today's news

[hamburglar]

i hate the world

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_re_us/police_shooting

[hexapus]

State Moves to Ban Fake Testicles on Vehicles

Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:03pm EDT

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Senate lawmakers in Florida have voted to ban the fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of many trucks and cars throughout the state.

Republican Sen. Cary Baker, a gun shop owner from Eustis, Florida, called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz" and resemble the south end of a bull moving north.

The Florida Senate voted last week to add the measure to a broader transportation bill, but it is not included in the House version.

In a spirited debate laced with double entendre, Senate lawmakers questioned whether the state should curtail freedom of expression in vehicle accessories.

Critics of the ban included the Senate Rules Chairman, Sen. Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican whose truck sported a pair until his wife protested.

The bill's sponsor doubted it would succeed.

"It's probably not going to make it through the process," Baker said on Thursday. "It won't be much of story in a few days."

Reuters Link

[landho]

One of the most fucked-up things I've ever read. (Courtesy of CNN.com.)

---

AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- A 73-year-old man has confessed to holding his daughter captive in his home cellar for nearly 24 years and fathering seven children by her, Austrian police say.

Austrian police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN, the man, known as Mr. F., admitted holding his daughter hostage in a windowless cell in the basement of his home for more than two decades.

Mr. F. also told police that one of the children he fathered with his daughter Elisabeth F. was a twin who died.

Mr. F. also admitted he burned the body of the dead child in an oven, according to Polzer.

Further DNA tests will now be carried out to confirm fatherhood, Polzer said.

Elisabeth F., 42, is described as "very disturbed" and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal, reports CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen.

She went missing in 1984, when she was 18 years old, police said at a news conference Sunday.

The situation came to light earlier this month after her daughter -- a 19-year-old woman, identified as Kristen F. -- was hospitalized in Amstetten after falling unconscious, according to police.

She was admitted to a hospital in Amstetten, outside Vienna, by her grandfather with a note from her biological mother requesting help. Amstetten is a rural town about 150 km (93 miles) west of Vienna.

But police said a DNA test later revealed her grandfather, Mr. F., was also her father, according to ORF, Austria's state-run news agency.

That sparked a police investigation, which revealed that Mr. F. may have fathered at least six children with his daughter, forcing her and three of the surviving children to live in the cellar of his house, according to ORF's Peter Schmitzberger.

The children are now between 5 and 19 years old.

Polzer told ORF that the 73-year-old led police to several hidden rooms in his cellar accessible only by an electronic passcode that he provided to police.

On Sunday, police searched the hidden rooms where Mr. F. admitted he kept his daughter and their children, Polzer told ORF.

The rooms included sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a bathroom, which Mr. F. told police he built, Polzer said.

Conditions in the 50-60 square meters cellar were described as "very dark, narrow and damp, " reports Pleitgen.

Kerstin, 19; Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5, remained locked in the basement with their mother, according to police. None had seen the light of day during their entire time in captivity, she told police.

Shocked residents of the neighborhood -- a tidy, middle-class district of homes -- said there were no indications of the horrors taking place in the house.

The suspect "was friendly -- that's why this is so unbelievable," said Franz Redl, 56, who owns a shop across the street. "I'm sure the authorities did all they could. He planned everything so perfectly," he told The Associated Press.

While a woman identified as Gabriele H. told Austria's Kurier newspaper she thought Mr. F. was a devoted grandfather doing his best to look after his abandoned grandchildren.

"One who looks after their grandchildren whilst their mother just ran away. We were all asking ourselves what kind of mother would do that to their children?," she said.

Another local, Berhard E , who lives opposite the family, told Kurier: "I am appalled, this is unimaginable and simply not comprehensible."

Mr. F. and I grew up together" said Erika Manhalter who lives a few meters away from their house. "We thought this would be a family just like others, but you cannot look through people," she told Kurier.

News of the cellar captivity case has also prompted much soul searching in a country still reeling from the 2006 case of teenager Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement cell outside Vienna.

Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in Vienna on her way to school in March 1998. She was held for more than eight years by Wolfgang Priklopil, who later killed himself when Natascha escaped.

"How is it possible that no one has ever heard or seen anything?" Der Standard newspaper asked.

"What does it say about the neighbors, relatives, family and friends, but also those who had to deal officially with the family? How could he have been successful keeping people fooled?"

"The entire nation must ask itself just what is fundamentally going wrong," the paper said in a commentary.

Amstetten police say they apprehended Mr. F. and Elisabeth F. on Saturday near the hospital for questioning, after receiving a "confidential tip." Once police assured the daughter that she would never have contact with her father again, "she was able to tell the whole story," Schmitzberger said.

Mr. F. lived upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie F., who police said had no idea about her husband's other family living in the cellar.

Mr. F. and Rosemarie F. had adopted three of the children that he had with his daughter, according to police. He told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped the unwanted children off at the house because she could not take care of them, police said.

After she was detained Saturday, Elisabeth F. gave police a "psychologically and physically disturbed impression," police said in a statement.

She said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police. For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement.

She also told police she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one of the babies died a few days later as a result of neglect, and Mr. F. removed the infant's body and burned it.

She told police that only her father supplied her and her children with food and clothing, and that she did not think his wife knew anything about their situation.

When Kerstin fell ill earlier this month, Mr. F. apparently told his wife and the hospital that his "missing" daughter had dropped off the sick girl on his doorstep.

In an effort to find out what might be ailing 19-year-old Kerstin, the hospital asked the media to put out a bulletin requesting any information about the girl or her missing mother, attorney general Gerhard Sedlacek told NTV.

Sometime later, Mr. F. brought Elisabeth F. out of the cellar, telling his wife that she had returned home with her two children after a 24-year absence, police said.

He took Elisabeth F. to the hospital to talk with doctors about Kerstin's condition, and at that point, authorities became aware of her situation, Sedlacek said.

[conqueror]

just saw that on the news, so messed up. his wife said she had no idea what was going on for 24yrs? bullshit.

[samsikle]

ugh that story makes me sick

[landho]

A follow-up news story says that the kids never saw sunlight and that the mother had not in 24 years.

[Guest chemi]

err...

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_skidnap18.3e5137c.html

[Le Buttsecks]

no nose playa no one knows where my nose is nigguh no nosetrils

[FunkyFrenchy]

A Guy in France had a girl...

Locked her in his cave...

Make 7 child with here...

And killed all the child when they came to the world...

this sick bastard is 71 years old.

[whitney]

Benton County Jail

Broderick Lloyd Laswell says he's dropped from 413 to 305 pounds in jail.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (April 27) - An inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge is suing the county, complaining he has lost more than 100 pounds because of the jail house menu.

Broderick Lloyd Laswell says he isn't happy that he's down to 308 pounds after eight months in the Benton County jail. He has filed a federal lawsuit complaining the jail doesn't provide inmates with enough food.

According to the suit, Laswell weighed 413 pounds when he was jailed in September. Police say he and a co-defendant fatally beat and stabbed a man, then set his home on fire.

"On several occasions I have started to do some exercising and my vision went blurry and I felt like I was going to pass out," Laswell wrote in his complaint. "About an hour after each meal my stomach starts to hurt and growl. I feel hungry again."

But Laswell then goes on to complain that he undertakes little vigorous activity.

"If we are in a small pod all day (and) do next to nothing for physical exercise, we should not lose weight," the suit says. "The only reason we lost weight in here is because we are literally being starved to death."

The suit also asks that the county be ordered to serve hot meals. The jail has served only cold food for years.

The meals, provided through Aramark Correctional Institution Services, average 3,000 calories a day, jail Capt. Hunter Petray told The Morning News of northwest Arkansas for a story Saturday.

A typical Western diet consists of 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day.

Laswell's suit was filed without a lawyer in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville.

link

[seraphim]

'Father of LSD' dies aged 102

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Wednesday April 30 2008. It was last updated at 12:31 on April 30 2008.

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann pictured in his garden in Burg im Leimental, Switzerland. Photograph: Niklaus Stauss/AP/Keystone

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died aged 102.

Hofmann, known as the father of LSD, died yesterday at his home in Burg im Leimental, Basle, Switzerland.

His death was confirmed by Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village where Hofmann lived following his retirement in 1971.

The California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Maps), which republished Hofman's book on LSD, said on its website that he had died from a heart attack.

Dieter A Hagenbach, a friend of 40 years, last spoke to Hofmann on Saturday. "He was in good spirits and enjoying the springtime," said Hagenbach.

Born on January 11 1906, Hofmann discovered LSD - lysergic acid diethylamide, which later became the favoured drug of the 1960s counterculture - when a tiny quantity leaked on to his hand during a laboratory experiment in 1943.

He noted a "remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness" that made him stop his work. "At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination," Hofmann wrote in his book LSD: My Problem Child.

"In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours this condition faded away."

A few days later, Hofmann intentionally took a dose of LSD and experienced the world's first "bad trip".

"On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror," he said.

"My surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways. A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul. I jumped up and screamed, trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay helpless on the sofa. The substance, with which I had wanted to experiment, had vanquished me."

The former Harvard lecturer Timothy Leary popularised LSD with his "turn on, tune in, drop out" advice in the 1960s. But Hofmann believed the substance was hijacked and abused by the hippy movement, while he maintained that he produced it as a medicine.

Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped LSD would make an important contribution to psychiatric research. The drug exaggerated inner problems and conflicts and it was hoped it might be used to treat mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

For a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in medicine, with just one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people for 12 hours.

The US government banned LSD in 1966, following stories of heavy users suffering permanent psychological damage, and other countries followed suit.

The president of Maps, Rick Doblin, said he had spoken to Hofmann on the phone recently "and he was happy and fulfilled. He'd seen the renewal of LSD psychotherapy research with his own eyes".

Hofmann is survived by a son and daughter. His wife and their other two children died before him.

[blm14]

aw, RIP abby.

[blm14]

evidently, eyebrow lines are now a gang symbol:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hXjLXx_E-FPl5gECRlHlEcYt7ZagD90B8VJG1

[landho]

A congressional candidate gives a speech at Hitler's birthday party:

Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Indiana's 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.

"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle said Monday. "I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta."

[Chicken]

some amazing news in this thread. mr F takes the cake though. although i must admit i was really surprised to know the LSD guy from the famous bicycle day was still alive. may he rest in peace.

this news has amazing video, but it's pretty graphic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7354458.stm

[jselvedge]

Breaking News: Portland Police have arrested a man thought to be the leader of the eyebrow line gang

[Le Buttsecks]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24510864/wid/11915829?GT1=40006

SAN FRANCISCO - Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims.

But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.

The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.

The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation's publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site's support forums.

Within the hackers' posts were small flashing pictures and links — masquerading as helpful — to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.

"They were out to create seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation.

He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.

Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of Web sites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.

In another recent attack, hackers exploited a simple coding vulnerability in Sen. Barack Obama's Web site to redirect users visiting the community blogs section to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's official campaign site.

The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation's site didn't appear to care about profit. The harmful pages didn't appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims' computers, for instance.

"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline — they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."

In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people. That attack appeared to have been designed to cripple the computers of people using illegal copies of the software, researchers said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[gfunkdocta]

^^^

next level news above.

[nf one]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23480767-details/Pictured:+Inside+the+cellar+where+father+locked+daughter+for+24+years+and+repeatedly+raped+her/article.do

not cool homeboy not cool

edit: looks like this is waht funkyfrenchy was talking about cept he got his facts a little mixed up

[Chicken]

Great tits cope well with warming

(sorry in advance, the title's better then the article. )

[mellowbonsai]

no news, but i was really struck by the picture in today's NYT

[thejimbo]

I thought this news story was worthy of chickens news thread.

Grave-Stoned

[hamburglar]

HOLYHEAD, Wales (AP) -- A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a black garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of Britain's first Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones -- a.k.a. Master Jonba Hehol -- with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates' Court.

He also whacked Jones' 18-year-old cousin, Michael Jones -- or Master Mormi Hehol -- bruising his thigh, in the March 25 incident.

Unfortunately for Hughes, the incident was recorded on a video camera that the cousins had set up to film themselves in a light saber battle.

"Darth Vader! Jedis!" Hughes shouted as he approached.

Hughes claimed he couldn't remember the incident, having drunk the best part of a 10-liter (two-and-half-gallon) box of wine beforehand.

"He knows his behavior was wrong and didn't want it to happen but he has no recollection of it," said Hughes' lawyer, Frances Jones.

District Judge Andrew Shaw sentenced Hughes to two months in jail but suspended the sentence for one year.

He also ordered Hughes to pay £100 ($195) to each of his victims and £60 ($117) in court costs.

Barney Jones, his brother Daniel and cousin Michael set up the Church of Jediism, Anglesey order, last year. It claims about 30 members.

Jedi is the faith followed by some of the central characters in the "Star Wars" films. In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 people -- 0.7 percent of the population -- listed Jedi as their religion.

http://edition. cnn. com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/13/britain. vader. ap/index. html?iref=mpstoryview

[Chicken]

I thought this news story was worthy of chickens news thread.

Grave-Stoned

the answer is: yes.

today's news:

Passenger told to 'hang out' in toilet sues airline

It was not the fact that he was asked to give up his seat on a JetBlue Airways plane on behalf of a flight attendant that appears to have upset Gokhan Mutlu so much. It was the alternative seat he was offered - in the toilet.

Mutlu has lodged a $2m (£1m) lawsuit in a Manhattan court complaining that he was told to "go hang out" in the toilet and made to sit there for up to three hours of a five-hour flight from San Diego to New York. Not only did he suffer "extreme humiliation", the legal papers say, but he was also subjected to "tremendous fear" and danger as he was left in the closet without a seatbelt.

The legal action has so far been met with a resounding no comment from JetBlue, a low-cost airline that prides itself on its relatively new fleet of planes and efficient service. That is not how Mutlu describes his experience in the court papers.

He was travelling on February 16 on a JetBlue "buddy pass" that allows friends of the airline's employees to travel on standby. The flight was full, but he was allowed on after a flight attendant agreed to sit in one of the "jump seats" used by employees.

Ninety minutes into the flight Mutlu was told the flight attendant was uncomfortable in the jump seat and would be taking his seat instead. According to the lawsuit, he was pointed towards the toilet.

When he protested, the pilot came back and told him "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command, that [Mutlu] should be grateful for being on board". He was left in the toilet even during turbulence, without a seatbelt, breaking federal laws, the legal papers say.

He was later allowed to return to his original seat, but evidently not quickly enough to prevent him seeking revenge through the courts.

[thejimbo]

Not only did they ask him to sit in the toilet, but the fact they asked him to 'hang out' in the toilet makes it even funnier.

i got another

Driver couldn't give a XXXX for child

An Australian driver has been fined for putting a seatbelt around a crate of beer instead of a five-year-old who was travelling in the car.

Constable Wayne Burnett said he was "shocked and appalled" to discover the driver's priorities when he pulled the vehicle over on a highway south of Alice Springs.

The 30 cans of beer were buckled in while the child sat on the floor.

"I haven't ever seen something like this before," he said.

"There were four adults in the car, two in the front seat and two in the back seats and in between those adults there was the carton of beer strapped in with the belt," he said.

"The child was sitting in the lump in the centre, unrestrained."

The driver was fined 750 dollars (£360) for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle and failing to ensure a child was wearing a seatbelt.

[Chicken]

between hamburglar's drunken darth vader and jimbo's seatbelt man, i love alcoholics who have their priorities straight.

what?

[Chicken]

today's news:

Icelandic museum offers long and short of male organ

HUSAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Sigurdur Hjartarson is missing a human penis. But he's not worried: four men have promised to donate theirs to him when they die.

Hjartarson is founder and owner of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which offers visitors from around the world a close-up look at the long and the short of the male reproductive organ.

His collection, which began in 1974 with a single bull's penis that looked something like a riding crop, now boasts 261 preserved members from 90 species.

The largest, from a sperm whale, is 70 kg (154 lb) and 1.7 meters (5.58 ft) long. The smallest, a hamster penis bone, is just 2 mm and must be viewed through a magnifying glass.

One species conspicuous by its absence is homo sapiens, but that may soon be rectified since a German, an American, an Icelander and a Briton have promised to donate their organs after death, according to certificates on display.

more...

[Blicero]

Boobs v moobs: court ruling sparks censorship debate

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080516/tuk-lifestyle-britain-court-media-sex-a7ad41d.html

LONDON (AFP) - A court ruling that it is legal to ogle a man's chest but not a woman's breasts triggered a lively online debate about censorship on Friday.

The case emerged after a court last year found Kevin Bassett, 44, guilty under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act after he secretly filmed a man in his swimming trunks at a swimming pool.

But lawyers for the care home worker argued that the man's chest did not constitute "private parts" under the act, which referred only to women's breasts in such terms.

This was the case even if the man in question was obese, and had "man breasts" or "moobs," they said, cited by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

[Chicken]

^ if the voyeur who got caught was a young woman, i'm sure the reaction would have been completely different. you never hear a sexual harassment suit against women. for good reasons.

anyways, today's little news:

Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address

TOKYO (AP) — When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught — recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

(i love the part the parrot refused to talk to the police. -c)

[m1sterko]

damn, thats a tear jerker. haha