Recently it was shown that hailstones form around airborne bacteria. Could these be masses of bacteria? Like many mysterious falls, this may remain a mystery.
The blue spheres are jelly-like but have no smell and are not sticky. Image BBC
Steve Hornsby and one of the spheres that fell in his yard during a storm. Image Inquisitr.
Florists use water-absorbent balls in their displays. Image BBC
The manufacturer of the toy gun range said the balls were not its products. Image BBC
Blue balls theories rage after Dorset storm mystery
30 January 2012 | bbc.uk
A number of theories have been put forward to explain the presence of blue jelly spheres found in a Dorset garden.
Steve Hornsby from Bournemouth reported the 3cm diameter balls came raining down last Thursday during a hailstorm.
Theories include the balls being crystals used in floral displays or ammunition for a toy gun.
But Mr Hornsby remains unconvinced and believes they were formed in the atmosphere. Bournemouth University is to analyse the balls.
He found about 20 balls made of a jelly-like substance which the Met Office has said was “not meteorological”.
A number of people who contacted the BBC after the story was published on Friday believed the balls were sodium polyacrylate crystals.
‘Mightily convincing’
They can absorb hundreds of times their mass in water and are used in floral displays.
Mel Smith, from Ena’s Florists in Bournemouth, said the balls look extremely similar to the type she uses and have the consistence of firm jelly when broken into.
AccuWeather says, “To this day ball lightning has never been scientifically reported or documented and all attempts to reproduce it have failed.” However, National Geographic reported in 2007 that a scientist created golf ball sized orbs of electricity in the lab. Wired reported in 2009 that a scientist wants to weaponize ball lightning. So I guess the jury is still out, at least at Accuweather.
What if the kid is just a Dukes of Hazard fan? Apparently, the stars and bars is a “symbol of white supremacy.” Hmm. She was not suspended for wearing the garment but for her attitude when asked to remove the garment. Hmm. What crap.
East Windsor teen suspended over Confederate flag shirt, mom says school is wrong
Lisa Coryell, For The Times | nj.com | November 14, 2011, 3:54 PM
EAST WINDSOR — A Kreps Middle School parent who says her daughter was suspended for wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the image of the confederate flag says the school overstepped its boundaries and violated her daughter’s right to free speech.
Jane West says she’s thinking about withdrawing her daughter, Torri Albrecht, from the school even as district officials insist that the flag — viewed by many as a racially charged symbol — was not the reason the girl was suspended.
“They’re saying that now because they know they really went too far this time,” West said. “If there wasn’t a problem with the sweatshirt, why did the vice principal call at 10 after 8 on Monday to demand that I bring a change of clothes for my daughter?”
“He told me he had a bunch of students and a bunch of teachers come into his office to say they were disturbed by it,” she said.
West said she told the assistant principal, Jermaine Blount, he was crazy if he thought she was coming out with a change of clothes for the eighth-grader.
“The Indian kids wear their turbans. The Jewish kids wear their yarmulkes. That’s their birthright,” she said. “I told him that Torri was born in Virginia. That flag is her heritage and I’m not telling her to take it off. He said ‘I guess she’ll have to suffer the consequences.’”
Woman sees face of Jesus in sock A woman claims she can see the face of Jesus in the creases of a drying sock.
www.telegraph.co.uk | 28 Dec 2011
Sarah Crane, 38, said she was stunned when she saw a bearded man staring back at her from the laundry line.
Her boyfriend agreed the crumpled grey “holy sock” bore an uncanny likeness to the traditional image of Christ, and the couple took photographs to show their friends.
They even talked about creating a shrine to the sock but then the face was lost when they moved it.
Miss Crane, from Orpington, Kent, said: “I’d left the washing out to dry overnight – and it had probably been sitting there a bit too long when I noticed the face in the sock.
Mr Henderson’s story is sad and scary. Hopefully Dinklage’s shout out on a global awards telecast can help others avoid a similar fate.
Peter Dinklage and Martin Henderson (Pic: Getty and SWNS)
Who is Martin Henderson? Golden Globe Winner Peter Dinklage Dedicates Award to Him [VIDEO]
By Laura Matthews | January 16, 2012 | www.ibtimes.com
When Peter Dinklage won a 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series on Sunday at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Award, the “Game of Thrones” star dedicated the award to a man name Martin Henderson.
Henderson, a fellow little person from Somerset in England, was the victim of a dwarf tossing incident that left him with serious back injuries. The BBC reported that Henderson, 37, was picked up and dropped on the ground while he was out celebrating his birthday with friends at the White Horse pub in Wincanton in October.
The attack happened when Henderson went outside for a cigarette and he told “Metro” that a drunken stranger picked him up and threw him. The toss caused Henderson to land on his back, after falling three feet, according to reports.
According to MTV News, both Dinklage and Henderson suffer from achondroplasia, which causes dwarfirsm.
Not only are these huge, hermaphroditic, long living tough buggers so hungry they eat plaster and stucco they can carry meningitis bearing nematodes. This is the first time I’ve used the Florida Dept of Agriculture as a source.
Achatina fulica is originally from East Africa. Each snail can live as long as nine years. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs. Photo Credit: Andrew Derksen, Florida Cooperative Pest Survey Program
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Identifies Giant African Land Snails in Miami-Dade County
Tallahassee, FL – The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has positively identified a population of Giant African land snails (GALS) in Miami-Dade County. The Giant African land snail is one of the most damaging snails in the world because they consume at least 500 different types of plants, can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco, and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans.
“Florida faces constant challenges from invasive pests and diseases that arrive through cargo, travelers’ luggage, air currents, and plant and animal agricultural products,” said Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. “Enlisting the help of the public in the early detection of these pests and diseases is critical to containing and ultimately eradicating them in our state.”
The Giant African land snail, Achatina fulica, is one of the largest land snails in the world, growing up to eight inches in length and more than four inches in diameter. When full grown, the snail’s brownish shell consists of seven to nine whorls (spirals) that cover at least half the length of its long and greatly swollen body whorl.
Each snail can live as long as nine years and contains both female and male reproductive organs. After a single mating session, each snail can produce 100 to 400 eggs. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs.
Get out your black cats, broken mirror, and horseshoes. Who knew there are 3 Friday the 13ths, 13 weeks apart in 2012? Um, actually, I did, but I didn’t know it was such a rarity.
Friday, January 13th is the first of 3 Friday the 13ths in 2012.
Three Friday the 13ths, 13 weeks apart, a rarity
By Wade Malcolm, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal | Friday, January 13, 2012
It’s a bad year for people who suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia — the fear of Friday the 13th.
Why? There are three this year, instead of the usual two. There was one in 2011.
That’s not all. For the first time since 1984, those three Friday the 13ths — today, April 13 and July 13 — are exactly 13 weeks apart.
Three Friday the 13ths happen every few years. The last was in 2009, and the next is 2015. What’s special about 2012 — and what won’t occur again until 2040 — is that this is happening during a leap year, says Tom Fernsler, a University of Delaware math professor who sometimes goes by the name Dr. 13.
What a wonderful coincidence that Jesus was spotted on New Year’s Eve, a day of great celebration in South Philly. Simulacra are things that by chance look like something completely unrelated. Jesus is a popular one, his image has been seen on an iron, in marmite, in pizza sauce, and on a pizza (which looks fake to me) and
Image CBS 3
On New Year's Eve, Patty Maiellano, of Sydenham Street, says she spotted the image of Jesus on the panels of her drapes in her front window. Image 6abc.com.
She says some of her neighbors have come to pray at the window. IMage 6abc.com
South Philadelphia Woman Finds Image of Jesus On Window Blinds
By Ian Bush | www.philadelphia.cbslocal.com | January 9, 2012
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Family and friends are the normal guests at New Year’s Eve parties, but a South Philadelphia woman says her visitor that night was… Jesus.
Outside, it was a noisy celebration.
“Fireworks, kids — you know how South Philly is on New Year’s Eve.”
Inside, Patty Maiellano couldn’t sleep.
“As I was coming downstairs, I saw a figure on my vertical blinds, which were completely shut.”
She did a double take, and turned on all the lights. Was someone peeking in? No, she says.
Who can blame them for wanting to be the same day as most of their neighbors. The odd glitch of a date not existing is very compelling.
Image bbc.co.uk
Time warp: Samoa’s new dawn
December 30, 2011 | www.smh.com.au
Time change has Samoa losing a day
On December 29, Samoa will move its time zone a day ahead by shifting the international dateline to the east, bringing it into line with neighbouring New Zealand and Australia.
For Samoans, today, December 30, is a day that never existed because the island nation is making a leap across the international dateline.
At midnight, Samoa’s calendar jumped straight to Saturday, December 31, as it redrew the dateline to move to the western side. The country went from being the last place in the world to see sunset to one of the first to see the sunrise.
The shift is aimed at improving trade with Australia and New Zealand. Tourism operators are also able to offer visitors two New Year’s Eves – one on Samoa and another on American Samoa, an hour’s flight away.
The time jump comes 119 years after US traders persuaded Samoan authorities to align their islands’ time with American Samoa.
