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.
‘Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’, claims plus-size magazine in powerful comment on body image in the fashion industry. Reading this was educational, who knew plus size models ranged in size from 6 to 14?
Size matters: PLUS Model Magazine has shot size 12 Katya Zharkova pose with a 'straight-size' model to demonstrate the difference between them. Image Plus Model Magazine
Magazine says ‘Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’
By TAMARA ABRAHAM | 12th January 2012 | www.dailymail.co.uk
A magazine dedicated to plus-size fashion and models has sparked controversy with a feature claiming that most runway models meet the Body Mass Index criteria for anorexia.
Accompanied by a bold shoot that sees a nude plus-size model posing alongside a skinny ‘straight-size’ model, PLUS Model Magazine says it aims to encourage plus-size consumers to pressure retailers to better cater to them, and stop promoting a skinny ideal.
Size 12 (U.S.) model Katya Zharkova, 28, stars in the shoot, which has a powerful statistic accompanying each image.
This guy is the McGyver of criminals. This story is brought to you by the letter P.
Preston James Phipps, 24, of Des Moines
Des Moines police officer assaulted with toy monkey
Jan 9, 2012 | by Tom Alex | desmoinesregister.com
A man arrested in a theft from a convenience store is accused of attacking a police officer with one of the stolen items — a stuffed monkey.
Preston James Phipps, 24, of Des Moines, was arrested late Saturday night after allegedly causing problems at the Git-N-Go convenience store at 2601 S.W. Ninth St. in Des Moines.
Police Officer Andrew Pirtle said in a report that he saw a man carrying two stuffed animals leaving the store about 10:20 p.m. Moments later the officer was flagged down and informed that the man had just made a mess in the store.
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.
There is nothing I can say about the late writer Christopher Hitchens that he can’t say a thousand times better and funnier than I can. The world is less interesting for his passing.
You’re expelled from your mother’s uterus as if shot from a cannon towards a barn door studded with old nail files and rusty hooks. Its a matter of how you use the intervening time in an interesting and ironic way, and try to not do anything nasty to your fellow creatures.
-hitchens
Usually audiences in the USA have no idea the TV show they are watching was inspired by an identical show in another country. Think it is a weird idea? FRIENDS, THE OFFICE, and moldy oldie THREE’S COMPANY are all inspired by shows in far away places. Thanks to MOST EXTREME ELIMINATION CHALLENGE which was basically edited from Takeshi’s Castle with a snarky new commentary in English by ‘Vic Romano’ and ‘Kenny Blankenship’ many American’s thought WIPEOUT was REALLY familiar.
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 25 (UPI) — ABC and production company Endemol have settled a 2008 lawsuit brought by Tokyo Broadcasting System alleging their show “Wipeout” was a ripoff of its shows.
The Hollywood Reporter said documents filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles this past week showed a settlement was reached Nov. 30 with the help of a federal judge acting as a mediator. The terms of the settlement were not revealed, the entertainment newspaper reported Saturday.
P’shaw, 15 months seems a light sentence. This guy was creepy and when one considers the number and type of images he had in his immediate possession it is hard to believe he never acted out on his dark urges.
Lahey’s collection included pornographic photos featuring Catholic imagery, including young boys wearing crucifixes and rosary beads engaged in sex acts, and a man dressed as a monk hitting a young boy’s bare buttocks with a paddle.
Lahey gets 15-month jail sentence for child porn
January 4, 2012 | By The Canadian Press
Former Antigonish bishop likely to leave jail soon; will serve two years probation
A disgraced Roman Catholic bishop who got busted with hundreds of pornographic photos of young boys has been sentenced to 15 months in jail and two years probation.
But since Ontario Court Justice Kent Kirkland is giving Raymond Lahey double credit for the time he has served since last spring, the cleric has essentially done his jail sentence already.
Kirkland also imposed a series of stringent probation rules.
Since he was a car thief stealing a firetruck was a natural.
Thomas Francis Kelley
Escaped inmate still at large, last seen in Spring Valley
www.ktla.com | January 2, 2012
SAN DIEGO — Law enforcement officers Monday sought a prisoner who stole a fire engine to escape from Richard J. Donovan state prison in Otay Mesa on New Year’s Day.
Thomas Francis Kelly, 51, was locked up for a parole violation stemming from a a 2008 car theft conviction, Lt. Patrick Logan of the state prison system said.
Kelley was in the minimum security section of the prison working as a prison firefighter and scheduled to be released in December 2013, Logan said.
Kelley was reported missing during a head count about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Logan said.
If you have never seen or burnt actual frankincense you should, while you still can. Its weight is much lighter than one would it expect the golden nuggets to be. It’s slightly acrid and pungent smell is out of step with our modern fabric softener scented world. However, if you ever experience a horrifying-curl-up-and-die funk in your living space thick pungent frankincense smoke will chase down and kill all traces of the odor sort of like a classical disinfectant. It would be perfect in a stable someone just gave birth in.
Frankincense Production May Be Doomed
Fires, grazing, insects threaten future of the fragrant resin linked to Christmas, scientists warn
Dec. 22, 2011 | www.health.usnews.com
Researchers warn that the trees that produce frankincense are being lost at such a high rate that production of the fragrant resin could fall by half over the next 15 years.
The ecologists from the Netherlands and Ethiopia also said that numbers of the trees could drop by 90 percent over the next 50 years. If nothing is done about the causes of this decline — fire, grazing and insect attack — frankincense production could be doomed, they say.
Their forecasts, based on large-scale field studies, appear in the Dec. 21 issue of the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Advertising executive sends Christmas greetings from the grave
By Tom Fontaine | PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW | December 9, 2011
Known for sending humorous Christmas cards each year to hundreds of friends, Bob McCully outdid himself this year — posthumously.
Last week, about 400 people received unexpected holiday greetings from McCully, a former advertising executive and satirical writer from Point Breeze who died in August at 88.
“Hello, please don’t call. I recently moved to a quiet neighborhood and …,” the front of the card read, the words appearing under a photo of McCully in an office talking on the phone.
