 | About Me | Oct 27, 2006 |
An Australian woman has appeared in court in Adelaide charged with murdering her husband by setting fire to his penis. Rajini Narayan, 44, is alleged to have doused her husband, Satish, with a flammable liquid while he was sleeping December 8th. When she set him alight, Mr Narayan jumped out of bed and knocked over the substance, causing the fire to spread. A charge of arson was upgraded to murder when he died from his wounds in January.
Prosecutor Lucy Boord said Mrs Narayan had confessed to her neighbours, telling them she was a "jealous wife" and believed her husband was having an affair. "I just wanted to burn his penis so it belongs to me and no one else, I didn't mean this to happen," Ms Boord quoted Mrs Narayan as saying. Leeds, England--A chef was found guilty of murdering a boyfriend before carving flesh from his thigh, seasoning it with fresh herbs, frying it in olive oil and chewing a section. Former Mr Gay UK, Anthony Morley, 36, from Bexley Place, Leeds, slashed Damian Oldfield's throat before stabbing him multiple times and cutting sections of flesh from his body.
Police searching the house found a chopping board with six pieces of human flesh, cooked so they were raw in the middle and browned on the edges. A bundle of fresh herbs, a knife used to chop them, some olive oil and a dish of seeds were found on the work surface near the cooker and a frying pan was on the hob with the remnants of fried herbs and oil in it.
 DECATUR, Ala. (AP) - From the ground, the Wesley Acres Methodist retirement home looks like any other building. But fly over in an airplane, and the outline is unmistakable: It's one big swastika.
The latest push to rid the landscape of the broken cross shape follows complaints from Avrahaum Segol, the same Israeli-American researcher who last fall helped publicize a swastika-shaped barracks at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego.
Segol calls the Alabama retirement home a "sister swastika" to the building in California and says they were both part of a tangled, government-funded conspiracy to honor Nazis.Segol claims the swastika shape of Wesley Acres in Decatur pays homage to the German scientists who came to nearby Huntsville after World War II and designed the rockets that put Americans on the moon. New award in firefighter harassment case By Tami Abdollah, Robert J. Lopez and Greg Krikorian, Los Angeles Times
One of the costliest racial harassment cases in the history of the Los Angeles City Fire Department grew more expensive Monday when a jury awarded $1.6 million to two white captains suspended after a black firefighter they supervised had his meal laced with dog food.
Capts. John Tohill and Chris Burton sued the city in October 2006, claiming they were made scapegoats for the misconduct of a Latino firefighter who placed dog food in the spaghetti dinner of firefighter Tennie Pierce four years ago.
In November 2006, the City Council voted to award Pierce more than $2.7 million for racial harassment, but the settlement was eventually reduced to $1.5 million after a political firestorm erupted at City Hall. The city spent an additional $1.3 million on legal fees in the Pierce case.
The city has not yet totaled the legal expenses for the white firefighters' case. But with Monday's verdict, the city's bill for the dog food incident already has reached $4.5 million.  ARLINGTON, Ore. (AP) - The mayor of an Oregon town who once stripped to her underwear and posed on a fire truck has been stripped of her office.Voters in this town of about 500 voted narrowly Monday to recall Carmen Kontur-Gronquist. The tally was 142-139.
Kontur-Gronquist said the pictures of her in black bra and panties were taken for use in a contest about fitness, but a relative posted them on MySpace in hopes it would improve the social life of the single mother.
Opponents said it was not fitting for the mayor to be so depicted. They said they also disagreed with her on issues about water and the local golf course. from The Hollywood Reporter
The FCC ruled that the February 25, 2003 episode of NYPD Blue, in which a nude woman is surprised by a young boy as she prepares to shower is too much for broadcast TV.
"We find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs -- specifically an adult woman's buttocks," the FCC wrote. "Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense." BBC--Circumcision can cut the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men by 50%, results from two African trials show.The clinical trials in Kenya found a 53% reduction in new HIV infections in heterosexual men who were circumcised, while a Ugandan study reported a drop of 48%.
Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/AIDS department of the World Health Organization, told the BBC the results were a "significant scientific advance" but were not a magic bullet and would never replace existing prevention strategies. Couple discovered they were twins after marrying The Independent
Twins separated at birth and adopted by separate parents later married each other without realising they were brother and sister, it was revealed today. The brother and sister were granted an annulment after a High Court judge ruled the marriage had never validly existed. The identities of the British pair and details of the relationship and marriage have been kept secret. But it is known that they were separated soon after birth and were never told they were twins. They did not discover they were blood relatives until after the wedding. Woman Registers Dog to VoteSEATTLE - Jane Balogh,registered her Australian shepherd-terrier mix, Duncan M. McDonald, to vote in April 2006 by putting her telephone bill in the dog’s name and using that as identification when she mailed the form to election officials.
She said it proves it's too easy for noncitizens to vote.
In November she wrote “VOID” across the first ballot sent to the dog and returned it with an image of a paw print on the signature line. Duncan still got absentee ballots for school bond elections in February and May.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A state forensics scientist who said she tested her husband’s underwear for DNA to determine if he was cheating on her has been fired.Ann Chamberlain of Okemos testified in a March 7 divorce hearing that she ran the test last September on the underwear of Charles Gordon Jr. Asked by his attorney what she found, she answered: “Another female. It wasn’t me.” Obit may be hazardous to your health
Edwin Traisman Helped Create Iconic FoodsEdwin Traisman, 91, a food scientist who helped standardize McDonald’s French fries and develop Cheez Whiz for Kraft, as well as researching the risks of E. coli bacteria, died in Madison, Wisconsin.  Greg Anderson/Food Research Institute, 2003 The cause was heart disease, his daughter Jenny Denise Traisman-Waddell said. Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for McDonald’s, said of Mr. Traisman yesterday, “He truly made a significant contribution to McDonald’s fries.”  | Rats!!! | Jun 6, '07 12:40 AM
for everyone |
Woman found living with 120 pet rats By Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles animal control officers found an 81-year-old woman living with more than 100 rats and 35 other animals she kept as pets.
Wanda Langstom was taken to a hospital because her arms were covered with open wounds probably caused by her animals, said Annette Ramirez, an officer with the Department of Animal Services.
Officers also seized the animals, which included about 120 rats, most in cages but some running loose, and 25 rabbits, a dog, six parakeets, a quail and a cockatiel.
"Langstom basically became overwhelmed at how quickly the rats reproduced. She said it just started with two but it got out of hand," Ramirez said.
iPod May Cause Pacemaker Malfunction
A study conducted by a high school student reveals that Apple's iPod may cause cardiac
pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the
electromagnetic equipment used to monitor the heart.
The study, conducted at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute
at Michigan State University, revealed that iPods can cause electrical
interference when held as far as 18 inches from pacemakers.
The study was reportedly conducted on 100
patients, whose mean age was 77, and who had implanted pacemakers. In
about half the study population, iPods held 2 inches from the patient's chest caused various pacemaker problems. One pacemaker stopped functioning briefly; others picked
up iPod signals and put them in their memories, making it more difficult for cardiologists to evaluate a patient's condition.
 Anyone who happened upon C-Span April 21st was treated to the horror of Rich Little, dragged from the grave, to kill time with lame impressions devoid of any political content or context.
He was drafted as host of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner after this incisive turn by Steven Colbert the previous year hit too many raw nerves.
 WAYNESBURG, Ky. -- Miss America 1944 has a
talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She
fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.
Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky
last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where
thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment. Ramey
said the man told her he would leave.
"I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and
I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," said Ramey, formerly of
Cincinnati. She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.
"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If
they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now." Curtis Parrish of Ohio was charged with misdemeanor trespassing.
Man who set himself ablaze may face arson charges
By KIMBERLY EDDS and RYAN HAMMILL
The Orange County Register
LONG
BEACH – Authorities have recommended that arson charges be filed
against Haouy Nguyen, a 50-year-old Fountain Valley man, who doused himself with
gasoline and set himself on fire in Long
Beach City Hall.
A security guard tackled Haouy Nguyen
and doused the flames. The Long
Beach Police and Fire Departments are expected to ask county
prosecutors next week to file charges of attempted arson and arson with
great bodily injury.
Long Beach
police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt told reporters, “He made the statement ‘I want to die,’ which makes us think the motive was probably suicide.”
Sellafield kept body parts of dead workers
Michael White, The Guardian
The
government will announce an independent inquiry today into claims that
body parts of workers who died in suspicious circumstances at
Sellafield and other nuclear plants were secretly taken for medical
examination without their families' consent for more than 30 years.It
was not immediately clear whether skin samples only or limbs and
tissues were taken for laboratory examination from the 1960s until the
practice was stopped in the early 90s but there are suggestions that
almost 70 bodies may have been affected. What is suspected is that when an unusual death occurred at
Sellafield, a heart attack in a young man for instance, a specialist
doctor would examine the body and take samples of an unspecified
character. It is claimed that other UK nuclear plants, Aldermaston and
Harwell among them, were also involved in the procedure. But the doctor
and two coroners said to have been used have died. The issue came
to light when a scientist sought to review the accumulated data to
support new studies and asked how it had been obtained. "Grotesque as
it sounds we do not know which body parts or where they ended up," said
one MP involved.
Grow-your-own Viagra craze hits Britain's garden centres
By David Randall
A chance discovery by a Berkshire allotment-holder that a plant widely
available in garden centres has the same effect on men as Viagra has
been confirmed by experts at one of the world's leading botanical
institutions.
The plant is winter-flowering heather, and botanists at the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, many of them heather experts who have
recognised the source of its active ingredient, now expect it to be the
next must-have plant in British gardens. Demand is already high.
Nurseries and garden centres in some areas are having trouble finding
sufficient supplies as word spreads of the plant's unexpected
properties. The latest gardening craze was triggered by a discovery by a
55-year-old furniture restorer, Michael Ford, on his allotment. He was
always experimenting with drinks made from different plants and one day
he tried an infusion from his winter-flowering heather. He said: "The
effect was almost immediate. I had to stay in my potting shed for an
hour or so before I could decently walk down the street."
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) -- A human liver and part
of a head were accidentally delivered to a couple's home instead of the
northern Michigan lab that was expecting them, delivery service DHL
said.
CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A 28-year-old woman
may have kept the body of her roommate in their apartment for up to
three weeks, police said.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) -- Attempts to do a movie
stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another
facing criminal charges. The men were trying to do a stunt from one of
the ''Jackass'' movies, in which a character lights his genitals on
fire.
 Coffee, with sugar, in Seattle
The latte market here is crowded, but 'sexpresso' sellers stand out with scantily clad baristas.
By Sam Howe Verhovek, Los Angeles Times
SHORELINE, WASH. — On a quick break from his job as a trash hauler, Rob
Chapman was in the mood for some coffee. So he pulled his truck into
the Sweet Spot Cafe, a drive-through espresso stand on busy Aurora
Avenue here in the Seattle suburbs.
"Do
you want a Wet Dream or the Sexual Mix today, honey?" asked barista
Edie Smith, dressed in a tight-fitting yellow blouse that did a less
than fully effective job of covering her cleavage. She leaned down in
the window, perhaps all the closer to hear his order. He chose the
first option: a coffee with white chocolate, milk and caramel sauce.
It is possible, of course, that Chapman and the dozens of other
drive-by customers at the parking lot stand one recent morning stopped
by only for the coffee.
But, as Chapman dryly observed, "I do enjoy coming here more than Starbucks."
In
a way, it is perhaps stunning that it took so long for entrepreneurs
here to figure out that coffee, the fabled Seattle obsession, mixes
very well with sex, the fabled human obsession.
But apparently
it does, to judge from the growing number of steamy espresso stands
that have popped up around the region in the last year or so.
As long as breasts and buttocks are more or less covered, it's legal to
serve coffee in a baby-doll negligee and chaps, as a barista was doing
at a Cowgirls Espresso stand the other day.
"It's sort of like
a Hooters for coffee," Urquhart explained. "It's not against the law.
And the truth is, a lot of them are doing a land-office business."
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