Oddities and Humor

Gots to protect them creatures. They can't do it themselves.

Spying spouses. Fake identities. Murder plots. What would angry, bitter divorcing couples do without Facebook for a battleground?

In the latest example of two people losing all sense of reason while they part ways, Angela Voelkert, of Indiana, decided to go digital dirt-digging on her ex-husband, David. She created a fake profile on Facebook of a teenager named Jessica Studebaker (complete with a cute picture) and became friends with him.
“Jessica” quickly became a confidante, as The New York Post reports, and everything was going to plan. But then Mr. Voelkert began to spill details of a plot to bump off Angela. In e-mail messages, he apparently explained how he had attached a GPS to his ex’s car so he could find her when the time came, and even allegedly asked “Jessica” whether she knew someone who might do the job for him.

Ms. Voelkert went to the authorities, who promptly charged Mr. Voelkert last week with illegally installing a GPS, with warnings of more charges to come. In court, the Post story says, his e-mails were widely quoted, including his asking Jessica to run away with him when the deed was done. “Let me know, Baby!” (Signed with a smiley face.)

Except, on Tuesday, all charges were dropped suddenly. It appears Mr. Voelkert had been running a scam of his own. According to The Smoking Gun, he produced a notarized affidavit – signed six days before he first mentioned any sinister plans – that made clear he’d suspected all along that Jessica was really Angela. His affidavit stated that he had “no plans” to harm anyone. “I am lying to this person,” the affidavit states, “to gain positive proof that it is indeed my ex-wife trying to again tamper in my life.”

For all their mutual scheming, Mr. Voelkert paid the bigger price: He spent four days in custody until federal investigators confirmed his affidavit was real. (In the end, though, it’s the kids trapped in the middle of this mess that deserve our sympathy.)

That's a pretty bloody sad tale.

Filipino Junrey Balawing
Filipino Junrey Balawing, who measures just 59.93 centimetres, or 23.5 inches, poses for photographs with his family at a health centre in Sindangan town Zamboanga Del Norte in the southern Philippines on June 11, 2011. Junrey Balawing was declared the world's shortest man Sunday as he celebrated his 18th birthday

That story is so strange to me. Can anyone help him medically? His condition must have some up and coming medical complications to it. It feels like something must be done to help him.

Should they help him if they can? Does he get any special treatment by his community because he now holds the record? I wonder if he even attended school.

Also, will the community support him? Clearly he can't hold a normal job. Would they support him if he was medically helped and lost his world record status as the shortest man alive (thusly not be some kind of tourist attraction for the community)?

Couple threatens Bank of America with foreclosure
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-06-06-foreclosure-bank-of-america_n.htm

I am curious about how he sees the world. It must be very different in every aspect.

I saw the foreclosure story earlier. It should be repeated often, I will bet.

SENSITIVITY TRAINING

A young Naval Officer was in a terrible car accident, but due to the heroics of the hospital staff the only permanent injury was the loss of one ear.

Since he wasn't physically impaired he remained in the military and eventually became an Admiral. However, during his career he was always sensitive about his appearance.

One day the Admiral was interviewing two Navy Master Chiefs and a Marine Sergeant Major for his personal staff.

The first Master Chief was a Surface Navy type and it was a great interview. At the end of the interview the Admiral asked him, "Do you notice anything different about me?"

The Master Chief answered, "Why yes sir. I couldn't help but notice you are missing your starboard ear, so I don't know whether this impacts your hearing on that side."

The Admiral got very angry at this lack of tact and threw him out of his office.

The next candidate, an Aviation Master Chief, when asked this same question, answered, "Well yes sir, you seem to be short one ear."

The Admiral threw him out also.

The third interview was with the Marine Sergeant Major. He was articulate, extremely sharp, and seemed to know more than the two Master Chiefs put together. The Admiral wanted this guy, but went ahead with the same question.

"Do you notice anything different about me?"

To his surprise the Sergeant Major said, "Yes, sir. You wear contact lenses."

The Admiral was impressed and thought to himself, what an incredibly tactful Marine. "And how do you know that?" the Admiral asked.

The Sergeant Major replied, "Well sir, it's pretty hard to wear glasses with only one fuckin' ear."

He ought to wear ear muffs and a monocle.

Col Gaddafi refuses to step down, playing chess instead

Col Muammar Gaddafi has rebuffed the latest international appeal to step down, instead playing chess with the eccentric Russian multi-millionaire envoy sent to convince him that he was facing an endgame.


Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, an eccentric Russian envoy who has claimed to have spoken to aliens, plays chess with Col Gaddafi in Tripoli

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Russian head of the World Chess Federation who has claimed to have once visited an alien spaceship, was the latest, and perhaps strangest, international figure to arrive in Tripoli appealing for Gaddafi to go.

Like all the others, however, Mr Ilyumzhinov's message appeared to fall on deaf ears. Instead the unlikely pair played chess together as the television cameras rolled. Colonel Gaddafi used the occasion to send out a propaganda message of calm, although ordinary Libyans may have felt slightly queasy at seeing their leader sacrificing pawns on the chessboard.

In the clip broadcast on state television, which appeared to have been shot in a government building somewhere in the capital and not in a bunker, Gaddafi appeared unsure how to play the board game. But, dressed all in black and wearing his trademark sunglasses, he did look surprisingly relaxed after four months of uprising, civil war and a Nato onslaught from the air. He is thought to spend his time constantly on the move, driving around Tripoli, and sleeping in hospitals and religious places that Nato would never dare bomb.

Yesterday (Mon) Mr Ilyumzhinov told a Russian news agency that the Libyan leader had insisted that he had no intention of stepping down, regardless of the international pressure.

Mr Ilyumzhinov's visit came as Germany became the latest country to recognise the rebel National Transitional Council as the "legitimate representative" of the Libyan people. Germany becomes the 13th nation to recognise the NTC, after Britain, France the US among others.

Japanese Scientist Makes Fake Meat From Human Feces | Foodista
www.foodista.com
Japanese researcher Mitsyuki Ikeda has come up with perhaps the greenest alternative to the livestock industry yet: he's engineered fake meat from human feces. Ikeda's artificial meat is made from extracting lipids and protein from "sewage mud," combining these lipids with a reaction enhancer and pu..

I just gagged, yuck.

Heh, heh. When we were kids, we used to joke about the skunk who went to church and sat in his own "pew"

Another oddity.



KTLA News
7:51 a.m. PDT, June 13, 2011
OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KTLA) -- A California scuba diver says he plans to go on an underwater search to find the body of Osama bin Laden, since there has not been a photo released to the public to prove the terrorist leader is dead.

Bill Warren, 58, of Oceanside, is an experienced deep-sea scuba diver normally dives searching for underwater treasure in sunken ships. He said last week that he plans to scour the North Arabian Sea for bin Laden's body. The U.S. Navy allegedly buried bin Laden at sea by pitching his body overboard there in early May.

I think Bill is doing the right thing. The problem needs to be resolved.

I think it's silly to go looking for the body.

Yup, look how long it took to find the titanic, and it wasn't edible.

Tweeting 'Ulysses': Fans Put A Twist On Bloomsday
www.npr.org
Today is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce's novel "Ulysses." The book details an epic day in the life of Leopold Bloom, on June 16, 1904. This year, the commemorations include Twitter, where Joyce fans turned the novel into tweets...

PITTSBURGH — A man attacked the wife of Pirates catcher Chris Snyder in a traffic dispute while Snyder sat in the car, unable to get out because he'd had back surgery, Pittsburgh police said.

Carla Snyder and the scooter-riding man, Subhash Arjanbhi Modhwadia, nearly collided Wednesday. The 44-year-old Modhwadia followed her to a gas station, kicked the vehicle and swung at Carla Snyder, police said. He also ripped a mirror off the car.

A passer-by and an off-duty police officer subdued him. Modhwadia bit the bystander and threw punches with keys between his fingers, police said. Snyders' two children also were in the car.

Modhwadia is being held on $25,000 bail.

The Pirates said the team is "grateful for those bystanders who stepped up to assist Chris to ensure no physical harm was done to his wife and children."

Chris Snyder, a Houston native, played at Spring Woods High School and the University of Houston.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bb/7613958.html#ixzz1PUTC1ke7

That's the reason that I don't do sports, edgar.

Almost extinct.



The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes an all-too-rare victory: The Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) has been upgraded from the Endangered category to Vulnerable. This is quite an achievement, because the species was extinct in the wild just a few decades ago. The last wild Arabian Oryx was shot in 1972. Since that time, intense conservation and re-introduction efforts have increased the species's wild population to 1,000 individuals.
This is the first time that a species once listed as Extinct in the Wild has been upgraded past the Endangered category (where the Oryx has been listed since 1986) all the way to Vulnerable.
Once present throughout the Middle East, the Arabian Oryx was overhunted in the 19th and 20th centuries until the only animals that remained were in zoos. Following captive breeding, re-introductions started in Oman in 1982. A brief period of poaching from 1996 to 1999 resulted in more than 200 Oryx deaths before the remaining animals in that country were placed in protective pens. The species was later re-introduced in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, where they have fared well.

India releases oldest prisoner aged 108

Saturday, 18 June 2011

LUCKNOW, India (AFP) – Prison authorities in India have released the country's oldest inmate, 108-year-old Brij Bihari Pandey, who was convicted of a murder he committed at the age of 84, officials said Saturday.

Pandey, a Hindu priest, was freed on Friday by a court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on humanitarian grounds as prison officials were finding it difficult to provide regular medical treatment to the "oldest prisoner in the history of Indian prisons."

"It was getting difficult to take care of a 108-year-old prisoner. We moved an application for his release and the court accepted it," said S.K. Sharma, superintendent of Gorakhpur Jail, 300 kilometres (190 miles) from the state capital Lucknow.

Sharma said the release was based on humanitarian grounds.

At the ripe old age of 84, Pandey along with 15 others, many of them his nephews and family members, killed four people over the inheritance of a Hindu religious institution.

In 2009, he was convicted and sent to Gorakhpur Jail but the weak and infirm centenarian convict had to be frequently rushed to hospital and was mostly bed-ridden.

Pandey expressed delight over his release Friday by smiling and giving a warm hug to his fellow inmates, who in turn garlanded him.

Jail officials said he received the garland with a broad smile and said, "God is great. Thank you."