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.

But the odds are against Janus cats.

Looking for help, Harvey Dents’ owners reached out to Dr. Greg Fluharty at a Port Charlotte Animal Clinic, who examined the cat.

“Everything is probably pretty good as far as the GI track and also the lungs, which sound normal. Respiration and heart rate were normal for a kitten that age,” said Dr. Fluharty.

Harvey Dent is scheduled to undergo neurology tests next week, but his owners said they are determined to give him a fighting chance.

“We are definitely not going to kill it. I am not going to let somebody tell me that it needs to he done. It shouldn’t be killed because it is a little different,” said Amanda Forsythe.

Janus cats can survive. One recently made the Guinness Book of World Records in 2011 after turning 12.

Copyright 2012 by Post Newsweek. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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.

Of course this is all in fun. Just don’t tell Phil.

Here’s a few facts from WashingtonPost.com

126:The number of times Punxsutawney Phil has predicted the weather, as of Feb. 2, 2012.

• 100%: Accuracy rate of Punxsutawney Phil, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

• 39%: Accuracy rate of Punxsutawney Phil according to Stam Zervanos, a professor emeritus of biology at Pennsylvania State University, Berks College, who has studied groundhog hibernation.

• 60: Number of weeks of winter Punsatawney Phil threatened to impose on America during Prohibition, if he wasn’t allowed a drink.

• 25+: Number of alternative groundhogs across North America — though none is as famous as Punxsutawney Phil. Other groundhogs include “Sutton Sammy” in Ontario, “Chuckles” of Manchester, Conn., “Shubenacadie Sam” in Nova Scotia, “Staten Island Chuck,” and “General Beauregard Lee,” of Lilburn, Ga.

• 8:30 a.m.: February 2, 8:30 a.m. to be precise. Potential debut of Potomac Phil, D.C.’s first weather-predicting groundhog. Resident Aaron DeNu is searching for a live groundhog by Thursday to become Potomac Phil (He’s already procured a stuffed groundhog, but is unsure of how a stuffed groundhog would be able to see its own shadow). Potomac Phil will predict the length of winter in D.C.’s Dupont Circle.

• 49: Number of states that celebrate Groundhog Day. Because there are few groundhogs in Alaska, the state celebrates Marmot Day. The 2009 bill that declared Feb. 2 Marmot Day was signed by then-governor Sarah Palin.

• 7 years: Number of years Punxsutawney Phil’s life is extended each time he drinks a “magical elixir” given to him by the Punxsutawney Inner Circle. That is how the Punxsutawney groundhog Club says that Phil has been able to outlive the normal six-to-eight-year lifespan of a groundhog.

• 38: Number of days depicted in the movie “Groundhog Day” either partially or in full.

• 3,176: Number of days that Bill Murray’s character spent trapped in Groundhog Day in the eponymous movie, according to blogger wolfgnards.

• 12,403: Number of days that Bill Murray’s character spent trapped in Groundhog Day, according to blogger Simon Gallagher in WhatCulture.

• 2: Number of times a groundhog bit Bill Murray’s fingers during the filming of the movie.

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.

She added: “We buy them dehydrated and then soak them in water for about six hours and they hydrate to balls up to 3cm (about 1in) or so in diameter.”

Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, agreed that the water-absorbing crystal theory was “mightily convincing”.

But Mr Hornsby said he does not use the crystals and queried whether the short storm was strong enough to blow them into his garden.

Another idea was that they could be ammunition used in a range of toy guns.

‘Deep craters’

Mr Hornsby said there were a number of children living in the area but said his hedge was fairly high, making firing the spheres into his garden tricky.

He also said a number of the balls had made deep craters which he believed could have only been caused if they had fallen from a great height.

The manufacturer of the Xploderz toy gun range agreed with Mr Hornsby and said the balls were “definitely not” from its product.

A spokesman for Character Options said: “Our ammunition is completely spherical and at a maximum is 1cm big – these look too big.”

Mr Hornsby, a former aircraft engineer, said: “My wife is in the garden all day and didn’t see them before so I am convinced it came with the hailstorm.

“We don’t use anything like the crystals in our garden and I think it would be difficult for kids to shoot over our hedge.

“I think it is some kind of atmospheric pollution. Pollution forms into spheres and fell like the hailstones.”

Mr Hornsby, who is keeping the balls in his fridge, has accepted an offer from Bournemouth University to analyse the substance.

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.’”

West said before heading to the school she called her daughter’s cell phone to tell her not to follow any orders to turn the sweatshirt inside out.

When she got to the school she was told that her daughter had been given a one-day suspension, she said.

No stranger to run-ins with school administrators at Kreps over issues involving her daughter, West said she’d had enough. She told her daughter to clean out her locker because she wasn’t coming back to school.

District Superintendent Edward Forsthoffer III disputed West’s account.

“No student was suspended for wearing an inappropriate shirt,” he said. He declined to say why Albrecht was suspended, citing student confidentiality policies.

Speaking in generalities, he said the district has a dress code that bans any clothing that causes a substantial disturbance in school.

“We’d rather be proactive than reactive,” he said. “Ninety-nine times out of 100, when asked, students say ‘OK, I’ll change.’ Some want to make an issue of it for ulterior motives. If there’s defiance involved, if there’s profanity involved (in the refusal to change clothing), certainly we’d have to respond appropriately.”

The battle flag of Confederate forces in the Civil War is widely regarded as one of the most controversial symbols from American history. Many see it as a symbol of racism while others consider it a part of familial and cultural heritage.

West says she and her daughter are in the latter group.

“We are so far from prejudiced,” she said. “My older daughter is biracial. For Torri this was about expressing herself. It was about saying ‘I’m from the South and I’m proud of it.’ She didn’t do it to cause hurt feelings.”

Furthermore, she said, the sweatshirt could not have caused a disturbance in the 10 minutes Albrecht wore it before being escorted to the office at the start of the school day. Albrecht herself said no one commented on the shirt.

Courts have upheld the right of schools to prohibit the display of Confederate flags on school property, but both Forsthoffer and West agree that the East Windsor district is pushing that issue.

The superintendent said no ban was ever issued. West says Kreps Principal Lori Stein called her the day after the suspension to say the school had changed its stance.

“She said that after careful consideration she decided that if Torri wears the sweatshirt, it might not be liked but that (Stein) would look the other way and allow her to wear it,” West said.

She’s not sure she’ll accept that solution, she said.

West said she plans to send Albrecht to Virginia to live with her sister in December but doesn’t know what to do in the meantime, since Kreps is the only middle school in the district. She said she’s considering home-schooling the girl until she can make the move south.

Booie, the 44-year-old chimp, lived at the Wildlife WayStation from 1955, after being retired from a research lab. Image Daily Mail.

Bye Bye Booie! California’s smoking chimpanzee who learned sign language dies at 44
12/11/11 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Bye Bye Booie! California’s smoking chimpanzee who learned sign language dies at 44

Heart condition: Booie, the 44-year-old chimp, lived at the Wildlife WayStation from 1955, after being retired from a research lab

A chimpanzee that kicked a smoking habit and used sign language to beg for candy has died at a California animal refuge.

Martine Colette, founder of the Wildlife WayStation, said Booie was being treated for a heart condition when he died on Saturday, at the age of 44.

The chimp had been living at the animal sanctuary near Los Angeles since 1995, after he retired from a research lab.

Ms Colette said she successfully turned Booie away from his smoking habit but could not make a dent in his love of sweets.

She said he would use his signing skills to panhandle for candy by signing: ‘Booie see sweet in pocket.’

Booie’s death is a serious blow to the financially troubled refuge because he was one of its best fundraisers.

Ms Colette said he had fans around the world because of his TV appearances.

Chimpanzees rarely live beyond 40 in the wild but have been known to live more than 60 years in captivity.

It has not been established whether Booie’s smoking habit contributed to his death.

Booie was eight years younger than Charlie, another chimpanzee famous for his smoking, who died in South Africa last year at the age of 52.

Charlie lived at Bloemfontein Zoo and first started his smoking habit after visitors began throwing lit cigarettes into his enclosure.

Zoo spokesman Qondile Khedama insisted Charlie was only an ‘occasional smoker’, but had none the less become famous around the world.

The Holy Sock. Image telegraph.co.uk

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.

“I called my boyfriend over straight away – we could both clearly see the face of Jesus in the sock.

“There is a straight-on face, and a side profile too – we couldn’t believe it.

“I immediately took some pictures to show our family and friends – they all thought it was hilarious.

“We think it’s a bit of a sign – but for what we don’t know.

“We thought it would be good to make a little shrine for it – but unfortunately, when we moved it, the creases fell out a bit and the face isn’t quite as clear now.

“But you can still just about make out his face. Unfortunately, it’s not quite good enough to donate to our local church, but our friends have all been round to see it.”

The sock is the latest in a series of everyday objects on which people have claimed to seen Jesus.

Last year an ivy-covered telegraph pole in Lousiana was said to have looked like the crucified Christ, while his face was seen in a Hungarian field spotted on Google Earth.