Alaska black bear, cubs steal kids' lunch boxes Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! In this Saturday, June 14, 2014 photo, a mother black bear wanders with her two spring cubs near the parking garage along Alumni Drive on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Witnesses say a black bear and two cubs that have been frequenting midtown Anchorage stole several lunch boxes at a children's day camp on the Alaska Pacific University campus. Katie Adrian, program manager at the summer program run by Camp Fire USA, tells The Anchorage Daily News the bears wandered onto the school's soccer fields Monday, soon after the campers ate lunch at picnic tables and left behind some snacks. The bears carried a few lunch boxes into the woods and dug in. The bears weren't aggressive, and camp staff corralled the kids. After this, she says the campers will eat elsewhere and store their food indoors. David Battle of the Alaska Fish and Game Department says there are no plans to remove the bears. He says the agency doesn't consider them a public safety hazard.
Real Headline: 'Student Gets Trapped in Vagina Sculpture" Twenty-Two Firefighters American enters giant vagina, must be rescued Simon McCormack's roundup for Huffington Post does manage to work some original writing into the lede: We bet he feels like a d--k. (sigh) An American exchange student had to be rescued after he got stuck inside a giant vagina sculpture. (grin) Well, right, but that still doesn't excuse the limp lede. The Guardian reports that the unidentified student got trapped on Friday at the Tübingen University's institute for microbiology and virology in southern Germany. 22 firefighters had to pry him loose. (chortle!) USA! USA! Still, though, the flaccid joke at the outset just wasn't called for. I mean, really. Who the hell bothers trying that line anymore? We're such a sexually neurotic culture that nary a day passes where someone can't whip that one out. Maybe there's a reason McCormack is relegated to the journalistic analog of the court eunuch. I mean, what, couldn't go with Robin Williams? His one chance to actually climb back in? ____________________ Notes: McCormack, Simon. "Student Gets Trapped In Vagina Sculpture". The Huffington Post. June 23, 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. June 23, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/23/student-gets-trapped-in-vagina_n_5522066.html
Many people are terribly afraid of spiders. I am one of those people who happens to be deathly afraid of spiders. There have been quite a few occasions where I have dropped everything and bolted at the sight of one of the pesky little (huge and hairy) blighters. One woman in Kansas had a novel solution to the problem of 'there's a spider in the house' that many of us fear. What did she do? She went with the tried and true method of KILLING IT WITH FIRE! A woman in Hutchinson, Kansas, is charged with arson after police say she set her home on fire during an attempt to kill a spider, the Hutchinson News reports. Ginny M. Griffith, 34, told officers she used a cigarette lighter to set some towels on fire around 1:30 a.m., Friday. She was hoping to catch the little arachnid with the flaming towels and burn it to death, according to WTSP. It's unclear if she ever caught the spider, but the fire that resulted did necessitate intervention from the fire department. Five units were summoned and managed to control the fire, which they said had multiple points of origin, within a matter of minutes. Griffith's aggravated arson charge stems from the fact that the other half of the duplex was occupied when the blaze began. No one, besides potentially the spider, was injured in the fire and the building only suffered light smoke damage. I wonder if it would run faster towards you if you set it on fire...? Ugh.. :bawl:
Diamond dog coughs up missing wedding ring Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! STEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin woman who lost her diamond wedding ring five years ago had given up all hope of finding it after searching high and low. It turns out her mischievous dog may have had it all along. Lois Matykowski (mat-ih-KOW'-skee), of Stevens Point, was eating Popsicles two weeks ago when she noticed her granddaughter's treat was gone. Her dog, Tucker, was smacking his jaws. The 10-year-old mutt the family calls the "food burglar" had struck again, swallowing it whole. The snatched food soon came back up. Two days later, Tucker vomited again. Matykowski tells WAOW-TV that this time when she went to clean up the mess, she found her missing ring in the vomit. Her veterinarian says the Popsicle stick may have dislodged the ring inside his belly.
Toddler saves elderly man trapped in hot car (NEWSER) – The "hot car" and the "saving" parts are the same, but the roles have been reversed: An elderly Tennessee man who found himself trapped in his hot car in a church parking lot on Saturday was rescued—by a 3-year-old. As Bob King explains to WVLT, "we've had a little problem with the switch on this car," and while waiting for his wife to finish up at an event at Knoxville's Vestal Baptist Church, the 68-year-old found himself stuck after his car doors automatically locked. ABC News reports he didn't have a key, leaving him unable to turn on the AC or open the windows; it was 91 degrees outside, and King is in poor health. King then noticed 3-year-old Keith Williams walking by, and started knocking on the windows. "I hollered at him and he just looked at me kind of funny and I said 'Get help, get help,'" King says. The toddler ran to his pastor, repeating the word "locked," then saying "hot, hot." He grabbed Pastor Jack Greene's hand and the man followed him outside. "When I saw Bob in the car, I said to myself: 'Oh my Lord,'" Greene says. Greene was able to open the door, at which point King literally fell out of the car, his "whole body ... raining sweat." He was brought into the church, and recovered there. WVLT notes King had been stuck in the car for about five minutes, but his wife wasn't expected for another 20 minutes. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Polar bear surprises women in tent on Alaska coast Published August 13, 2014 · Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A polar bear surprised two women in a tent on Alaska's Barter Island but left when one of them yelled at the animal. Fifty-one-year-old Marie Rexford and her 81-year-old mother, both of nearby Kaktovik, had spent the night at a fish camp along Alaska's northern coast and were making coffee Thursday when the polar bear put a paw on the canvas tent. Marie Rexford's daughter, Flora Rexford, tells the Alaska Dispatch News that her mother called out, grabbed a rifle and bolted out the tent door. She says the bear by that time was walking toward the Beaufort Sea. It picked up the pace as Rexford continued to yell. Federal researchers say bear-human encounters likely will increase as climate warming melts more sea ice, where polar bears hunt.
Jerked Toad.. Beef Jerky.. Dried and salted meat, vacuum sealed and gnawed on while watching TV or the 'Footy' (football in Australia) for some. It is starting to make inroads with Australians, with some adopting the dried hunks of meat as snacks for sports viewing or general fun party time. Personally, I don't find the thought of gnawing and sucking on a piece of dried meat to be a wonderful experience (yes, I know, let us try to keep it out of the gutter), but that's just me. Some, however, do like it. Which brings me to this story. Firstly, meet the Cane Toad. A pest in Australia, and an ugly and disgusting pest that is making inroads across the country, destroying native species. Disgustingly ugly, poisonous and noxious, it graces the laws of those of us living in the sub-tropical and tropical North of the country. Many a summer night is spent by many running around with plastic bags and gloves, gathering as many of them as can be caught and freezing and killing them humanely to save native frogs and wildlife species. The inhumane way of killing them is setting them on fire and whacking them with a golf club into the sea.. In short, it is a hated introduced pest that we are spending a fortune in time and money to eradicate. What does the Cane Toad have to do with beef jerky, you ask? If you like jerky, this is probably the time to look away. Far far away.. When Territorian Jessica McDonald settled in to watch the footy with her family, they didn’t expect to make a gruesome snack-related discovery. “Beers while watching the footy,” Jessica wrote. “Only to find the beef jerky we just bought isn’t beef at all. Instead it’s marinated dried toad!!! Yuckk.” That’s right, a jerked toad. At least it was marinated though. Jessica spoke exclusively to the NT News about her families’ snack surprise. “I actually wasn’t the unlucky one who had a taste,” she said cheerfully. “But my father took a bite. He was so into the footy game he didn’t realise until he took half a leg of what was supposed to be jerky - it was crunchy dried toad. Absolutely putrid.” Here is an image of the beast, jerked and packed, missing it's half leg.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And here is an image of what a particularly large one looks like (they all look like this, to varying sizes): Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! *Shudders violently* Uuuugggggghhhhhh..
(sigh) I Got Nothin' Sometimes the sad, morbid humor writes itself At the outset, a warning: There are four paragraphs to the WTOC Staff report, but ... well, really, this couldn't get any stranger. No, really. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The accused: Christopher Buckner (Guyton), top; Timothy Savoy, bottom. The setup: Effingham County Sheriff's deputies responded to the area of Hester Road and Highway 30 because of a report of a prowler shortly after 4 a.m. As ledes go, it's not exactly proper, but there is a reason they've literally buried the lede. And that reason is because the entire story just goes downhill from there. To wit, the second paragraph, and punch line number one: While deputies checked the area they located a male and a female walking in the area. When deputies investigated further, deputies determined the couple were brother and sister and were having sex in a Kenworth Enterprise Tractor Trailer. Oh ... it only gets better. Worse. Something. Punch line number two: "Christopher Buckner, 20, or Guyton and her brother, Timothy Savoy, 25, of Jackson, GA, were inside of the tractor trailer at the County Side Baptist Church on Highway 30 having sex prior to being stopped by deputies," Sheriff's Spokesman David Ehsanipoor said. And then the charges: The siblings were arrested and charged with incest, sodomy and prowling. What seems strange is that I thought we did away with antisodomy laws over a decade ago. Of course, this is Effingham, Georgia. Really, I can't tell if this is funny or sickening. I mean, to the one, this is the sort of thing that your friends are going to razz you about forever down at the pub. To the other, the standard punch line to that consideration is that we cannot know whether it will be moral revulsion or pure envy. There are all sorts of jokes, including my favorite, from P.J. O'Rourke, that sibling incest isn't so much a big deal as it is an admission that both siblings are too socially pathetic to hook up with anyone else. But, hey, they'll probably have a career waiting for them in the porn industry once all the legal stuff is finished. ____________________ Notes: WTOC Staff. "Siblings arrested for incest in Effingham County church parking lot". Tuscon News Now. August 26, 2014. TusconNewsNow.com. September 8, 2014. http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/...incest-in-effingham-county-church-parking-lot
There are few things in the world that could or would make me curl up in a ball, rock back and forth while keening in terror. Today, I saw one of those things (thank you internet, thank you for bringing this to my attention)... You know how you sometimes are just happy to live in ignorance about something? To never truly know that something existed. Just carry on our merry way, in absolute ignorance and innocence? I wish I could go back to that state about spiders. Not just any spider. But a spider that is the size of a small puppy. Yes, that's right. A.. Small.. Puppy.. WHEN scientist Piotr Naskrecki heard rustling in a rainforest, he expected to see a possum or rat. But his curiosity turned to shock when a puppy-sized spider bristled under his flashlight. “When I turned on the light, I couldn’t quite understand what I was seeing,” Naskrecki, an entomologist and photographer at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, told Live Science. The South American Goliath birdeater is the world’s largest spider, with a leg span of up to 30 centimetres (or the size of “a child’s forearm”) and weighing more than 170 grams. Firstly, let me just say this, NO SPIDER SHOULD SOUND LIKE A POSSUM OR A RAT WALKING THROUGH A FOREST FLOOR. Because they are not meant to be big or heavy enough to sound like a possum or a rat. They are not meant to be puppy sized! “Its feet have hardened tips and claws that produce a very distinct, clicking sound, not unlike that of a horse’s hoofs hitting the ground,” Naskrecki wrote on his blog, The Smaller Majority. Naskrecki, who spotted the colossal creature in a South American rainforest in 2012, saw it rub its hind legs against its abdomen, sending out hairs with tiny barbs on them. He said the barbs are “extremely painful and itchy”. The highly venomous arachnid also has five-centimetre fangs. But in good news, even if it bites you, “a chicken can probably do more damage,” Naskrecki said. Yes, good news indeed. Because if I ever came face to face with that thing, the first thing that will pop into my mind is that "a chicken can do more damage". Now, such stories are never without pictures. Because we all know, the media is great about causing bowel loosening fear in readers. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Note the size of his hand and the how far away behind the spider it is. *Curls up in corner.. starts wailing*..
Sometimes, you just need to say goodbye.. This is the story of a horse lover, who with very little time left to live after battling cancer, asked that she be granted one final wish. And that wish was to say her final goodbyes to her beloved horse. Sheila Marsh, 77, from Wigan, Lancashire in England, was a lifelong horse lover who had been battling cancer, and was hospitalized without much time to live, the Manchester Evening News reported. Before she died, she asked to see her beloved horse Bronwen, one last time. Bronwen was brought to the Wigan Royal Infirmary's parking lot, and Marsh was wheeled out to the pet in her hospital bed for the pair's final moment together. Ms Marsh owned the horse for 18 - 19 years. Her bond with her beloved Bronwen and her other pets was very strong and she asked the nursing home to allow her to say that final goodbye. Though she was weak, Marsh mustered up the strength to speak to her treasured pet. "It took a lot for mum to talk on her last day but clearly called Bronwen’s name and asked for a kiss," Tina told Wigan Today. The horse also acknowledged its owner, as the two shared a moving farewell. "The horse bent down tenderly and kissed her on the cheek as they said their last goodbyes," nurse Gail Taylor told the Manchester Evening News. The 77-year-old, an owner of many pets, had made her wish known to the hospital's staff after she saw her dogs for the last time the weekend before, BBC News reported. The staff organized the interaction with the help of the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust. After seeing the deep connection Marsh had with her horse, the hospital staff said they were honored to have arranged such a meeting. "I am really pleased to have been able to facilitate the visit from Mrs Marsh’s horse," Pauline Law, director of nursing told the Evening News. "This was obviously extremely important to her and her family and we feel privileged to have been able to provide this support at this crucial stage of her care." While the moment was a beautiful one for Marsh and those around her, her daughter says that the pet lover wasn't the only one who found comfort from seeing her animals for the last time. "The dog and the horse were really pining for her so it’s closure for them as well -- when they both came home they were a bit perkier," Tina told Wigan Today. This beautiful event would not have been possible if it were not for the dedication and care of her doctors and nurses and her family and friends and treating her with such dignity and providing the level of care she needed and making sure her needs were met in her final days.. Well played.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sheila Marsh passed away a few hours later.
Pray it like you mean it! Meet Mrs Kaling Wald. Mother to 6 children and wife to her husband. Mrs Walk, however, is no ordinary woman. Oh no. She is a God fearing woman. In fact, at the very least, she and her husband are real believers and the family is known for spreading their religious beliefs in the area they live in. Especially in the resurrection. So much so that when her husband developed a diabetes related infection in his foot, he refused to see a doctor, believing that prayers would cure him. And they prayed. As is often the case in such stories, God did not provide. And his condition worsened. Mr Wald shortly lapsed into a coma and gravely ill in the family home, he soon passed away. The normal course of action here is to call the authorities to have the body moved and funeral preparations would commence as the heartbreaking steps towards burying or cremating a loved one and the many steps of grief one often suffers through such family tragedies. Mrs Wald, sadly, is not normal. She really really bought into the whole resurrection story. If you are squeamish, look away now. If not, read on.. As Mr Wald's stomach began to bloat and his forehead showed signs of rigor mortis, Mrs Wald, that God fearing woman, whacked a beanie on his head (a knitted cap), covered him with two thick blankets, sealed up the vents and then locked the door leading to the bedroom where her beloved had died, and taped around the door to keep the smell in, and prayed. And prayed.. And prayed.. She prayed that he would rise from the dead. 6 months later, Mr Wald, naturally, was still dead. She still prayed. After 6 months, Mr Wald was so badly decomposed, he could no longer be identified and he had attracted rodents. She was charged, of course.. “We were trusting God … we thought, ‘OK Lord, you know better’,” Mrs Wald told The Spectator outside court yesterday. The "we" she speaks of are 5 of her 6 children and 7 of the adults who live in the house with the family. However, lesson learned... “It was unusual, yes. It was certainly not normal,” Mrs Wald told The Hamilton Spectator. “And we won’t do that again … laws exist and we know that now.” Yes.. I am sure her fellow Canadians are relieved that she knows this now..
A True Best Friend Noah Martin is dead. A German shepherd gave his life saving a woman and her three children during a road-rage incident in Georgia this weekend. On Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving, a dog named Noah died protecting his human family. Noah jumped in front of a barrage of bullets when a man opened fire on the car he was in. According to police, the woman and her kids were not even involved in the original traffic altercation that erupted in road rage. They were just innocent bystanders, according to NBC 11 .... .... Witnesses to the shooting said the dog put himself between the gunfire and the children, effectively saving their lives. "The dog took the bullet for the kids so the kids would be safe," said a witness. (Rose) What more could we ask? I mean, these are the United States of America. People aren't going to stop shooting at one another for the hell of it any time soon. Rest well, Noah. ____________________ Notes: Rose, Rebecca. "Hero Dog Saves Family By Jumping in Front of Bullets". Jezebel. 1 December 2014. Jezebel.com. 3 December 2014. http://jezebel.com/hero-dog-saves-family-by-jumping-in-front-of-bullets-1665502154
Careful, He's a Professional! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! "It's very unusual. Obviously you have somebody that's used to handling firearms. It's very unusual to see somebody discharge a firearm, accidentally, in a confined space like that. It's very unusual." ―Capt. Michael John, Cincinnati Police Department One of the things we occasionally hear in the dispute over firearms and gun rights in the United States is a weird idea about how accidental shootings just can't happen because of the nature of guns. It's not a reliable argument, and only comes out for test runs when the question is trigger locks or other safety regulations intended to reduce the number of accidental shootings. So to the one, it's not actually a serious point in the debate; to the other, those who stoke such notions do come to mind as I find myself wondering why a police officer would deliberately shoot himself and make it look like an accident. Maybe he was trying to impress his wife. Actually, in truth, it just looks like one of those dumbassed things that happens once in a while among those who carry firearms. Shit happens, and we can take a moment to at least appreciate the fact that the only person he shot was himself. ____________________ Notes: Mazza, Ed. "Darryl Jouett, Police Officer, Accidentally Shoots Himself In An Elevator". The Huffington Post. 6 January 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. 6 January 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/darryl-jouett-shoots-himself-in-the-stomach_n_6420688.html
Do Not Read This Post Seriously, I have no idea what to do with this one .... Michael McLaughlin↱ tries to explain this one for the Huffington Post: The attorney representing a man accused of dousing his fiancee with gasoline and setting her on fire this week claims that it was a "horrible accident." Unfortunately, the story only goes downhill from there. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say, "Downhill"? I meant it only goes off the cliff and screams all the way down into the chasm from there. WBNS-TV reports that police say Michael Slager, 40, poured what is believed to be gasoline on Malinowski in the parking lot that day, before igniting her. WBNS-TV also reports that Malinowski has identified Slager as the culprit. Police charged him with felonious assault and aggravated arson. But when Slager appeared in court on Wednesday, Doug Shaw, his attorney, said that his client was in a wheelchair due to injuries sustained as he rescued the woman he loves. Shaw said that his client was "horrifically burned" while trying to save Malinowski, but he couldn't comment on how she became covered with a flammable liquid. Curiously, Mr. Slager is known to have put out the fire. What? I warned you, right? I warned you not to cry. I warned you not to sing. I warned you not to sleep around with everything. I warned you not to go. I warned you not to stay. I warned you not to dig your own little grave. Did I warn you? Did I warn you? This time I'll concentrate, lie back in the water and wait. This thing that I intend to do is harder on me than it is on you. ―Floater↱____________________ Notes: McLaughlin, Michael. "Lawyer For Man Accused Of Setting Fiancee On Fire Says It Was A 'Horrible Accident'". The Huffington Post. 6 August 2015. HuffingtonPost.com. 7 August 2015. http://huff.to/1UuKhUV
Lede of the Day: Bance Pisses Away Parliament Run Oh ... for .... A Toronto businessman who had been running for Parliament with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party made the wrong kind of splash and is out of the race after being caught on video urinating in a coffee cup. (Gilles↱) The story behind Jerry Bance's tumble is even more ridiculous; apparently, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation happened to be putting together a story on home repair, and their hidden cameras caught Mr. Bance urinating into a coffee cup and then pouring it down the sink while his client, the homeowner, was out of the room. And, of course, New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair made the obvious joke, that Bance "must be someone who is adept at Stephen Harper's trickle-down theory of economics". The only problem with that joke was that it was old before it was told. ____________________ Notes: Gilles, Rob. "Canadian Candidate Out Of Race After Caught Peeing In Homeowner's Mug". Talking Points Memo. 7 September 2015. TalkingPointsMemo.com. 8 September 2015. http://bit.ly/1ibk7sR
