`Oil traders and others believe that the Saudi decision to let the price of oil tumble has more to do with Iran than economics.
Their belief has been reinforced in recent days as the Saudi oil minister has steadfastly refused calls for a special meeting of OPEC and announced that the nation is going to increase its production, which will send the price down even farther.
Saudi Oil Minister Ibrahim al-Naimi even said during a recent trip to India that oil prices are headed in the “right direction.”
Not for the Iranians.’
`The city likely will pay $35,000 to settle the claim of a girl forced to perform jumping jacks topless in front of a police officer to avoid arrest.
The Pensacola City Council’s finance committee on Monday forwarded the proposed settlement to a Thursday vote before the full council.
The victim’s attorney, Robert Bleach, said after the meeting that his client will be “glad to put this ugly incident behind her” and will use the money for her college education.
“She certainly didn’t want to go through a trial and relive the whole thing all over again,” he said.’
‘Hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China — and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog, state media reported on Wednesday. [..]
“One neighbour told police that he had heard the boy’s crying that afternoon and another villager confirmed the boy screaming by the henhouse window,” the newspaper said.
A court ruled the boy’s screaming was “the only unexpected abnormal sound” and that 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear.
The boy’s father was ordered to pay 1,800 yuan ($230) in compensation to the owner of the chickens.’
‘You’re the angel of death, man..’
This is a recording made by Tom Mabe, who likes to record phone calls from telemarketers and harass them a bit. It’s pretty funny. 🙂
(3.9meg Flash video)
see it here »
`32. TradingMarkets [..]
TradingMarkets – a Web site that provides its subscribers with professional stock-market expertise for as much as $100 a month – in January invites 10 Playboy models to participate in an investing contest.
When results are tallied toward the end of the year, 40 percent of the bunnies deliver better returns than the S&P 500, compared with just 29 percent of actively managed mutual funds.’
`Sydney councils are paying private detectives thousands of dollars to have sex with prostitutes so they can gather sufficient proof against illegal brothels.
Nine councils across Sydney have forked out $25,000 in fees to private investigators over the past three years.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that Ku-ring-gai Council spent $7000 in the past month employing detectives to have sex with prostitutes.
Ku-ring-gai Mayor Nick Ebbeck said the extreme measures were necessary to prove the businesses were illegal.’
`A Chinese thief has returned a mobile phone and thousands of yuan he stole from a woman after she sent him 21 touching text messages, Xinhua news agency said on Monday. [..]
She gave up hope of seeing her possessions again after sending 21 text messages without a reply.
But on her way out on Sunday morning, she stumbled over a package that had been left in her courtyard only to discover it was her stolen bag. Nothing had been taken.
“Dear Pan: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Please forgive me,” a letter inside said.
“You are so tolerant even though I stole from you. I’ll correct my ways and be an upright person.”‘
`A teenager has been accused of being a deadbeat dad by a government agency that claims he fathered a child – when he was three years old.
Tyler Holden, 15, and his family were shocked when he received a letter of demand from the state agency that chases child support from fathers.
The Victorian Legal Aid’s Child Support Legal Service said it was pursuing child support for a son it claimed Tyler fathered on July 27, 1994.
The letter says if the high school student refuses to sign a statutory declaration confirming he is the child’s father, he must pay $550 for a DNA test to prove otherwise.’
`Eleven employees of a West Seattle automobile dealership allegedly were involved in a plot that resulted in the theft of more than $100,000 from a mentally ill man, King County Prosecutors say.
First, salesmen sold the man a high-priced truck, then they broke into his home to steal more cash, say prosecutors and Seattle Police. They also allege that one salesman then talked the man — by then committed to a mental health unit at Harborview Medical Center — into selling the truck to him at a fraction of its value.’
`Smithfield Foods actually faces a more difficult task than transmogrifying the populations of America’s thirty-two largest cities into edible packages of meat. Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield’s total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums. Even when divided among the many small pig production units that surround the company’s slaughterhouses, that is not a containable amount.’
Long article, but interesting. I didn’t realise pig shit turned ponds pink. 🙂
This guy has had his Xbox 360 break twice. The first time Microsoft sent him out a box to ship it back to them in for repairs. Apparently they’ve changed their policy now and the customer has to provide the box and ship it to Microsoft, and Microsoft will ship it back in the same box.
Unfortunately, this guy isn’t particularly happy about not getting a free box, so he’s soliciting donations to buy the biggest box possible [a cargo shipping container, basically] just so Microsoft will have to pay to ship it back to him.
`A California man faces up to 101 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of sending out e-mail scams as well as related crimes. [..]
Goodin, who was arrested last year, was found guilty of operating a sophisticated phishing scheme, the prosecutors said in the statement. As part of the scam, he sent e-mails posing as AOL’s billing department to trick people into giving up their credit card information, according to the statement. He then used the credit card data to make purchases, prosecutors said Tuesday.’
`A man who ran several marathons while claiming disability benefits has been given a 10-month prison sentence.
Paul Appleby, 47, from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, started claiming benefits in 1994 – saying he needed a wheelchair or walking frame to walk.
But Appleby, who claimed £22,300 in total, joined a running club in 2001, competing in road races and marathons. ‘
`After a losing a pile of money at a casino, a man drove directly to the Casino Control Commission and put his name on a list of people banned from the casinos for life.
It’s a decision he immediately regretted – even more so when he learned that in this case, what happens in Atlantic City does not stay in Atlantic City.
The state commission, identifying the man by his initials, S.D., on Wednesday rejected his bid to become the first person allowed to gamble in the state again after placing himself on the list.
The self-exclusion list was established in 2001 as a way for compulsive gamblers to avoid the temptation. People can choose to be banned for one year, five years or life. There are about 525 people are on the list now – about half for life.’
‘Reversing itself, the Defense Department says an espionage report it produced that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio-frequency transmitters was not true.
The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns.’
Follow up to: Canadian coins bugged, U.S. security agency says
`Normally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the Navy likes to say its new railgun delivers the punch of a missile at bullet prices.
A demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive weapon yesterday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren had Navy brass smiling.
The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.
The technology could increase the striking range of U.S. Navy ships more than tenfold by the year 2020.’
`Doctors’ unions in Romania have criticised a decision to make a surgeon pay £100,000 in damages after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient’s penis during surgery.
Surgeon Naum Ciomu, who had been suffering from stress at the time, had been operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper.
Grabbing a scalpel, he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theatre at Bucharest hospital. ‘
`Police are looking for suspects in the apparent sexual assault of a pit bull puppy in Newark.
The Associated Humane Societies of Newark was notified at 7 a.m. Tuesday by the Newark Police Department that a pit bull puppy had been sodomized by a local resident. An ambulance was dispatched to 321 Seth Boyden Terrace in Newark to rescue the injured animal.
“She was so cold to the touch, she’s in shock. She’s bleeding internally, and she couldn’t even get up,” Debbie Beyfuss of AHS told 1010 WINS. “We’re all sick over this.” ‘
‘Two things made Chistopher Willever’s drunken theft of a Tobacco Hut even worse as he crawled across the store floor _ a lousy belt and his camera-loving backside.
Omaha’s bare-bottom bandit was sentenced to three to five years in prison today for his March crime that earned him the fitting distinction.
Douglas County District Judge Thomas Otepka told the 22-year-old Willever — quote — “You were an ass in every true sense of the word in this crime.”
Willever’s public defender says Willever was tired of being poor so he drank a fifth of rum and decided to rob the store. ‘
see it here »
`Tennessee collected almost $1.8 million in taxes on cocaine, crack, moonshine and other “unauthorized substances” in 2006, the second year the tax was in effect.
The $1,773,535 collected last year marked a 3.4 percent increase from 2005.
Drug dealers, moonshiners and other purveyors of controlled and illicit substances are supposed to purchase tax stamps under the 2-year-old law, the state Department of Revenue said in a release.
The tax, dubbed the “crack tax” when enacted, has come under attack from attorneys across the state because it is assessed against the accused before their guilt or innocence was decided.
Sellers don’t have to provide any identifying information in order to get the tax stamp.’
`The BBC came under new fire after it announced plans for a £200,000 TV documentary devoted to the most offensive word in the English language.
The programme – tentatively titled I love The C-Word – is billed as examining why the word has become more mainstream in recent years. [..]
Both the BBC and North One claimed it will not be sensationalist. A spokeswoman for the programme said: “It will look at how a word that was considered completely unacceptable has moved into the mainstream, particularly by younger people. The tone will be a serious exploration of the word.”‘
The feedback suits the user name. 🙂
`The federal government argued that Boy Scouts playing with fire caused a 14,200-acre wildfire and wants a judge to hold them responsible, allowing officials to seek damages.
In court documents, the government said it would decide whether to seek damages after a ruling is made. It says the June 2002 wildfire in northeastern Utah cost more than $12 million to control. [..]
At the time of the blaze, a fire ban was in effect because of dry conditions. In court documents, the Scouts maintain they were not aware of a formal fire ban and thought small pit fires were allowed.
In depositions, Scouts testified they were playing with fire, even offering a teenage counselor candy in return for setting one, Overby said.’
`The House lawmaker in charge of defense spending said Friday that he intends to force the closure of the Guantánamo Bay military prison and curb U.S. engagement in Iraq, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “absolutely” supports his efforts. [..]
He said the best way to control what course the war takes is for Congress to attach conditions to war-spending bills, because Bush is unlikely to veto a bill that provides money to keep fighting.
The Guantďż˝namo military prison, where prisoners have been held without charges and abused, need to be closed to restore U.S. credibility, Murtha said.’
`ACFI is a group of people working for the peoples right to it’s Internets. We have made progress in Ladonia and are now working on the Micronation of Sealand.
Recently it was made clear that this country is for sale. To make sure the owners will be kopimistic and that the country won’t be governed by people that do not care about it’s future, we have come up with a plan.
With the help of all the kopimists on Internets, we want to buy Sealand. Donate money and you will become a citizien.’
‘A Harstselle man who allegedly stole $300 from his grandfather’s wallet has been charged with armed robbery, authorities said. [..]
Detective Kyle Wilson said Daniel Brown donned a ski mask and jacket, armed himself with a handle from a hydraulic floor jack and made the 10-foot hike to his grandfather’s home next door.
“There’s a woman that lives there with his grandpa,” Wilson said. “He said, ‘Sit down, Bernice.’ Then he goes to his grandpa’s room and he says, ‘This is a robbery, I need your money, and I mean it, Pa-Paw.'” [..]
Daniel Brown denied he was the man behind the mask. The cash reported stolen had not been recovered Wednesday.’
`Dentists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals in the Pittsburgh area have been targeted by a “hit man” e-mail scheme, receiving messages that tell them to pay up to spare their lives, the FBI said.
The e-mail, which was sent to most recipients around Christmas, tells the reader that there is a contract out on his life, generally for $50,000.
It says that if the recipient sends the “hit man” more money than that — generally ranging from $80,000 to $150,000 — the hit man will leave him alone.’
`You saw the stories that dominated the headlines in 2006: the war in Iraq, North Korea’s nuclear tests, and the U.S. midterm elections. But what about the news that remained under the radar? From the Bush administration’s post-Katrina power grab to a growing arms race in Latin America to the new hackable passports, FP delivers the Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006.’
`Unfortunately, calling me alarmist or paranoid doesn’t address what I’m saying, it does nothing but calm your fears. The existence of a “global elite” is perfectly real, although the reader is of course welcome to deny it. And a great many of the men — and it’s all men, folks — who make up this global elite are on record, again and again, in no uncertain terms, stating that they would like to remove a large portion of the humans currently living on Earth.
To make matters worse, the technology to do this exists — in fact, there is an over-abundance of methods for mass murder at this point in human history. So here we have a very dangerous and disturbing nexus, a point where several threads overlap and intertwine. We have a small group of very powerful humans who have expressed the desire for “population reduction” and have the means to accomplish that goal within their possession.’
`Danny Robert Villegas liked prison so much he staged a robbery just to get back in, police say. Officers were called to the Kennedy Space Center Federal Credit Union on Monday after Villegas allegedly walked inside, told the teller he was robbing her and said, “You might as well call the police now,” according to a police report.
Police Lt. Ron Wright said Villegas then sat on a couch in the bank lobby to wait for police.
“He said he wanted to rob a federal bank because he wanted to go back to a federal penitentiary,” Wright said. “Apparently he robbed a bank in Fresno, California, 10 years ago, was sentenced to 70 months in a federal penitentiary in Phoenix and he enjoyed his time there.”‘
