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Cicero 04-09-2008 12:17 PM

Weird News
 
~snip~
Officials in the Shivpuri district of India's Madhya Pradesh state, needing a promising program to slow the country's still-booming birth rate, announced in March that men who volunteer for vasectomies will be rewarded with certificates that speed them through the ordinarily slow line to obtain gun permits. Said an administrator, the loss, through vasectomy, of a "perceived notion of manliness" would be offset "with a bigger symbol of manliness." [Agence France-Presse, 3-18-08]
~snip~

The link:
http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

LOL!!! That is so not funny.

I think strange news from around the world deserves it's own thread!
:D

HungLikeJesus 04-09-2008 01:25 PM

Perhaps, instead of limiting the number of people, they should just work to reduce their size.

Sheldonrs 04-09-2008 05:43 PM

This is cosmetic?
 
Cosmetic castration banned
Wed Apr 2, 2008 11:12am EDT
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics on Wednesday from castrating would-be "ladyboys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change.

In a letter to 16,000 private health units, the Public Health Ministry said doctors performing the operation outside formal sex-change therapy -- which requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient -- faced up to six months in jail.

However, senior health official Tara Chinakarn admitted that policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation and easy to conduct in secret.

"It's hard to track them down as it takes only 15-20 minutes to have the surgery," Tara told Reuters.

Thailand is home to a large number of "ladyboys," or "katoey" in Thai, a term that covers anything from a transvestite to a man who has undergone a full sex change.

The tolerance shown towards the "third sex," as it is often referred to, has led to the country becoming a world leader in sex-change surgery.

However, at the lower end of the market, clinics have responded to demand from teenage boys to look more like girls by posting Internet advertisements offering castration for as little as 4,000 baht ($125).

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Michael Battye and Valerie Lee)

Elspode 04-09-2008 06:00 PM

So, take the bullets out of one gun, and get a permit to carry another?

xiphos 04-09-2008 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elspode (Post 444766)
So, take the bullets out of one gun, and get a permit to carry another?

lol.

To India: Not a bad idea, but it could use some thought. Instead of getting to your gun licence quicker, one could get certain benefits, like a monthly pension special for them, etc. It would create less killing, and would acually help the citizens of India.

Crimson Ghost 04-10-2008 01:37 AM

Cosmetic castration news from Bangkok?

The jokes write themselves....

Sundae 04-10-2008 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xiphos (Post 444793)
To India: Not a bad idea, but it could use some thought. Instead of getting to your gun licence quicker, one could get certain benefits, like a monthly pension special for them, etc. It would create less killing, and would acually help the citizens of India.

Or perhaps a little education to prove the benefits of not having too many children and that having live spermatazoa in your ballbags has very little to do with being a man.

Urbane Guerrilla 04-12-2008 01:40 AM

Xiphos, not to derail the thread, but I am one of several who will always be willing to remind you that generous private armament is a crime suppressant as the experience of every single State in the Union -- and yours first, in 1987 -- that has liberalized private CCW has shown. Killings go down when the blood-minded have to guess who might have the fangs. The famed helpless bystander just may not be so helpless. The well directed bullet works every bit as well slaying the bad guy as the innocent.

Genocide and violent crime happen to disarmed people -- disarmed either by bad law or by clever generalship on the part of their attacker to neutralize their armed strength. Armed people don't catch much of this kind of trouble.

Gunnery doesn't create killing, not of itself. Not next to murder in the heart. And if your will is to murder, you hardly need a gun. A big wet rock will kill just as dead. Effort involved really doesn't change principle. A black belt martial artist could tell you the same. He might know six ways to kill a man by hitting him in his neck and fourteen more striking his spine, but does this knowledge, and even assiduous practice of these techniques, set him on a road to some inevitable killing? It does not.

Sundae 04-12-2008 11:50 AM

Nothing to see here... back away from this thread now... careful everyone...

Urbane Guerrilla 04-12-2008 10:56 PM

Big wet rocks, broadswords, skinny swords, skinny-dipping in the Arctic, pantsing skinheads in a bar to find out which ones are circumcised, and other ingenious tries for the Darwin Awards...

Sundae, when your country had private arms widely distributed, you had a crime and murder rate that was between minuscule and microscopic. Thanks to Parliament not knowing its arse from a knothole on this, you have administratively bought your increased crime rate. It went up steeply after your disarmament program really kicked in. Your nation desperately needs to find its Charlton Heston. Then and only then will you enjoy the low crime rate you did in the days of being armed, and a man's home his castle.

Otherwise, the home invaders really are going to have to be repelled with boiling oil, arrows, and swordwork.

Here, we shoot them, over much of our land. Less messy in the end. Unless that's where we hit them.

tw 04-13-2008 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 445448)
Thanks to Parliament not knowing its arse from a knothole on this, you have administratively bought your increased crime rate. It went up steeply after your disarmament program really kicked in. Your nation desperately needs to find its Charlton Heston. Then and only then will you enjoy the low crime rate you did in the days of being armed, and a man's home his castle.

Translated - Great Britian does is not ruled by 'big dics'. Therefore Great Britian has been castrated. Quoted from "The World According to UG".

BigV 04-14-2008 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 445448)
snip--

...Your nation desperately needs to find its Charlton Heston. Then and only then will you enjoy the low crime rate you did in the days of being armed, and a man's home his castle.

--snip

You can have ours. We're done with him now.

Cicero 04-14-2008 06:18 PM

~snip~Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subtrefuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex. The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.

The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology. They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously that they would occasionally use their 20-to-25-centimetre tentacles to strangle a romantic rival to death.

The researchers also observed smaller “sneaker” male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.

Shortly after the female gives birth, about a month after conception, both the mother and father die, researchers said.

“It’s not the sex that leads to death,” said Christine Huffard, the study’s lead author. “It’s just that octopuses produce offspring once during a very short lifespan of a year.” I guess the conclusion is that underwater sea life is very similar to us.
~snip~

Ohh! Animal kingdom drama! Love it!! Some birds actually do some nasty stuff too....

Urbane Guerrilla 04-14-2008 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tw (Post 445471)
Translated - Great Britian does is not ruled by 'big dics'. Therefore Great Britian has been castrated. Quoted from "The World According to UG".

Translated even better: I've studied the arms/society interface. You have not. But that won't stop you from uttering your ten-millionth stupidity, will it? You've no idea how sympathetic you are to crime and genocide in your acute, inexcusable ignorance, which keeps you grossly immoral. Meh, it accords with the rest of your grossnesses.

And then there's your copyediting. Wow. Well, it does match the quality of your thought. You no more believe in copyediting so at least your words are spelled right than you do in integrity.

Cicero 04-15-2008 10:08 AM

~snip~PARIS (AP) — The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes Tuesday, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.

Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.

The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.

Conservative lawmaker Valery Boyer, author of the law, argued that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court.

Doctors and psychologists treating patients with anorexia nervosa — a disorder characterized by an abnormal fear of becoming overweight — welcomed the government's efforts to fight self-inflicted starvation, but warned that its link with media images remains hazy.

French lawmakers and fashion industry members signed a nonbinding charter last week on promoting healthier body images. Spain in 2007 banned ultra-thin models from catwalks.

But Boyer said such measures did not go far enough.

Her bill has mainly brought focus to pro-anorexic Web sites that give advice on how to eat an apple a day — and nothing else.

But Boyer insisted in her speech to lawmakers Tuesday that the legislation was much broader and could, in theory, be used against many facets of the fashion industry.

It would give judges the power to imprison and fine offenders up to $47,000 if found guilty of “inciting others to deprive themselves of food” to an “excessive” degree, Boyer said in a telephone interview before the parliamentary session.

Judges could also sanction those responsible for a magazine photo of a model whose “excessive thinness ... altered her health,” she said.

Boyer said she was focusing on women's health, though the bill applies to models of both sexes. The French Health Ministry says most of the 30,000 to 40,000 people with anorexia in France are women.

Didier Grumbach, president of the influential French Federation of Couture, said he was not aware how broad the proposed legislation was, and made no secret of his strong disapproval of such a sweeping measure.

“Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny,” he said. “That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France.”

Marleen S. Williams, a psychology professor at Brigham Young University in Utah who researches the media's effect on anorexic women, said it was nearly impossible to prove that the media causes eating disorders.

Williams said studies show fewer eating disorders in “cultures that value full-bodied women.” Yet with the new French legal initiative, she fears, “you're putting your finger in one hole in the dike, but there are other holes, and it's much more complex than that.”

Associated Press writer Emmanuel Georges-Picot in Paris contributed to this report. ~snip~

Oh great now I'm too skinny? Fine.
:D
Then there's the complex arrangement of sticking your fingers in just one hole in the dike. I can't believe people bother to use that expression anymore.

Urbane Guerrilla 04-17-2008 02:40 PM

I guess the reason this doesn't quite sit well with me is because of its Nanny State-ishness. Nanny Stateliness?... erm, maybe not.

Seems like it should be more illegal to actually starve a person than to incite starvation in others.

Not that the Auschwitz-Buchenwald weight loss plan would ever be popular.

deadbeater 04-17-2008 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cicero (Post 445983)
~snip~PARIS (AP) — The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes Tuesday, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.

Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.

The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.

Conservative lawmaker Valery Boyer, author of the law, argued that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court.

Doctors and psychologists treating patients with anorexia nervosa — a disorder characterized by an abnormal fear of becoming overweight — welcomed the government's efforts to fight self-inflicted starvation, but warned that its link with media images remains hazy.

French lawmakers and fashion industry members signed a nonbinding charter last week on promoting healthier body images. Spain in 2007 banned ultra-thin models from catwalks.

But Boyer said such measures did not go far enough.

Her bill has mainly brought focus to pro-anorexic Web sites that give advice on how to eat an apple a day — and nothing else.

But Boyer insisted in her speech to lawmakers Tuesday that the legislation was much broader and could, in theory, be used against many facets of the fashion industry.

It would give judges the power to imprison and fine offenders up to $47,000 if found guilty of “inciting others to deprive themselves of food” to an “excessive” degree, Boyer said in a telephone interview before the parliamentary session.

Judges could also sanction those responsible for a magazine photo of a model whose “excessive thinness ... altered her health,” she said.

Boyer said she was focusing on women's health, though the bill applies to models of both sexes. The French Health Ministry says most of the 30,000 to 40,000 people with anorexia in France are women.

Didier Grumbach, president of the influential French Federation of Couture, said he was not aware how broad the proposed legislation was, and made no secret of his strong disapproval of such a sweeping measure.

“Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny,” he said. “That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France.”

Marleen S. Williams, a psychology professor at Brigham Young University in Utah who researches the media's effect on anorexic women, said it was nearly impossible to prove that the media causes eating disorders.

Williams said studies show fewer eating disorders in “cultures that value full-bodied women.” Yet with the new French legal initiative, she fears, “you're putting your finger in one hole in the dike, but there are other holes, and it's much more complex than that.”

Associated Press writer Emmanuel Georges-Picot in Paris contributed to this report. ~snip~

Oh great now I'm too skinny? Fine.
:D
Then there's the complex arrangement of sticking your fingers in just one hole in the dike. I can't believe people bother to use that expression anymore.

I hope that French law can distinguish between Sarah Michelle Gellar thinness--she's otherwise a healthy athlete--and Kate Moss thinness--which she maintained through cigarettes and heroin.

Cicero 04-18-2008 01:44 PM

Hmm. I just looked them both up. Both cute...Maybe they should just ban being generally pretty, so no one has to work out all the details.

Shawnee123 04-18-2008 02:08 PM

<---runs out to buy cigarettes and heroin.

;)

classicman 04-19-2008 09:48 PM

lol - thats really funny!

xoxoxoBruce 04-19-2008 10:06 PM

The ghetto is full of fat, cigarette smoking, Heroin addicts.

Urbane Guerrilla 04-20-2008 01:10 AM

Graveyards, too.

TheMercenary 04-20-2008 09:23 AM

CNN Reporter Kink. To bad. I liked the guys reports, I think his job is over.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04192008...not_107174.htm

Undertoad 04-20-2008 10:29 AM

Yeah - like Jeanne Moos, Quest's "lighter side" bits are generally weird enough to be interesting, and never cloyingly sweet or mind-numblingly dumb, like a local reporter would be.

His stuff is not meant to be taken all that seriously, but now that we know he uses meth and puts a rope around his balls and walks around, I don't think I want to watch him.

xoxoxoBruce 04-20-2008 11:41 AM

Meth, and possibly the rope, are common in the NYC gay scene.
Isn't this the old argument about what you do on your own time shouldn't affect your employment?

classicman 04-20-2008 12:26 PM

Quote:

The criminal complaint says the officer at the scene was able to ID the drug because of "his prior experience as a police officer in drug arrests, observation of packaging which is characteristic of this type of drug, and defendant's statements that . . . 'I've got some meth in my pocket.' "

xoxoxoBruce 04-20-2008 01:25 PM

Quote:

Man Attempting to Capture Lightning in a Bottle Killed by Lightning

No one has ever called John Willis a smart man. He was constantly at the bottom of his class in high school, thus knocking off the ’smart’ portion of that statement, and numerous ex-girlfriends of John’s will also contest using the word ‘man’ to describe him. But one thing everyone can call John now is dead.
That is because he was killed late Wednesday night after being struck by lightning not once, but twice in the same night.
“John had this crazy idea, it was just stupid,” said John’s longtime friend Tony. “He heard someone make an offhand remark about ‘catching lightning in a bottle’ and he took it seriously.”
“It was John’s dream to be rich,” said another friend. “No one has ever been able to catch lightning in a bottle, but he thought he could fill a few bottles and make a fortune selling them at craft shows and outside sporting events.”
John fashioned a makeshift lightning rod from some old pipes he removed from his home that he felt “weren’t that important anyways” and attached them to an old glass jam bottle using duct tape. He then had a plastic cover for the bottle, which he intended on “placing over the bottle really quickly after the lightning strikes” to trap it.
“He used a plastic cover because he didn’t want to get electrocuted,” said Tony. “He also wore rubber-soled shoes and rubber gloves, but it just wasn’t enough protection.”
John waited patiently for nearly two weeks before a lightning storm finally struck. When it did, he made his way to an open field and setup his operations.
“John placed a few bottles in the field, then put his lightning rod in the first,” said John’s girlfriend Tracy, who was with John when he was killed. “He had me hide in some bushes away from the bottles, he was afraid the lightning wouldn’t strike if it saw both of us there waiting to trap it.”
John knelt next to the bottles, one hand steadying the lightning rod, the other with the cover for the bottle, ready to trap the lightning when it struck. At approximately 8:30, John’s first chance came.
“I’ve never seen lighting so close to me,” said Tracy. “It was like a huge discontinuous natural electric discharge in the atmosphere right in front of me!”
The lightning struck the pipes but John was unable to cover the bottle.
“When it hit, it knocked John back about ten feet,” said Tracy. “He was burnt, smoking, and unconscious for the next hour.”
When John finally came to, he was even more determined to capture the lightning.
“I could see the look of determination in his face,” said Tracy. “At least, I think that was determination, but it might have just been the look of a man with no eyebrows.”
The second bolt of lightning struck an hour later.
“John was getting tired, he had rested up against the rod for support,” said Tracy. “When the lightning finally struck, it sent John flying backwards and he collapsed onto the ground.”
Paramedics at the scene pronounced John dead and “cooked to a delicious golden brown”.
John’s parents were clearly upset by the news, but didn’t feel John was solely to blame for this mishap.
“We encouraged John to always follow his dreams,” said John’s father. “We never would have told him that if we knew he had such stupid dreams.”
Tracy plans to continue the dream of John’s and finally capture lightning in a bottle.
“I’ve gotten a bigger bottle, I think that was the fate of John,” she said. “His bottle couldn’t hold all the lightning, so it transferred over to him. But now I’ve got the biggest bottle Wal-Mart sells and there is no way I won’t accomplish what he died trying to do.”
From

Cicero 04-20-2008 04:45 PM

“We encouraged John to always follow his dreams,” said John’s father. “We never would have told him that if we knew he had such stupid dreams.”

lol!!!
:rotflol:

spudcon 04-20-2008 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xiphos (Post 444793)
lol.

To India: Not a bad idea, but it could use some thought. Instead of getting to your gun licence quicker, one could get certain benefits, like a monthly pension special for them, etc. It would create less killing, and would acually help the citizens of India.

Perhaps the Indians think giving more guys guns would increase killing. Their population control. Just a speculation.

xoxoxoBruce 04-20-2008 10:55 PM

I used to work with an Indian engineer that told me getting a gun was no problem. But the government strictly controlled ammo, and you had to account for what you shot at, to get more.

BigV 04-25-2008 01:12 PM

Penis theft panic hits city
Quote:

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

...

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

...

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
That explains a lot. :eyebrow:

xoxoxoBruce 04-25-2008 10:49 PM

Hey, don't discredit that story, I'm planning on using it for an excuse. :blush:

Cicero 04-26-2008 09:30 AM

Well...What do they do with the penises after they rob them? Stockpile them? Sell them on the black market? Or is it just to be mean? Can you trade penises?

Is it penises or peni?

I've had it with Congo sorcery!!
:)

Sundae 04-27-2008 04:33 PM

Is that your Mummy? No, it's my sister.
Still, that's what you get when you call a kid Wednesday (bolding mine)

Quote:

DETROIT - Detroit police say they've found the partially mummified body of a woman in her 80s on the kitchen floor of a house where her mentally troubled sister was living.

Police say they believe the surviving sister had been living with the body for one to three years. They say the body was partially covered with newspapers and that a cat and dog apparently ate part of it.

The Detroit Free Press says authorities removed the surviving sister Wednesday night and took her to a crisis center. She's also in her 80s and appears to have mental problems.

Police say they went to the house after a neighbor called to express concern.
From here

Urbane Guerrilla 04-30-2008 01:26 AM

Penes, if you want to be Latinate. "The dangler," I understand it to mean.

Crimson Ghost 04-30-2008 02:35 AM

To quote Phil Ken Sebben - "Ha Haaaa! Dangly parts.."

Shawnee123 04-30-2008 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 447201)
I used to work with an Indian engineer that told me getting a gun was no problem. But the government strictly controlled ammo, and you had to account for what you shot at, to get more.

That reminds me of the Chris Rock bit about bullet control.

"All bullets should cost 5000 dollars.

Cause if a bullet costs 5000 dollars
there'd be no more innocent bystanders.
That'd be it.
Every time someone gets shot, people will
be like, 'Damn, he must have did something.
Shit, they put $20000 worth of bullets
in his ass.'
People would think before
they killed somebody, if a bullet cost 5000 dollars.
'Man, l would blow your fucking head off,
if l could afford it.
l'm gonna get me another job,
l'm gonna start saving some money...and you're a dead man.
You better hope I can't get no bullets on layaway'"

Cicero 04-30-2008 08:16 PM

lol! That's exactly what I thought of...One of my favorite stand-ups!!


Sundae 05-19-2008 10:03 AM

Got Milk?
 
May 19, 9:00 AM (ET)

MORRIS, Ill. (AP) - Police say a trailer loaded with 14 tons of double-stuffed Oreos has overturned, spilling the cookies still in their plastic sleeves into the median and roadway.

Illinois State Police Sgt. Brian Mahoney says the truck's driver was traveling from Chicago to Morris on Interstate 80 around 4 a.m. Monday when he fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into the median.

"The boxes came out of the trailer and boxes were ripped open," he said.

The crash about 50 miles southwest of Chicago remains under investigation.

Mahoney says no charges have been filed but both lanes of traffic remain closed while authorities remove the cookies.

Cicero 05-24-2008 01:46 PM

lol! mmmm......what a terrible sounding accident. mmmm...too bad about the unfortunate oreo accident....


Here's an eerie one.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk...6908-20419070/

~snip~Woman sat dead in front of TV for 42 years
May 16 2008 By Donna Watson

THE remains of a woman have been found sitting in front of her TV - 42 years after she was reported missing.

Hedviga Golik, who was born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cup of tea before sitting in her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television.

Croatian police said she was last seen by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old.

Her neighbours thought she had moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb.

But she was found by police and bailiffs who had broken in to help the authorities establish who owned the flat.

A police spokesman said: "So far, we have no idea how it is possible that someone officially reported missing so long ago was not found before in the same apartment she used to live in.

"When officers went there, they said it was like stepping into a place frozen in time.

"The cup she had been drinking tea from was still on a table next to the chair she had been sitting in and the house was full of things no one had seen for decades. Nothing had been disturbed for decades, even though there were more than a few cobwebs in there."

Neighbours were shocked by the discovery.

Jadranka Markic was nine when Hedviga "vanished".

She said: "I still remember her. She was a quiet woman who kept herself to herself but was polite. We all thought that she had just moved out and gone to live with relatives." ~snip~

xoxoxoBruce 05-25-2008 12:07 AM

Seems strange nobody wondered, if she had moved out why hadn't somebody else moved in? Is a Croatian "flat" owned like a condominium, rather than a rented apartment?

Sundae 05-25-2008 02:54 PM

This is from The Sun. Bear in mind I can't find the story anywhere else so it is likely untrue or grossly misleading.

Quote:

Vanya Yudin, aged six, may have Mowgli Syndrome, according to local social workers.
In the family flat in Volgograd in southern Russia are two parakeets along with several aquariums and a rabbit.
Social worker Galina Volskaya claims he has used the birds as role models.
"When you start talking to him, he chirps," she said.
When he gets agitated, he flaps his arms like wings, it is claimed.

But the child's 31-year-old mother Svetlana Yudina insisted: "He does have speech problems but there is nothing else wrong with him."

A single mum, she claims his problems may derive from the boy's father walking out on her and the sudden loss of both her parents.
But she insists she is the victim of a vendetta by the social services.
She says she is "shocked" by claims that her child is a 'bird boy', saying he is lively and communicative.

She sought help with Vanya from the local authority after her husband walked out on her and both her parents died.
"It all started when I turned for help to our social services department asking for rent discounts," she said.
"They refused, saying all they could do is send Vanya for fostering.
"They came to look at our living conditions.
"They found fault with me having no curtains on the windows. But we live alone, who would fix the curtain rails?
"After that they said Vanya was that slim because I didn't feed him. But this is such nonsense."

She hit back: "If they want to take children away from anyone, they should remove them from alcoholics.
"All we need is help, getting him into the right school with help for his speech."

Officials say she failed to place the child in a kindergarten and this may have contributed to his lack of speech.

She accepted her child needs a speech therapist but she has not been able to find one despite taking a job to earn extra money by delivering newspapers.

"I don't want to register his disability," she said.
"I do not want my child to live for the rest of his life labelled as being disabled.
"We don't need the allowance I would get for this."

She says she has now started taking him to a local help centre, and she hopes her battle with the social services will soon be over.

Mowgli Syndrome is the name given to children developing animal behaviour often after being neglected by their own parents.

Russia has seen a number of cases of feral children who have lived with animals - usually dogs - after being abandoned by their parents.

There were contradictory reports last night as to whether the child had been taken into care.

Trilby 05-25-2008 02:57 PM

you know, I wonder what is happening in transylvania?

xoxoxoBruce 05-25-2008 10:40 PM

Why don't you stake it out?

tw 05-26-2008 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brianna (Post 456818)
you know, I wonder what is happening in transylvania?

Transylvania is two ribbons of concrete that transverse Pennsylvania. To find out what is happening, call 1-800-648-4523 for traffic reports and weather conditions. (Do you really think I make this stuff up?)

Urbane Guerrilla 05-30-2008 01:33 PM

:D

Or it's a rail and subway system... wait, that would be Tramsylvania. If there were woods.

TheMercenary 06-06-2008 08:11 PM

Getting to know the Hitlers

My inquiries to discover what had happened to him eventually led me to a small cemetery tucked beside a freeway in Long Island, where I found that Brigid and William Patrick shared the same grave. He died in 1987, 18 years after his mother, in the anonymity he craved for much of his life. His family even considered leaving the grave unmarked, but decided instead to bury him under the false name that had brought him peace.

I discovered that William Patrick had first met his wife Phyllis in Germany in the 1930s through her brother. With war looming, the brother had asked William Patrick to look after Phyllis in New York and dispatched the girl - who was 12 years younger than Hitler - into his safekeeping. Romance blossomed and the couple married after the war in 1947.

Their three surviving sons - Alex, 52, Louis, 50, and Brian, 36 - fiercely guard their privacy and their family secret. Alex is a social worker and his brothers run a gardening business.

Their father, they told me, was wounded in action during the war and later set up a blood analysis laboratory in the home he moved to in the countryside to escape from prying eyes.

None of the three sons has married, and there are no children. Alex initially denied that there had been a pact between the brothers to ensure that the Hitler line was not continued. Then he told me: "Maybe my other two brothers did [make a pact], but I never did." It was just one more contradiction to add to the many that already cloud his family history.

(continues)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...Num=3#continue

Cicero 06-06-2008 08:44 PM

Who? Ok. How are these people related to Hitler again? Help! What does it all mean?!?

TheMercenary 06-06-2008 09:18 PM

Phyllis was Hitlers younger sister. She married Patrick and moved to NY before the war. They had 3 boys who survive and have had no children.

Clodfobble 06-06-2008 09:21 PM

Quote:

William Patrick was the son of Adolf Hitler's half-brother, Alois, but there was little family affection: "Uncle Adolf" referred to William Patrick as "my loathsome nephew".

Clodfobble 06-06-2008 10:15 PM

Fake Bus Stop for Alzheimer's Patients

Quote:

A German nursing home has created a pretend bus stop to prevent Alzheimer's patients from wandering off. The bus stop, outside the Benrath Senior Centre in Dusseldorf, is an exact replica of a standard stop but no buses call there.

...

"It sounds funny," said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, "but it helps. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home."

"We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later today and invite them in to the home for a coffee," said Mr. Neureither. "Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave."

The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other old folks' homes across Germany.

TheMercenary 06-07-2008 08:23 AM

that is great clod. good move on the part of the home.

Sundae 06-07-2008 08:29 AM

Firemen feel fire is a complete let down:

Quote:

Rubbish blaze
By Kathie Griffiths
Firefighters from Brighouse had to tackle a rubbish fire in a lift at a block of executive flats earlier today. No-one was hurt but it is believed the lift was at the top floor when the fire started.
From the Bradford Telegraph & Argus

Ibby 06-09-2008 11:42 AM

see, sundae, that isnt funny to us yanks. we gotta think too hard.
to us, its abundantly clear that its a fire that started in a pile of trash, on account of us never using 'rubbish' as an adjective.

or maybe im just less than sober

Clodfobble 06-09-2008 01:17 PM

Oh. I get it now. Thanks, Ibby.

I thought maybe it was a "let down" because the elevator came down from the top floor...

Sundae 06-09-2008 05:55 PM

Oops, thanks for the translation.

DanaC 06-09-2008 06:56 PM

lol. That's just down the road from me :P It comes under our borough.

Sundae 06-10-2008 04:18 AM

Was sent to me from my friend in the area :)

TheMercenary 06-12-2008 03:00 PM

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- City code enforcement officials have ordered a controversial underground swingers club to stop hosting sexually themed parties by the end of Thursday or face fines of up to $250 a day.

Melbourne officials and an irritated landlord want to close the Hunt Club which is based inside a house in the rustic Oak Groves subdivision, nestled among acre-lot estates, horse stables and backyard fish ponds along the Turtle Mound Road corridor.

Club operators Richard Spalding and Kirsi Page face $250 daily code enforcement fines if they host swingers' parties after Thursday.

Recent examples of their events have been "Naughty Girls, Ice Cream and High Heels Social," a pajama party and a paper-mask masquerade, according to various Web sites.

In a Tuesday e-mail to Code Enforcement Administrator Dan Porsi, Page contended that her club is a private group, not a business, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported. She stated that Melbourne officials were "making up ridiculous fines and singling out a few people to persecute."

"Fully grown adults will not tolerate being told who they can and cannot have sex with," Page wrote. "Twisting existing laws or making up new ones to punish people for their sex lives is not only arrogant and misguided, but also corrupt in the sense that you are using your political position to impose your favored sexual practices on someone else."


Penny Hanson, who owns the Beth Lane home, is evicting Spalding and Page, City Hall records show. A lease termination notice was delivered to the house, effective June 30. Otherwise, beginning July 1, the club operators must start paying double rent, or $123.33 per day.


Porsi gave the club until Thursday to cease swingers' activities. Otherwise, the Melbourne code enforcement board could consider the matter during its July 30 meeting -- and levy daily fines of up to $250.

Previously, The Hunt Club asked party attendees for $40 donations, and the club sought $60,000 from investors to build an eight-bedroom complex. But in her e-mail to Porsi, Page stated that her organization violates no local laws.

"We have our friends over for parties. Yes, people at our parties consume alcohol. It is not against the law to have friends over to your house for fun," Page wrote. "That does not constitute the operation of a business."

The Hunt Club featured a stripper pole and stage, swinging sex chair and a bedroom that was converted into an "observation room," Police Chief Don Carey said in April.

http://www.local6.com/news/16583258/detail.html

Cicero 06-12-2008 09:15 PM

lol!:D

That fake bus stop is so cruel!! lol!!


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