‘Cannes is smacking its lips in anticipation of filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore’s latest jeremiad against the US administration, which receives its premiere at the film festival today. Sicko, a documentary tackling the state of American healthcare, focuses on the pharmaceutical giants, and particularly on health insurers.
[..] Now, according to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Company is behind the film, the US government is attempting to impound the negative.
According to Weinstein, the US Treasury’s moves meant “we had to fly the movie to another country”- he would not say to where. “Let the secret service find that out – though this is the same country that thought there were weapons of mass destruction, so they’ll never find it.” He added that he feared that if the film were impounded, there might be attempts to cut some footage, in particular the last 20 minutes, which related to a trip to Cuba. This, said Weinstein, “would not be good.”‘
‘In College Writing 101, a girl in the back of the class said about the situation in Iraq:
“Why should we listen to what the Iraq people have to say? They are the ones who blew up the World Trade Center!” [..]
World History class, talking about the French Revolution, completely out of the blue:
“Had people invented how to swim by this time?” [..]
Some chick behind me announced “HEY TURN OFF THE BUNSEN BURNER YOU ARE WASTING ELECTRICITY”. Thankfully my chemistry teacher heard this and booted her from the class. We overheard him outside having a shouting match with the department head asking why he had to teach the mentally disabled.’
Followup to Dumb Things Heard In Class.
‘”Bubba” Ludwig can’t walk, talk or open the refrigerator door — but he does have his very own Illinois gun permit.
The 10-month-old, whose given name is Howard David Ludwig, was issued a firearm owner’s identification card after his father, Howard Ludwig, paid the $5 fee and filled out the application, not expecting to actually get one.
The card lists the baby’s height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be. [..]
Illinois State Police oversee the application process. Their purpose, said Lt. Scott Compton, is to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, those under an order of protection and those convicted of domestic violence.
“Does a 10-month-old need a FOID card? No, but there are no restrictions under the act regarding age of applicants,” he said.’
‘Chase Smith is your typical, cute toddler. She loves to play with her friends at nursery, snuggle up with her mummy and cuddle her teddy.
Yet the two-year-old is different from her playmates in one incredible way — she was born with half her brain missing.
Stephanie Jepson, 21, and her partner Adam Smith, 20, only found out about their daughter’s condition when a strange series of symptoms revealed her shocking condition.
As Chase’s incredible scan on the right reveals, she has no left side to her brain.
The condition is so rare medics do not know what the future holds. [..]
Doting mum Stephanie says: “There are moments in your life you never forget. For me one came when a doctor flicked on the switch of a lightbox to show me a scan of the inside of my little girl’s head.”‘
‘This site was based off the 2 year diary of a real life Schizophrenic, James Caldwell. His True Diary of Psychological Episodes takes you along the journey of a mad man who struggles to get stabilized on medicine. His diaries of psychosis talk about everything he was hearing, tasting, smelling, and seeing during these encounters at the time, Hallucinating. He will take you through his fears, thoughts, and feelings. His original handwritten notebook has been transcribed to digital.’
‘Runners in Ohio’s Rite Aid Cleveland 10K race on Sunday found themselves running several extra miles after mistakenly being diverted by race officials.
A police officer along the route reportedly redirected the car leading the runners and that wrong turn added nearly three miles to the 6.1-mile event, the Cleveland Plain Dealer said.
Adding to the racers’ woes were some misplaced traffic cones along the route and a major bottleneck created by several walking marathon participants.
After the chaotic race was finally completed, race officials were at a loss to determine how well each participant did.’
The video camera’s frame rate syncs up with the rotor speed, so it looks like the blades are not spinning at all.
(2.7meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘Two men drank themselves to death after one of them received a payout for being mistakenly identified as a murder suspect, an inquest has heard.
Gareth Roberts, 47, and his flatmate Ian Stedham, 43, were found dead in their Pwllheli flat in February.
Mr Roberts had received £10,000 in compensation from the Daily Mail after being wrongly identified as a suspect in the murders of five prostitutes.
The coroner recorded a verdict of death as a result of alcohol abuse on both.’
‘A Canadian hitchhiker, who stole an elderly man’s car after he offered her a ride, died a few minutes later when she lost control of the vehicle and crashed into trees, police said.
The crash happened near the town of Hawkesbury — about 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Ottawa — after the man stopped to pick up 20-year-old Mandy Deschambeault.
“The male driver proceeded to step out of his vehicle momentarily at which point the female jumped in the driver seat, stealing the male person’s car,” local police said in a statement Monday.
“She proceeded to lose control of the … car, crossing the other lane hitting trees. The female was ejected from the vehicle and found to be without vital signs.”‘
‘A window cleaner drowned in his own bucket after collapsing.
Mark Fairhurst, 35, was found with his head in the pail by a customer.
The dad of one collapsed due to a heart condition — but a post mortem showed the cause of death was drowning, an inquest heard.
Customer Elizabeth Bebe, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, told the hearing: “I came home that evening and went outside to hang some washing at the back when I saw a ladder propped up against the wall.
“I then saw Mark lying motionless on the ground, with his arms tucked in and his head tilted inside the bucket.
“It looked like he had been in that position for some time.”‘
‘Just in case you didn’t already piece it together, many (if not all) of the new HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles set for release on May 22nd will feature the latest revisions to AACS. Right, the update hinted at by those forced user updates to the WinDVD and PowerDVD software. Yeah, well no worries… it’s cracked. That’s right, a week before the disks have even hit the shops, the kids over at Slysoft have already released AnyDVD HD 6.1.5.1 (beta) which kicks AACS MKB v3 swiftly to the curb. Thus you can continue to rip all your newly purchased HD DVD and BD flicks for playback any damn way you like.’
‘Actor Sylvester Stallone was formally convicted Monday of importing restricted muscle-building hormones into Australia and ordered to pay more than $9,870 in fines and court costs.
New South Wales state Deputy Chief Magistrate Paul Cloran said the “Rocky” and “Rambo” star had failed to show he had a valid prescription for vials of human growth hormone that were in his luggage when he arrived for a promotional tour in February. Stallone also had failed to declare the male hormone testosterone on a customs entry form, although he had a valid prescription.
Cloran fined Stallone $2,500 and ordered him to pay $8,200 in prosecution costs. Stallone, who was not present in court, had pleaded guilty last week.’
Followup to Stallone charged over growth drug.
‘A Cincinnati-area family got a smelly surprise when they opened a punching bag they purchased earlier this year.
Joe Heckel said he and his son were moving a TKO brand heavy punching bag from their garage to the basement when they decided to see what was inside in case the bag later leaked. But Heckel said that instead of sand or plastic pellets, he found the bag full of men’s and women’s underwear, some of it used.
“(There were) bras, thongs and bathing suits. We could not believe there were clothes inside instead of sand,” he said.
Heckel said the smell was “bad, real bad.”‘
‘Police in a city in New York are investigating who sent a package containing 12 pounds of marijuana to an elementary school.
Kent Town Police also want to know who at the Kent Primary School was the intended recipient.
The package was addressed to Joan Pinserton — which is a misspelling of the principal’s name — Pinkerton. The principal was suspicious of the package when it was delivered by Federal Express Thursday because of the odor it emanated — so she had it moved to the rear of the school property by the bus garage.’
‘The way was cleared on Thursday for scientists to conduct experiments using hybrid animal-human embryos after the government bowed to a storm of protest from researchers who said a proposed ban could hurt British science.
The Department of Health said it would accept a recommendation from the Commons Science and Technology Committee that inter-species embryos could be created for research.
Scientists want to use the hybrid embryos to find cures for illnesses such as Parkinson’s, stroke and Alzheimer’s.’
This is a followup to Roommate Revenge: Buttered Floor Video. Also, there’s a video of the roommate’s re-revenge. 🙂
(4.4 and 2.4meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘A bumbling intruder broke into an empty New Zealand police station and accidentally locked himself in a cell, but managed to smash his way out again just before authorities arrived.
Sgt. Graham McGurk on Monday said the person broke into the deserted police station in the town of Matamata on North Island on Saturday night through the front office.
The intruder went to the cell bloc, and was accidentally locked in when a self-closing door clicked shut.
As police rushed to respond to an intruder alarm at the post, the intruder used a wooden chair that was inside the cell to smash through a window – supposedly outfitted with shatter-proof glass – to freedom.’
‘These suicide notes were gathered at the coroners’ offices by a suicidologist/psychiatrist who asked to be anonymous. He edited identifying details out of the compiled manuscript, and we changed the names. But the text of each letter plus the age and sex given are real. All these people did kill themselves. Were they ambivalent about it? About half the hundred or so letters we saw seemed to have some element of doubt.’
‘A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.
While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians’ removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies. [..]
While planning to raise the issue with the Russian authorities, EU and Nato officials have been careful not to accuse the Russians directly.
If it were established that Russia is behind the attacks, it would be the first known case of one state targeting another by cyber-warfare.’
These people have put a scary mask on a sheep. Every time it tries to join the herd they become terrified and run away.
(1.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A massive wildfire that has already burned thousands of acres in the Pinelands and forced the evacuation of residents in two towns likely started this afternoon when an F-16 fighter jet dropped flares as part of a maneuver over a gunnery range, New Jersey National Guard officials said tonight.
The fire, fueled by dry conditions and gusty winds, has already consumed more than 12,000 acres, almost 19 square miles, along the border of Ocean and Burlington counties. Several highways were closed and as many as 2,000 homes in Stafford and Barnegat townships, including several retirement communities, had been evacuated.’
Some of the comments are quite amusing.
way out in the water, see it swimming ..
(9.1meg Flash video)
see it here »
no comprende, it’s a riddle.
(9.6meg Flash video)
see it here »
This is a little animation of one soldiers point of view of combat in Iraq. It’s interesting, although probably not psychologically sensible. 🙂
(10.7meg avi)
see it here »
The fathers who write that eternity is used to fight the sword have filled you up with the devil’s cock.
He’ll come in the name of the Lord.
see it here »
‘A partially blind, one-legged diabetic man chased his terrified neighbors with a 10-inch knife because their front door kept slamming, police say.
Cursing and ”yelling racial profanities,” Barry A. Friedman used his free hand to maneuver his wheelchair, North Miami police said.
”The couple escaped him by hiding behind doors,” a police report says.
The attack took place on the fourth floor of the Forest Place Apartments, 1600 NE 135th St., neighbors said.
Friedman, 61, admitted anger because building managers and police had been unable to stop his neighbors from slamming their doors.
The attack was the only way a ”diabetic man in his 60s, missing a leg and partially blind can take action,” he told police.’
‘A Helton Street man called Middletown police Friday night to report that he had shot a woman in the face.
Middletown police and fire units responded at 11:18 p.m. to 4205 Helton St., where they found Debbie Dockery, 47, fatally wounded from a gunshot.
Charles Frost, 59, was taken into custody, said Middletown police Lt. Don Owens, who confirmed early Saturday that “the suspect called us” to report the homicide.’
