tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72204152024-03-08T06:34:07.233-05:00The Podger UFOThe Odd, The Strange and the Unusual.My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1142650044010570282006-03-17T21:41:00.000-05:002006-03-17T21:47:24.026-05:00Seance for John Lennon<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /></d> <p>Imagine <a href="http://www.john-lennon.com/">John Lennon</a> spinning in his grave.</p> <p>The ex-<a href="http://www.beatles.com/">Beatle</a>, who was murdered over 25 years ago, is the latest subject of a pay-per-view seance arranged by the producers of a 2003 attempt to contact the dead Princess Diana. That show made money but was slammed by critics as hitting a new low in television tastelessness.</p> <p>"People say this is disgusting and I accept that criticism, but we're making a serious attempt to do something that many, many millions of people around the world think is possible," said <a href="http://www.paulsharratt.com/">Paul Sharratt</a>, who heads Starcast Productions, which made "<a href="http://www.psychics.co.uk/princessdiana/homepage.html">The Spirit of Diana</a>." That show drew over half a million U.S. viewers willing to pay $14.95 to watch it.</p> <p>The Lennon show will air on April 24 on a pay-per-view channel and cost $9.95.</p> <p>Sharratt himself is a "non-believer," and admits to not being totally convinced otherwise after psychics attempted to contact the dead princess in the 2003 program. Nevertheless, it made for some great television, he said.</p> <p>"I have to say that I'm a skeptic. I went into it very skeptically and I didn't come out a total believer, but it was good for a lot of people as a tribute to Diana," he said.</p> <p>Sharratt said he chose Lennon because the former Beatle, like Diana, is an icon and was also a deeply spiritual person. "Lennon was very interested in the spiritual world. It's a natural follow-up to the Diana seance," he said.</p> <p>"The Spirit of John Lennon" is being done without the knowledge or consent of John Lennon's estate. A spokesman for <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/yokoono/?rnd=1142649941171&has-player=unknown">Yoko Ono</a>, Lennon's widow, had no immediate comment.</p> <p>Sharratt said, "We are writing to Yoko and contacting friends this week to see if any people associated with Lennon would take part."</p> <p>The program will show psychics traveling to sites of significance to the former Beatle, including New York's Dakota apartment house, where he lived and was fatally shot by a deranged fan, Mark David Chapman, just over 25 years ago.</p> <p>Psychics will also visit the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles where the Beatles recorded, and a town in India where Lennon pursued a spiritual retreat.</p> <p>Sharratt said the Indian sequence will feature a spirit reader at an ashram who believes he can contact Lennon to receive musical notes and lyrics from the other side.</p> <p>Any notations will be flown to Los Angeles, where a composer will arrange the notes, add vocals and backgrounds to produce a new song.</p> <p>The special will culminate as psychics, colleagues and confidantes sit at a seance table for 30 minutes surrounded by infra-red cameras that can capture any "presence" or spirit that enters the room. </p>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1140777933536402102006-02-24T05:35:00.000-05:002006-02-24T05:47:19.836-05:0033 Pound Cat<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /></d> <div style="text-align: center;"><d></d><img style="width: 351px; height: 234px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/tinker2/odd/cat.jpg" /><br /><d></d></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><d></d><br /><d></d></div> A 33-pound cat in Qingdao, China, is being described as a "feline monster" because of its 31-inch waist and large size, according to a report. The 9-year-old cat from the Shandong Province is so heavy it needs the help of its owner to get onto a bed. However, the cat is in surprisingly good health despite its weight, Local 6 News reported. The cat's owner said it has no interest in eating fish but prefers to eat six pounds of chicken and pork each day.This fat cat is not alone in his weight problem, according to the report. Obesity has become a serious problem for the modern cat, primarily due to a lack of exercise and a richer diet.Cats are susceptible to a range of illnesses including kidney trouble and diabetes, if they are allowed to remain overweight.<br /><br /><a href="http://cats.about.com/">About Cats</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fanciers.com/">Cat Fanciers</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/cats/sk1.html">National Geographic Cats</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/cats.htm">Orisinal: Cats</a>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1140777063190802682006-02-24T05:28:00.000-05:002006-02-24T05:31:03.193-05:00Woman Killed for Slamming a Door in Her Own Home<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /></d> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">A man in Marion County, Fla., was arrested and charged Wednesday with killing a 51-year-old woman for slamming doors in her apartment and waking him up, according to a police report.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Marion County Sheriff's deputies and Belleview police officers responded to an altercation at an apartment complex located at 6745 S.E. 107 <st1:place st="on">St.</st1:place> Tuesday.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">The report said Vito Loiacono was involved in a fight with Betty Shepperd and another man over "slamming doors in her apartment and waking Mr. Loiacono up at night."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">When officers arrived at about 5 p.m., the disturbance had ended and Loiacono was sitting on a porch with other neighbors in the complex.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">About three hours later, officers responded to another disturbance call at the same address.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">When officers arrived they found Betty Shepperd dead in an apartment.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Witnesses told police that they saw Loiacono leaving his apartment carrying a white trash bag. He allegedly tried to give the bag containing his clothes to several people to hide, according to the report.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">When tenants refused to take the bag, Loiacono was allegedly seen taking the bag behind the apartment complex and throwing it in a trash bin.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">The bag was found a short time later by officers. It contained clothes Loiacono was wearing earlier in the night and a weapon.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">After questioning, Loiacono was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the woman's death.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Loiacono remains in the Marion County Jail Wednesday afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Meanwhile, another man in Marion County, Fla., remained in jail charged with fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet tissue in the home.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Franklin Paul Crow, 56, was charged Monday with homicide for the death of Kenneth Matthews, 58, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Crow told investigators that the men were fighting over the weekend about the toilet tissue when Matthews pulled out a rifle. Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1140666452515513432006-02-22T22:47:00.000-05:002006-02-22T22:47:32.526-05:00Pig Manure Floods Town<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /></d> <p>BERLIN (Reuters) - A Bavarian village was flooded by liquid pig manure after a tank containing the fertilizer burst, German police said Wednesday.</p> <p>Sewage rose to 20 inches in the courtyards and streets of Elsa after gushing from the tank, which held some 240,000 litres of pig manure.</p> <p>"The village was swamped with green-brown liquid and it was pig manure -- the mother-of-all muck," said Rainer Prediger, a police spokesman in the nearby town of Coburg.</p>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1140660026035585102006-02-22T20:59:00.000-05:002006-02-22T21:00:26.046-05:00Hard Rock Can Kill You!<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /><a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-02-22T142005Z_01_SP5194_RTRUKOC_0_US-SINGAPORE-GUITAR.xml">Hard Rock Kills!</a><br /></d> <p>SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A teenage guitarist got so carried away while bouncing up and down on his bed mimicking a rock star that he flew out of a third floor window to his death, a Singapore newspaper reported Wednesday.</p> <p>The Straits Times said Li Xiao Meng, a 16-year-old from China who was studying at Singapore's Hua Business School, was a keen musician who liked to jump up and down while playing his guitar in his hostel room.</p> <p>"But on November 17 he took things a bit too far," the newspaper said, reporting on a coroner's court findings.</p> <p>Ruling death by misadventure, the court said evidence "points to the deceased unintentionally falling out of the window to his death when he was hyped up with exhilaration, jumping up and down on the bed placed against an open window while mimicking a rock guitarist.""</p> <p>Normally the windows were locked, the newspaper said, but students sometimes forced them open so they could smoke, something prohibited by the hostel.</p>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1139567366333310972006-02-10T05:28:00.000-05:002006-02-10T05:29:26.333-05:00<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /><br /></d> <div style="text-align: center;"><d></d><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/tinker2/odd/slystone.jpg" /><br /></div> <d><br /></d>Funk music pioneer Sly Stone makes his first major public appearance in almost 13 years during a tribute to 'Sly and The Family Stone' at the 48th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles February 8, 2006My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1106181023790922992005-01-19T19:29:00.000-05:002005-08-22T17:36:11.860-04:00Surgeon Allegedly Leaves Object in Uterus<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.<br /><br /></d> <p> DANVILLE, Pa. - <span style="font-family:arial;"> A woman is suing a doctor who operated on her, accusing him of leaving a 4-inch metal instrument inside her uterus. </span> </p> <p> <table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="1%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td width="99%"> <!-- ult --> <br /></td><td width="5"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> In her lawsuit, Lori Klinger, 35, said she experienced severe pain after Dr. Samuel Owusu performed a diagnostic laparoscopy on her in November 2002 to check for endometriosis, a condition where some of the uterus lining is found outside the uterus. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> She said when she called Owusu later complaining of pain, he said it was normal and told her to take pain medication. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> "(Klinger) had called him and said this really hurts," said Klinger's lawyer, Jane Sebelin. "He just kept saying, 'Deal with it.'" </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Two days later, she went to the bathroom and an instrument emerged from her vagina, the lawsuit said. Klinger said it was sharp on one end with a rubber bulb on the other. She said she took it to the doctor's office. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> "We felt there was a lack of procedures in place, that they should be checking these things," said Sebelin. The lawsuit said Owusu did apologize. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Klinger is seeking $350,000 for counts including negligence. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Owusu referred questions to Bloomsburg-based Geisinger Medical Group when reached Wednesday. Alison Delsite Everett, spokeswoman for Geisinger, declined to comment on the case, but said: "we have very stringent policies to ensure the safety of our patients." </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;"> This mistake happens at least once a year at hospitals that perform 8,000 to 18,000 surgeries a year, despite the regular use of checklists to account for instruments used during operations, said Ramona Conner of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses. </span></p>My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1106180697774258802005-01-19T19:24:00.000-05:002005-01-19T19:24:57.773-05:00Mix up at the Funeral Home!<d> Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.
<br />
<br /></d> <p> JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> An autopsy technician misread a number on a body tag, leaving one family without a body to memorialize and another with the wrong person's ashes scattered across the Atlantic Ocean. </span> </p> <p> <table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="1%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td width="99%"> <!-- ult -->
<br /></td><td width="5"> </td></tr></tbody></table> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> As a result of the mistaken identification, the technician released the body of John Chappell, 36, instead of that of Judith Perez, 65, said Duval County Chief Medical Examiner Margarita Arruza. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> "It was off by one digit. He released the wrong body to the funeral home, and obviously the funeral home never checked or looked at the body," she said. She said the technician is no longer employed by her office. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> Perez's family had the body cremated and scattered the ashes in the ocean before the mistake was discovered when Chappell's relatives showed up to claim his body. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> Chappell's brother in Jacksonville and sister in Mt. Morris, Mich., have notified the city of their intent to sue for negligence, said their attorney, Henry Gare. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> "It is a very heartbreaking situation," Gare said Wednesday. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> Gare said the family had planned to scatter Chappell's ashes at his grandfather's grave in Michigan. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> A woman who answered the telephone at Green Pine Funeral Home in Yulee and refused to give her name said Chappell's body was received in a bag identified as Perez's remains. Because the body was cremated, she said there was no reason to open the bag. </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> </span></p> <p> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:-1;"> Arruza said she doesn't remember her office mixing up any bodies since she joined the office in 1989. </span></p>
<br />My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1096898092612916022004-10-04T09:54:00.000-04:002004-10-04T09:54:52.613-04:00That is so true Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.</d>
<br />My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090597262066472062004-07-23T11:41:00.000-04:002004-07-23T11:41:02.066-04:00Acupuncture Gone Bad! <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Acupuncture Gone Bad!</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">A German acupuncture patient was left pierced with needles in a clinic after a therapist forgot about her, locked up his</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">practice and went home, police in Hanover said on Thursday. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The 41-year-old woman from the north German town had booked an afternoon session of the ancient Chinese therapy which involves inserting needles into the skin and is believed to prevent disease and relieve pain.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The doctor left her in the treatment room for what she assumed would be a short while, especially since she still had needles embedded in her body.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">After 90 minutes the woman began to shout for attention. Getting no response, she realized she was alone and trapped in the building. She alerted police by phone and was later set free when the doctor returned.</FONT></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090597057071404832004-07-23T11:37:00.001-04:002004-07-23T11:37:37.070-04:00Man Learns He's Dead, Thanks to Blind Ex-Wife <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Man Learns He's Dead, Thanks to Blind Ex-Wife</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian taxi driver got a rude shock when he discovered his blind ex-wife, who thought he had died in an explosion, had him buried in a Moscow cemetery, a newspaper reported on Thursday. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Oleg Lunkov learned of his apparent death when he applied for a passport and was told he died in a bomb blast on Moscow's metro on February 6. His ex-wife thought he was on the train, but being blind, she got her mother to identify the remains.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"I thought, 'I hope they didn't bury me on my birthday'," Lunkov told the Moscow Times after visiting his grave in southeastern Moscow. "But it turns out they did."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The grave has been exhumed by police investigating his wife for possible fraud.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Lunkov's name still appears on prosecutors' official list of the 38 people who died in the explosion. </FONT></SPAN></P> <BR> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090597020811097222004-07-23T11:37:00.000-04:002004-07-23T11:37:00.810-04:00Woman Who Offered Pig as Tiger Bait Faces Charge <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE> Woman Who Offered Pig as Tiger Bait Faces Charge</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida woman who offered up a Yorkshire pig as bait to entice an escaped tiger back home will face charges of animal cruelty, local newspapers reported on Thursday. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Linda Meredith, of Loxahatchee where "Bobo" the tiger was killed by wildlife officers on Tuesday in a shooting his owner labeled a "murder," is being punished for putting the piglet in a car trunk, an official told the Palm Beach Post.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"I was appalled," said Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Director Diane Sauve. "Carrying an animal in a trunk in 90-degree (32 degrees Celsius) heat, where it's probably 140 degrees (60 degrees Celsius) inside, is not acceptable."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Meredith had urged sheriff's deputies to hold the piglet by its hind legs or twist its ears to make it squeal and attract Bobo, who spent 24 hours as a fugitive after escaping from former B movie Tarzan actor Steve Sipek's home, 50 miles north of Miami. The deputies declined to use the pig.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Meredith said she also was outraged to find out she could face animal cruelty charges.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"I can't believe they have the gall," she told the Palm Beach Post. "I was just trying to help the tiger find his way back home. Apparently, it's not nice to be nice."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Meredith</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">said that the trunk of her Cadillac was air conditioned and that she had planned to eat the pig anyway once it had grown up.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Wildlife officers had hoped to shoot Bobo, a 600-pound (270-kg), six-year-old Bengal tiger, with tranquilizer darts to end his dash for freedom. But he was killed by an officer armed with an M4 rifle after he said the big cat lunged at him.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Sipek, who played Tarzan in two movies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and who has a permit to keep exotic animals as pets, decried the shooting as unnecessary. Covered in the blood of the cat he raised since it was a cub, Sipek has given a string of TV interviews saying Bobo's death was plain murder.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has been inundated with hate mail and phone calls from distraught cat lovers, and supporters have set up a Web site to collect donations to help Sipek protect his other animals -- another tiger, two lions, a black leopard and a cougar.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Neither Sauve nor Meredith could be reached for comment. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://news.lycos.com/news/forms/reuters.asp"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=1 FACE="Verdana">Copyright</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#666666" SIZE=1 FACE="Verdana"> © 2003 Reuters Limited.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> <BR> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090596786115297962004-07-23T11:33:00.000-04:002004-07-23T11:33:06.116-04:00Schwarzenegger to Take a Licking <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Schwarzenegger to Take a Licking</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian fans of their famous compatriot Arnold Schwarzenegger will be able to lick the back of the California Governor when his image appears on a special edition of postage stamps at the end of this month. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The former bodybuilder and film star chose the portrait of himself that will be used on one-euro stamps to be issued in Austria on his 57th birthday, July 30, a postal service spokesman said on Friday.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"He is one of the most famous Austrians...We can be very proud of him," spokesman Siegfried Grobmann said.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The stamp is a head-and-shoulders shot of Schwarzenegger with the U.S. Stars and Stripes on his right and a smaller Austrian flag to his left. A run of 600,000 stamps will be printed, Grobmann said. </FONT></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090596717792952502004-07-23T11:31:00.000-04:002004-07-23T11:31:57.793-04:00Dangling from Meat Hooks, for Fun <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Dangling from Meat Hooks, for Fun</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">MIAMI (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials in the Florida Keys are mystified by a bizarre new pastime -- young people dangling themselves from meat hooks on a popular sandbar. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">A U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman said on Sunday that the Monroe County sheriff's office and Coast Guard were called on July 12 to the sandbar off Whale Harbor in Islamorada where locals say wild behavior is becoming a tradition.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">They found that five young people had erected a bamboo tripod and hung meat hooks from it. A young woman, her feet brushing the surface of the shallow water, dangled from the frame, hooks embedded firmly in her shoulders.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">According to a Coast Guard video, she did not seem to mind the hooks.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Lt. Tom Brazil of the Coast Guard told the Key West Citizen newspaper that a young man, who also had hooks embedded in his heavily pierced and tattooed skin, assured him the group was "just enjoying the afternoon."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">A Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami said the group had clearly done this before and intended to post photos of themselves on a Web site dedicated to "body modification" -- the ritualistic piercing of the body.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">“It</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">looked like a daily routine for them," she said, adding that the hooks had been inserted in the skin in a professional manner and had drawn very little blood."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"As long as they weren't creating any kind of ruckus or riot within a crowd they really weren't breaking any laws."</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The Coast Guard passed the video on to federal justice authorities but no further action will be taken. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://news.lycos.com/news/forms/reuters.asp"><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=1 FACE="Verdana">Copyright</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#666666" SIZE=1 FACE="Verdana"> © 2003 Reuters Limited.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> <BR> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090334303383485802004-07-20T10:38:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:38:23.383-04:00WIERD WEBSITE OF THE DAY <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>WIERD WEBSITE OF THE DAY</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Aluminum foil Deflector Beanie</SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Learn how to make yours here:</SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">An Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie (AFDB) is a type of headwear that can shield your brain from most electromagnetic psychotronic mind control carriers. AFDBs are inexpensive (even free if you don't mind scrounging for thrown-out aluminium foil) and can be constructed by anyone with at least the dexterity of a chimp (maybe bonobo).</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> <BR> <BR> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090332973304961132004-07-20T10:16:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:16:13.303-04:00Tyisha McCoy died over a $100 hairdo. <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Tyisha McCoy died over a $100 hairdo. </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Stunning reporters and cops alike, a Bronx parolee yesterday admitted ordering the murder of the 13-year-old girl because she refused to pay him for braiding her hair. "The braids were $100. She didn't pay me, so I sent someone there to do it," Kenneth Smith, 24, blurted in response to a Daily News reporter's question outside the 30th Precinct stationhouse in Harlem. Smith, a paroled armed robber who met Tyisha on a teen phone-chat line, said he sent a pal to the girl's Riverside Drive apartment last week. </SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Smith fingered ex-con Parris France, 22, for strangling the teen and snatching $3,000 of her guardian's jewelry."I did not do the killing myself. But I saw who did it," said Smith, whose dramatic sidewalk confession could help convict him of murder. "He's upstairs [being questioned]." Smith, whose hair was done up in immaculate cornrows, was arraigned on murder and burglary charges along with France. Despite Smith's attempt to shift the blame, prosecutors said he told cops he strangled Tyisha with the shoelace from a boot because he feared she could identify him. </SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">The admissions piled more heartache on the custodial family of the teenager, who was born in jail and was removed from her mother's care two years ago over allegations of neglect. "Pretty sad, isn't it?" said George Thompson, whose mother, Carolyn Thompson, had custody of the girl. "It's a child, for crying out loud." "I'm glad they caught him," added Rhonda Ramseur, Tyisha's mother. Even Smith's sister blasted him, saying news of the crime "ran chills through my body." "I just want [Tyisha's family] to know that someone in Kenny's family cares," said Shirley Evans, 31, a mother of twin girls who said her brother learned how to braid hair in prison. "I am deeply sorry for what happened." </SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly branded the slaying a "terrible crime" that cut short a tormented but promising life. "These are two adult males," he said. "This is a 13-year-old girl." Cops say Tyisha, who often dated older men, met Smith on a phone-chat line for teens, and he agreed to braid her hair at her apartment. When Carolyn Thompson, a prominent Harlem community activist, saw the older man, she tossed him out of her apartment. "She walked in on him and said, 'What are you doing with her? She is a little girl,'" a police source said. "Words were exchanged, and he menaces her by saying, 'You have a lot of nice [stuff] in here.'" </SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">Cops said McCoy later let France and Smith into the apartment, where they throttled the girl and Smith looted Thompson's baubles. After McCoy's body was found Thursday, cops quickly tracked down Smith, who was sprung in July 2001 after serving seven years for robbery. Sources said that detectives lifted a fingerprint from Thompson's jewelry box that belonged to France, an ex-con with a record of drug offenses, and that France quickly implicated Smith, who in turn blamed his fellow felon. </SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-109033219971404602004-07-20T10:03:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:11:59.756-04:00Man Jailed for Shooting off His Testicles LONDON (Reuters) –
<br />
<br />A British man who accidentally shot himself in the
<br />testicles after drinking 15 pints of beer was jailed
<br />for five years on Tuesday for possessing an illegal
<br /> firearm, a court spokesman said. David Walker, 28, was
<br /> arguing with a friend at a pub in South Yorkshire, northern
<br /> England, when he went home to get his sawed-off shotgun,
<br /> which he jammed into his trousers. But as he walked back
<br />to the pub, the gun went off, blasting pellets into his testicles.
<br /> Doctors later removed what remained of his testicles during
<br /> emergency surgery.Walker admitted possessing a prohibited
<br /> weapon at a hearing in June at the court in Sheffield.
<br />My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090332136357441992004-07-20T10:02:00.001-04:002004-07-20T10:13:25.900-04:00Robbers Strip Corpse of JewelryLILLE, France (Reuters) - Thieves dug up a Frenchwoman's grave and stripped her corpse of thousands of euros (dollars) worth of jewelry she had asked to be buried with to avoid arguments between her five children.
<br />Police said Monday the former partner of the woman, who died aged 82 in April, found her coffin abandoned in an alley near the cemetery in the village of Haulchin in northern France Monday.
<br />Her body was still in the coffin but her earrings, two necklaces, two bracelets, and five rings had been stolen
<br />My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090332128371491402004-07-20T10:02:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:14:15.910-04:00Itsy-Bitsy Spider Catches ... a SnakeBEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese house spider sitting on its web waiting for lunch got the biggest helping of its life -- it caught a snake.
<br />The 12-inch snake crawled into a farmer's house in Qingyuan county in eastern Zhejiang prvince, apparently oblivious of the spider patiently spinning its web in the corner, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
<br />"Unfortunately, it got desperately trapped in the tough, sticky web of the spider," the agency said.
<br />"The spider pulled the web higher and suspended the snake above the ground. It then managed to get to the neck of the snake, using its beak to pierce the snake and inject its poison."
<br />The David and Goliath battle took 80 minutes, drawing farmers from all around to watch, Xinhua said.
<br />"The snake died soon and the hunter spider began to suck its blood."
<br />My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1090332066430533132004-07-20T10:01:00.000-04:002004-07-20T10:01:06.430-04:00Man Dodges Suicide Pact with Bride <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE> Man Dodges Suicide Pact with Bride</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A NAME=""><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man who struck a suicide pact with his new bride over their guilt for having pre-marital sex is being held by police after he backed out on his side of the bargain, judiciary officials said on Sunday. </FONT></SPAN></A></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The couple, who were not named, had been married for just two days when, "due to their guilty consciences for having illicit sexual relations, they decided to kill each other at the same time," the official said.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The man helped to hang his wife but then changed his mind about killing himself and handed himself in to police in the northeastern Khorasan province, the official told the ISNA student news agency.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Pre-marital sex is taboo in the Islamic state where some girls have to go through a virginity test before tying knot. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1089928643941642522004-07-15T17:57:00.000-04:002004-07-15T17:57:23.940-04:00Man Dodges Suicide Pact with Bride <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE> Man Dodges Suicide Pact with Bride</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A NAME=""><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man who struck a suicide pact with his new bride over their guilt for having pre-marital sex is being held by police after he backed out on his side of the bargain, judiciary officials said on Sunday. </FONT></SPAN></A></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The couple, who were not named, had been married for just two days when, "due to their guilty consciences for having illicit sexual relations, they decided to kill each other at the same time," the official said.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The man helped to hang his wife but then changed his mind about killing himself and handed himself in to police in the northeastern Khorasan province, the official told the ISNA student news agency.</FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Pre-marital sex is taboo in the Islamic state where some girls have to go through a virginity test before tying knot. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1089928265437411472004-07-15T17:51:00.000-04:002004-07-15T17:55:23.336-04:00A Million Pennies Saved, Nothing Earned (Reuters) - A California man who collected 1 million pennies for a bet is having a hard time cashing in on his $10,000 fortune. Ron England has amassed 3.6 tons of copper in his garage in the Los Angeles suburb of Granada Hills after making a bet with his brother 30 years ago that he could collect 1 million penniesBut neither the U.S. Mint, the U.S. Comptroller of Currency, coin collectors nor the local bank is interested in cashing in his stash -- at least without a charge;I've been working seriously for the past two weeks to get rid of these pennies," England, 60, told the Los Angeles Daily News. "It's kind of frustrating. Nobody will take them without charging meWhat's worse. England is still waiting for his brother to honor his side of the bet -- a meal in Paris. "I don't remember making the wager. Am I still good for it? I'm not going to answer that question," Russ England told the Daily News. My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1088917441579998542004-07-04T01:04:00.000-04:002004-07-04T01:14:17.183-04:00Ecstasky AirEcstasky Airlines <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a><br /><a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/166/1224/50/5.jpg'><img border='0' class='phostImg' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/166/1224/400/5.jpg'></a>
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Flight Routes Los Angeles - New York Chicago - Las Vegas Seattle - Las Vegas Reno/Tahoe - Las Vegas Aspen - Las Vegas Houston - Las Vegas Dallas - Las Vegas San Francisco - Las Vegas Miami - Las Vegas New York - Las Vegas Los Angeles - Las Vegas some media have mistakenly associated us with Hooter's Airline but we are not affiliated with hooters, the restaurant, nor hooters air or hooter's inc in any way: some of the services they offer are below but not available here, our services are far superior.: My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1088801921724302282004-07-02T16:58:00.000-04:002004-07-02T16:58:41.723-04:00Interesting optical illusion <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Interesting optical illusion</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <P ALIGN=LEFT><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=5>Interesting optical illusion</FONT></SPAN></B></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="mailto:z.lynch@attbi.com"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Zack Lynch</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"> posted </SPAN><A HREF="http://www.corante.com/brainwaves/archives/000624.html"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">this fabulous optical illusion</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us">. [Converted from Word to HTML/PNG in the interest of portable standards]</SPAN></P> <UL><UL> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us">If you take a look at the following picture , let me tell you ... it is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Weird </SPAN></P> </UL></UL> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7220415.post-1088694970025540602004-07-01T11:16:00.000-04:002004-07-01T11:16:10.026-04:00Hip-Swaying Dancing Doll Ridicules Saddam <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6487.1"> <TITLE>Hip-Swaying Dancing Doll Ridicules Saddam </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Converted from text/rtf format --> <BR> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis used to dance to his tune, but in Baghdad toy shops a chubby, gun-toting Saddam Hussein doll now wiggles his hips to the "Hippy Hippy Shake." </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Toy stores around Baghdad are doing a quick trade in dancing Saddam dolls -- foot-high battery-powered puppets of the former president, kitted out in full insurgent regalia, who swing their hips to cheesy pop music at the flick of a switch. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Decked out with hand-grenades, daggers, a walkie-talkie, binoculars and an AK-47, Saddam dances to the "Hippy Hippy Shake" when turned on. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"It's funny, isn't it?" said Mustapha al-Kadamy, a young father as he browsed through a toy store in the wealthy Mansoor district and prepared to buy one of the dancing Saddams. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"Tomorrow Saddam will go before an Iraqi judge and so today is a good day to make fun of him -- we need to be able to smile after all the horrible things he's done to us." </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">The owner of the store started offering the dolls shortly after Saddam's regime was overthrown in April last year. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">A Turkish traveling salesmen turned up with the Chinese-made puppets, also featuring dancing Osama bin Ladens, Fidel Castros and George W. Bushes, and he placed an order. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">At first it was the hip-shaking Osamas that sold best, but slowly Iraqis grew less fearful of ridiculing their deposed president and started buying the Saddam ones too. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"At the beginning we'd hide them under the counter and only sell them to those who specially asked because people were upset to see the former president as a doll," explained Asaad Majid, a salesman in the al-Jelawi toy store in Mansoor. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"Now we're not scared anymore, we display them openly, and people buy them regularly," he said, adding that demand peaked soon after Saddam was captured last December. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">Thursday, the real Saddam and 11 of his associates will go before an Iraqi judge to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Saddam's trial is not expected to begin until early next year. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">There was little doubt about Saddam's guilt in the minds of customers and sales staff Wednesday. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"If he's executed, then that's the end of it -- it's too easy for him," said Ala, a sales assistant at Jelawi's. </FONT></SPAN></P> <P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#339966" SIZE=2 FACE="Verdana">"It would be better to keep him in prison for the rest of his life so that he has to suffer every day." </FONT></SPAN></P> </BODY> My Shoeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06288828600280828802noreply@blogger.com0