Weird News

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 2:08 am

<img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/huh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='huh.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Pravda.ru)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> New human race of indigo children appears on Earth 12/08/2005 12:25 Indigo children's immune system is several thousand times stronger than that of an average human being A pretty little girl who lives deep in the heart of Latgaglia (Latvia) enjoys talking. She talks nonchalantly about her nightly travels across the Universe in an astral body. Her father is quick to make a request: "Please pay no attention to what she is talking about, she just loves making things up." Indigo child The father is not surprised to find out that his daughter has been aware of the notion of astral since she was five. He appreciates his child very much, though. He always uses a tip from the girl while repairing his old tractor. "I do not know how she does it but she is always in the know what is wrong with the machine," says he. Well, the story looks familiar. There is another case of an indigo child, a phenomenon that has become pretty ordinary lately. The year 2012 has special significance for the indigo children. According to predictions of the Maya, the so-called "Great Transition" will be taking place in 2012 after the Sun and Earth form a straight line pointing to the center of the Galaxy. The above position will trigger the demise of the 3-D model of the world. The earth dwellers will be given the opportunity to live in a 4-D world. But the offer applies only to those whose mind has expanded to an essentially new level - the indigo children. Click here to read the story about Russian indigo boy, Boriska Take a closer look at your offspring. Researchers claim that 95% of children born after 1994 are the indigo children. The fascinating adjective derives from the color of an aura around their bodies. The internal organs of these children have different functions, their immune systems is several times stronger than that of an average person. The children also have a different kind of DNA, a mutation kind. In other words, as regards the changes in DNA, millions of residents of planet Earth are not humans. A race of new beings is slowly but surely climbing the stage. You might as well be an indigo boy or girl because the indigo phenomenon started at the beginning of the 1990s. But you can not conjure up a miracle or two or see through the walls. It is okay since miracles do not feed the indigo powers. The people endowed with the gift for indigo are smart in a special practical way. They may recall how they handpicked their parents long before the latter conceived them. They may start teaching their parents some simple biblical truths like why you should worry about money for you are always going to have as much money as you need if you stop thinking about it. The children of the new race aim at reaching out to spiritual heights. The indigo children may go wild like reckless thugs or behave like quiet angel-like creatures. One thing is clear. Their psychological characteristics and behavioral patters are new and unusual. Therefore, new methods of education should be developed and applied. You can not just ignore the needs of the new generation otherwise precious little creatures will suffer from mental instability and disturbed thinking. You should bear in mind that they are the pioneers who kicked off a new era and therefore they need our support. A well-known mystic Drunwalo Melhisedek maintains that a DNA mutation in the modern children has been caused by a specific reaction generated by our emotional and mental bodies. It is the reaction of a wavelike variety irradiated by our body. The new life-saving information lies in the subconscious of our planet. In other words, it is available to everybody. The spreading of the indigo is an amazing phenomenon occurring right before our eyes. Anybody who is aware of the impact of mental power can follow the road signs made by the indigo children. The ancient prophesy about children leading humankind to salvation is coming true. Full immunity against the diseases will be one of the "side effects" caused by miraculous changes. All in all, the day when every child will be a child prodigy is near. </td></tr></table>

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:05 pm

I didn't think we were excerpting tabloids here.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:31 pm

Generally, no . . . but, sometimes an article is just crazy enough to be worth mentioning here.

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:21 pm

Pravda isn't really a tabloid, just some of it's writers are, well, insane. They once had an article about how Hitler was protected by the devil, but they usually have interesting (and more realistic) viewpoints.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:37 pm

And, of course, I have our editor tied up in the closet . . . * muffled thumping and yelling sounds * Otherwise, the green pixels might come out. ------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ABOVE POST DOES NOT MEET THE EDITORIAL STANDARDS OF THIS THREAD. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/huh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='huh.gif' />

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:20 am

But now for the "news"...  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (BBC)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Killed sparrow to go on display By Geraldine Coughlan BBC News, The Hague A sparrow which was shot dead for knocking over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands is to go on display at Rotterdam's Natural History Museum. The bird almost spoiled a televised world record attempt before it was killed with an air rifle. The shooting caused a public outcry. Animal rights groups condemned the bird's killing last month and a website was erected in its honour. On Friday, the bird's killer was fined for shooting a protected species. Prosecutors said the exterminator who killed it should have known better and fined him 170 euros (£114; $200). The organisers argued the killing was justified, as more than 100 people had worked for a month setting up the dominoes, but they held a TV memorial for the bird. They went on to topple about four million dominoes, claiming a new record - which still has to be verified by Guinness World Records. The bird was kept in a government freezer after its killing became a criminal matter. It will be placed on top of a box of dominoes in an exhibition on sparrows next year. </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:22 am

Ooops . . . You mean Wikipedia is a serious reference tool?  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Fake online biography created as 'joke' Local man who linked Seigenthaler to Kennedy assassinations apologizes By NATALIA MIELCZAREK Staff Writer Published: Sunday, 12/11/05 The mysterious person behind an "Internet character assassination" of veteran local journalist John Seigenthaler is a Nashvillian who said yesterday he never imagined that what started out as a joke would cause pain and ignite national debate. Brian Chase, 38, said he created a fake online biography of Seigenthaler in May - linking the man to the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy - to play a trick on his co-worker. He said he didn't know that the Web site, a free Internet encyclopedia called Wikipedia, was used as a serious reference tool. Chase, who has been an operations manager for a local delivery company, said he learned of the controversy Tuesday after Seigenthaler publicized it in newspapers. He hand-delivered an apology to Seigenthaler on Friday, and they spoke on the phone that night. "I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong," said Chase yesterday. "I'm very sorry that I wronged the man. He's a great guy. He's really a champion for freedom of speech, and to think that I used the thing that he champions, in a way that made him look bad and hurt him, I'm really sorry I did that." Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, is the chairman emeritus of The Tennessean. The controversy over his fake biography started when a friend told him that a slanderous article about him was floating around the Internet, accessible to millions around the world. The biography, which has since been taken off the site and replaced with a flattering version, said that Seigenthaler lived in the Soviet Union, started a successful public relations firm and was linked to the Kennedy assassinations. Because Wikipedia allows anyone to add onto existing postings or create new ones, Chase's original note on Seigenthaler had been changed several times since May, adding vulgar epithets, Seigenthaler said yesterday. He said there may be Web sites that still post the original Wikipedia profile of him. Seigenthaler said he doesn't plan on pursuing legal action against Chase but said the experience has left him hurt. "I was a close friend of Robert Kennedy, and I worked closely with the president. I had lived with Robert Kennedy and helped edit his first book. We were close friends until his death, and the most painful thing was to have them suggest that I was suspected of their assassination," Seigenthaler said. "I do not favor more regulations of the Internet, but I fear that Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody." The incident has raised questions about the reliability of information on Wikipedia, a popular research tool, and the Internet, and how those wrongly portrayed can hold Web sites accountable, especially when access is unrestricted. Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, told The New York Times that the site would make more information about users available to make it easier to lodge complaints. He said the episode does not indicate a systemic problem. "We have to continually evaluate whether our controls are enough," he said, the newspaper reported. While Seigenthaler tried to track down the author of the biography through Wikipedia's creator and the author's IP address, a unique number assigned to a computer connected to the Internet, a man in Texas was doing the same. Unbeknownst to Seigenthaler, Daniel Brandt of San Antonio also traced the biography author's computer to BellSouth Internet Services provider in Nashville and later to a local courier firm, Rush Delivery. Both men separately called the business to find out whether anyone was aware of the case, with no success. "When Seigenthaler's case came along, I was instantly sympathetic," Brandt said yesterday in a phone interview. He, too, fought Wikipedia to remove an unflattering biography of himself from the Web site. "I contacted Seigenthaler with the information, and he called me back Monday night. Then I had a brilliant idea of using a fake e-mail address to e-mail Rush Delivery to see whether the IP number matched with what I tracked down. I told Seigenthaler I got a match." Chase said he and his co-worker spoke about Thomas Seigenthaler, John's brother, in May, but he couldn't recall specifically how the topic came up. Thomas Seigenthaler, who died last year, was the founder of Seigenthaler Public Relations firm and was one of Rush Delivery's clients, Chase said. Curious about the family, Chase said he did an online search for Seigenthaler and ended up at the Wikipedia site. He noticed a disclaimer that said anyone could contribute to the site, created a fake biography of John Seigenthaler and showed it to his friend, he said. "It wasn't too long after that I told him that it was a joke, that I found this crazy Web site that anyone can put anything on, and that's all it was," Chase said. "I had no idea that anybody ever relied on that for truthful information, considering the way that anybody in the world with a computer can put anything on it at any time." Chase said he worked for Rush Delivery first as a driver, then a dispatcher and most recently as operations manager. He quit Friday morning. Seigenthaler said he called Chase's boss to ask him not to accept the resignation, but Chase said yesterday he didn't know whether he was still employed by Rush Delivery. The only true information in the profile that Chase created about the veteran journalist was that he was the administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s and also one of his pallbearers. "He was very apologetic; he said it was a practical joke," Seigenthaler said yesterday. "Of course I accept the apology, but it doesn't lessen my frustration that anybody can put anything on Wikipedia." Published: Sunday, 12/11/05 </td></tr></table>  <a href='http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs. ... 297/MTCN02' target='_blank'>http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs. ... /MTCN02</a>

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:42 am

<!--emo&

--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... s/cry2.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cry2.gif' /> That even got into my newspaper...

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:05 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Eat paper for dinner at $240! Hindustan Times New Delhi, December 12, 2005 A picture may be worth a thousand words, but is it dinner? At Chicago's trendy Moto restaurant, it is: a 20course tasting menu can begin with 'sushi' made of paper that has been printed with images of maki and wrapped around vinegared rice and conclude with a mint-flavoured picture of a candy cane. Should you fail to finish a course, Homaro Cantu, Moto's executive chef, will emerge from the kitchen with a refund: a phony dollar bill flavoured to taste like a cheeseburger and fries. It may sound like some sort of Surrealist stunt with dire intestinal consequences, but here's the rub: the 'food' tastes good. Good enough to lure diners back at $240 per head (including wine). At Moto in Chicago, dinner might begin with 'sushi' made of edible paper printed with images of of amki using food-based inks. Cantu, who says that as a child he had "a fascination with how things tasted, especially inedible things," has essentially combined a high-end kitchen with a Kinko's. Using a modified ink-jet printer and organic, food-based inks, he prints images of food (and other objects) on specially designed paper made of modified food starch. He skillfully adds intensely flavoured liquid seasoning, and voilà: a printout of a cow that tastes like filet mignon. (The paper itself is neutral-tasting and free of allergens and calories; the flavourings are stable, with a long shelf life, and may contain amino acids and other added nutrients.) A la carte Using a printer and organic inks, images of food are printed on special paper Intensely flavoured liquid seasoning is added The result: an edible printout.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:51 am

Another reason not to take a long drive off a short pier . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> December 13, 2005 N.Y. Police Recover Cab From Hudson River By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 9:08 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- Police pulled a livery cab from the Hudson River on Tuesday, a day after it was spotted driving off a pier on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Inside was the body of the driver, who was not immediately identified. The medical examiner was to determine a cause of death. Police said a parks officer had asked the victim to move his cab from an area near West 69th Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway at about noon on Monday before he drove it into the water. Police divers responded to the scene on Monday, but couldn't locate the vehicle. It was found on Tuesday, and pulled out of the water with the help of the Army Corps of Engineers. The black sedan was registered to a cab company in New Jersey, police said. </td></tr></table>  Alternative parking An Army Corps of Engineers ship hoists a black livery cab out of the Hudson River Tuesday in New York. On Monday a livery cab drove off the pier into the river at 72nd Street in the Hudson River after being asked by a parks officer to move the car. (AP photo by Stephen Chernin) Posted December 13, 2005

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:50 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> December 13, 2005 Essay Children Learn by Monkey See, Monkey Do. Chimps Don't. By CARL ZIMMER I drove into New Haven on a recent morning with a burning question on my mind. How did my daughter do against the chimpanzees? A month before, I had found a letter in the cubby of my daughter Charlotte at her preschool. It was from a graduate student at Yale asking for volunteers for a psychological study. The student, Derek Lyons, wanted to observe how 3- and 4-year-olds learn. I was curious, so I got in touch. Mr. Lyons explained how his study might shed light on human evolution. His study would build on a paper published in the July issue of the journal Animal Cognition by Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten, two psychologists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Dr. Horner and Dr. Whiten described the way they showed young chimps how to retrieve food from a box. The box was painted black and had a door on one side and a bolt running across the top. The food was hidden in a tube behind the door. When they showed the chimpanzees how to retrieve the food, the researchers added some unnecessary steps. Before they opened the door, they pulled back the bolt and tapped the top of the box with a stick. Only after they had pushed the bolt back in place did they finally open the door and fish out the food. Because the chimps could not see inside, they could not tell that the extra steps were unnecessary. As a result, when the chimps were given the box, two-thirds faithfully imitated the scientists to retrieve the food. The team then used a box with transparent walls and found a strikingly different result. Those chimps could see that the scientists were wasting their time sliding the bolt and tapping the top. None followed suit. They all went straight for the door. The researchers turned to humans. They showed the transparent box to 16 children from a Scottish nursery school. After putting a sticker in the box, they showed the children how to retrieve it. They included the unnecessary bolt pulling and box tapping. The scientists placed the sticker back in the box and left the room, telling the children that they could do whatever they thought necessary to retrieve it. The children could see just as easily as the chimps that it was pointless to slide open the bolt or tap on top of the box. Yet 80 percent did so anyway. "It seemed so spectacular to me," Mr. Lyons said. "It suggested something remarkable was going on." It was possible, however, that the results might come from a simple desire in the children just to play along. To see how deep this urge to overimitate went, Mr. Lyons came up with new experiments with the transparent box. He worked with a summer intern, Andrew Young, a senior at Carnegie Mellon, to build other puzzles using Tupperware, wire baskets and bits of wood. And Mr. Lyons planned out a much larger study, with 100 children. I was intrigued. I signed up Charlotte, and she participated in the study twice, first at the school and later at Mr. Lyons's lab. Charlotte didn't feel like talking about either experience beyond saying they were fun. As usual, she was more interested in talking about atoms and princesses. Mr. Lyons was more eager to talk. He invited me to go over Charlotte's performance at the Yale Cognition and Development Lab, led by Mr. Lyons's adviser, Frank C. Keil. Driving into New Haven for our meeting, I felt as if Charlotte had just taken some kind of interspecies SAT. It was silly, but I hoped that Charlotte would show the chimps that she could see cause and effect as well as they could. Score one for Homo sapiens. At first, she did. Mr. Lyons loaded a movie on his computer in which Charlotte eagerly listened to him talk about the transparent plastic box. He set it in front of her and asked her to retrieve the plastic turtle that he had just put inside. Rather than politely opening the front door, Charlotte grabbed the entire front side, ripped it open at its Velcro tabs and snatched the turtle. "I've got it!" she shouted. A chimp couldn't have done better, I thought. But at their second meeting, things changed. This time, Mr. Lyons had an undergraduate, Jennifer Barnes, show Charlotte how to open the box. Before she opened the front door, Ms. Barnes slid the bolt back across the top of the box and tapped on it needlessly. Charlotte imitated every irrelevant step. The box ripping had disappeared. I could almost hear the chimps hooting. Ms. Barnes showed Charlotte four other puzzles, and time after time she overimitated. When the movies were over, I wasn't sure what to say. "So how did she do?" I asked awkwardly. "She's pretty age-typical," Mr. Lyons said. Having watched 100 children, he agrees with Dr. Horner and Dr. Whiten that children really do overimitate. He has found that it is very hard to get children not to. If they rush through opening a puzzle, they don't skip the extra steps. They just do them all faster. What makes the results even more intriguing is that the children understand the laws of physics well enough to solve the puzzles on their own. Charlotte's box ripping is proof of that. Mr. Lyons sees his results as evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn. If he is right, this represents a big evolutionary change from our ape ancestors. Other primates are bad at imitation. When they watch another primate doing something, they seem to focus on what its goals are and ignore its actions. As human ancestors began to make complicated tools, figuring out goals might not have been good enough anymore. Hominids needed a way to register automatically what other hominids did, even if they didn't understand the intentions behind them. They needed to imitate. Not long ago, many psychologists thought that imitation was a simple, primitive action compared with figuring out the intentions of others. But that is changing. "Maybe imitation is a lot more sophisticated than people thought," Mr. Lyons said. We don't appreciate just how automatically we rely on imitation, because usually it serves us so well. "It is so adaptive that it almost never sticks out this way," he added. "You have to create very artificial circumstances to see it." In a few years, I plan to explain this experience to Charlotte. I want her to know what I now know. That it's O.K. to lose to the chimps. In fact, it may be what makes us uniquely human. </td></tr></table>

Llewthepoet · Postby **Llewthepoet** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:55 pm

This isn't weird it's just unsanitary and disgusting. Until the policy was changed in October, cafeterias in the 18 schools of the North Penn School District (northwest of Philadelphia) had been supplying as eating utensils only plastic cutlery that was washed after each meal and reused, even though students had long expressed disgust at spoons and knives riddled with bite marks and had, defensively, taken to eating foods like yogurt and applesauce with their hands. (The district admitted that this recycling saved only $15,000 a year.) [The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), 10-27-05] This sounds like something Principal Beau Vine would do and Millie would like. It's a hands-on approach!

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:22 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Just Like the Warden Used to Make A Christmas dinner of turkey and all the trimmings is too god for some people to refuse. Officials at a Hempstead, W.Va., jail say they have criminals turning themselves in so they can get the holiday grub. The jail's Thanksgiving and Christmas meals include turkey and dressing, giblet gravy, English peas and homemade rolls with sweet potato pie as dessert. Supervisor Louise Phillips said many of the inmates tell her the meal is better than what they can organize on their own.</td></tr></table>  <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> I oughta improve my culinary skills....

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:26 pm

<a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/14 ... r_stalker/' target='_blank'>I don't think it's her that he fell in love with</a>... <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... unsure.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='unsure.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Stalker-turned-burglar fixed love target's PC Chinese court takes pity on bra-snaffling perv By John Leyden Published Wednesday 14th December 2005 17:08 GMT Get breaking Reg news straight to your desktop - click here to find out how A Chinese stalker-turned-burglar fixed his neighbour's computer during one unsanctioned visit into her home, a Chinese court heard. A court in Harbin, in north-eastern China, dismissed harassment charges against Jin Bo after hearing how his unrequited love drove him into breaking into the unnamed woman's home five times between October and November this year, Chinese news agency Xinhua reports. Local judges made the ruling despite hearing how the man was caught red-handed coming out of her apartment on 15 November with a key to her door, a bra, two photographs and her MP3 player, which he claimed was in need of repair. On other occasions he fixed her computer, washed her dishes and left a note that said: "Don't panic. I hope you can understand my feelings for you." He once sneaked into the woman's home while she was sleeping, only fleeing when she woke up. "Jin said he loved her secretly, but couldn't muster up enough courage to speak to her. He placed a bet with his roommate that he would win her heart," Xinhua, which cites Shenzhen Daily as the source of the story, reports. The report gives no explanation of the love-struck Jin's defence so it's unclear how he managed to escape sanction over his alarming behaviour. ®</td></tr></table>

Llewthepoet · Postby **Llewthepoet** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:55 pm

I blame global warming! Wouldn't it be colder underwater? There's no splashing in hockey! While Canadian "global warming" protesters express alarm at the dwindling outdoor hockey season (fewer months with ice, fewer days cold enough for hard ice), a growing number of "hockey" players are taking the game underwater, according to a November Associated Press story. With six breath-holding players per team, passing a puck with sticks at the bottom of a pool, and players surfacing for air as seldom as possible, dozens of club teams worldwide play (nearly 50 in the U.S.), with a championship tournament scheduled next year for Sheffield, England. Said a Cincinnati high school player of the respiratory challenge, "(W)hen you're close to the goal, you're like, 'Do I want to score a goal or breathe?' Most of the time I say, 'Score.'" [Toronto Star, 11-28-05] [Boston Globe-AP, 11-27-05]

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