‘A Lakewood, Ohio, landlord has been ordered by a judge to house arrest in one of his derelict buildings until he makes the proper repairs.
Lakewood Municipal Judge Patrick Carroll ordered Richard Naumann to live in his Lake Avenue apartment building — which has no heat, hot water, operable stoves or ovens — until proper repairs are made to the two buildings he owns, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday.
Naumann, who will only be allowed to leave the building between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. for work, will also be outfitted with an electronic monitoring device on his ankle to ensure he abides by the judge’s command, the newspaper said.’
‘Police in Clackamas County are looking for a man they say locked three live pigs in his house in the hopes that they would trash the place. All because he was upset the home went into foreclosure. [..]
Lovett bought a home on SE Wildcat Mountain Drive in Eagle Creek a few years ago. In January the house went into foreclosure. Neighbors told police that Lovett was extremely distraught over the the situation.
Neighbor Pat Bradshaw was shocked when he returned home from a California trip to find the house in ruins.
“All the windows are broken, he obviously dumped some gravel on top of the roofline, he took his excavator and smashed it into the wall,” said Bradshaw.’
People find themselves attracted to studying chemistry for different reasons.
Sometimes, it starts with nitric acid. 🙂
(2.9meg Shockwave)
see it here »
‘A police campaign to crack down on pickpockets has come too late to help the capital’s top crime fighter.
Police Chief Anstein Gjengedal’s wallet was snatched by a pickpocket as the campaign was set to begin, the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet reported Friday.
The police chief was on the Oslo airport train Monday when a group of people jostled him. When he checked a few minutes later, his wallet was gone.
“I didn’t have much money with me,” he was quoted as saying. “But it still wasn’t very nice.”
Gjengedal said he had followed police advice by having the wallet in the inner pocket of his jacket, but the thieves got it anyway.’
‘A homeless pensioner who has slept rough in one of London’s plushest beauty spots since 1986 was celebrating on Thursday after winning ownership of his plot of land, turning him into an instant millionaire.
Harry Hallowes, 71, secured ownership to a 800 square metre plot in Hampstead Heath, after a two-year legal battle with developers who tried to evict the pensioner from the grounds of a former nursing home.
A building developer had tried unsuccessfully to evict Hallowes from his makeshift shack since March 2005 as it sought to transform the building into luxury flats.
The feisty pensioner dug his heels in and consulted lawyers who provided evidence which showed that he had been living unchallenged on the plot for 21 years, and thus could claim the land as his own.’
‘This guy gets a phone call from a debt collector and responds using a Judge Judy sound board.’
(33.9meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘A disabled gran was stabbed 97 times by her killer — for 32p in her piggy bank.
Frail Ann Alfanso, 61, was knifed in the head, body, hands and neck by drug-crazed John Mansfield.
Convicted robber Mansfield, 45, was high on heroin, morphine, cocaine and methadone when he used two knives and scissors to butcher his victim, who lived alone.
A court was told that one blade went right through one of Mrs Alfanso’s hands as she tried to protect herself. As he hunted for cash, Mansfield dragged her around her flat before raiding the piggy bank beside the phone and fleeing, leaving her for dead.’
‘What a day for Apple investors. The stock started off strong today on a lot of pre-market buying, despite news that Amazon will finally start competing on sales of DRM-free music.
Then, whoops, at 11:49 AM EST Engadget posted saying that the iPhone and Leopard operating system launches would be seriously delayed. They based the story on an internal Apple email that was forwarded to them. [..]
Apple’s stock promptly tanked on massive selling, going from $107.89 to $103.42 in six minutes (11:56 – 12:02). This wiped just over $4 billion off of Apple’s market capitalization. A lot of people lost a lot of money very quickly.
Well, it turns out that the email was a hoax. [..]’
‘Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who recently proposed an educational policy that urged “every financial barrier” be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself — as a high paid speaker, his financial records show.
The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus’ Mondavi Center confirmed Monday. [..]
The earnings — though made before Edwards was a declared Democratic presidential candidate — could hand ammunition to his competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidate — who was then the head of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina — chose to speak on “Poverty, the great moral issue facing America,” as his $55,000 topic at UC Davis.’
‘The award-winning furniture retailer has taken Liberal backbencher Don Randall to task over his claims Mr Howard shouldn’t have to buy the chain’s “dodgy” chairs instead of spending $200,000 on plush seating.
Hitting back at the slur, IKEA says its products are good enough for Sweden’s King and Queen and many diplomatic missions around the world. [..]
Mr Nordin said if the issue was about Mr Howard having to assemble the chairs – one of the ways the company keeps its prices down – there was help at hand.
“We would be very happy to talk to the prime minister,” he said.
“We can even offer him an assembly service if he doesn’t feel confident enough to put together the furniture himself.”‘
‘Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don’t know which is which. Or who is who.
The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman’s testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.
When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court.
But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy — and neither one wants to pay the child support.’
‘A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like “Web site” in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.
Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.
“The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a Web site is,” he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.
Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms “Web site” and “forum.” An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: “I haven’t quite grasped the concepts.”
Violent Islamist material posted on the Internet, including beheadings of Western hostages, is central to the case.’
‘French workers are the world’s biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.
Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don’t complain so much.
The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.
“It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,” said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish.’
‘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 ÂŁ10,000 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.’
‘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.
‘Here’s the naked truth about nude recreation: The people who practice it aren’t getting any younger.
To draw 20- and 30-somethings, nudist groups and camps are trying everything from deep discounts on membership fees to a young ambassador program that encourages college and graduate students to talk to their peers about having fun in the buff.
“We don’t want the place to turn into a gated assisted living facility,” said Gordon Adams, membership director at Solair Recreation League, a nudist camp in northeastern Connecticut that recently invited students from dozens of New England schools to a college day in hopes of piquing their interest.
The median age is 55 at Solair, where a yearly membership is $500 for people older than 40, $300 for people younger than 40 and $150 for college students.’
‘Women in Myanmar not only have to watch out for pickpockets when they’re commuting, shopping or walking down the street, but also hair thieves, a weekly journal reported Sunday.
Long-haired women in crowded areas have fallen victim to surreptitious hair snippers who steal their hair to sell, the Burmese-language 24/7 news journal reported. [..]
Many women in Myanmar have waist- or knee-length hair which they wear in a ponytail, making it easy for thieves to snip off the hair and sell it as extensions. [..]
The report said the price of hair has increased as demand for hair as an export or raw material rises. A viss (1.6 kilograms; 3.5 pounds) of hair is worth between 400,000 kyats ($320) and 500,000 kyats ($400), it said.’
‘If you hadn’t heard, TechCrunch20, the conference which alleges to put a sense of merit back into startup conferences, has declared MC Hammer a Web2.0 “expert” and put him on the panel of judges. These judges will select amongst the bajillions of entries the rarified few who will present their wares to VC’s and industries insiders over a two day period.
Who are the other judges?
* Mark Andreeson, founder of Netscape.
* Chris Anderson, Editor-In-Chief of Wired.
* Dave Winer, grandfather of RSS, and author of one of the first blogs ever.’
Also, stop! It’s hammer time..
(10meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘The internet giant Google has plans to compile psychological profiles of millions of web users by covertly monitoring the way they play online games.
The company thinks it can glean information about an individual’s preferences and personality type by tracking his or her online behaviour, which could then be sold to advertisers.
Details such as whether a person is more likely to be aggressive, hostile or dishonest could be stored for future use, it says.’
‘A Vancouver man was sentenced Friday to 13 months in prison for pretending to be mentally retarded in order to claim disability benefits.
Pete J. Costello, 28, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to defraud the government and to Social Security fraud. He began receiving disability benefits when he was 8. He was ordered to repay the $59,226 he has received since turning 18.
Costello, who cannot read or write, dictated a letter to his public defender that was submitted to the judge before sentencing and filed in court.
“I know that it was wrong to ‘act like a child’ in the Social Security office when that is not how I really am,” the letter said. “I feel very bad about this and want to do everything I can to pay this money back.”‘
Followup to Man Accused of Faking Retardation.
‘The job posting was a head-scratcher: “We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA.”
A reporter half a world away covering local street-light contracts and sewer repairs? A reporter who has never gotten closer to Pasadena than the telecast of the Rose Bowl parade?
Outsourcing first claimed manufacturing jobs, then hit services such as technical support, airline reservations and tax preparation. Now comes the next frontier: local journalism.’
‘Cult film production company Hammer Horror is set to be revived after being sold off to a consortium led by Dutch media billionaire Jon de Mol, the creator of Big Brother.
No official price was given for the deal. But sources at Hammer, which created gothic horrors in the 1950s and 1960s such as Dracula, the Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy, said Cryte Investments, in which Mr de Mol is a major shareholder, got it for a “few million” pounds. The new owners plan to invest at least ÂŁ25m initially to resurrect the popular British films – and plans are in the pipeline with a UK broadcaster to launch a Hammer Horror TV series.
Cryte also hopes to restart Hammer’s production division and create new films for the first time in more than 30 years.’
I used to love watching Hammer movies.
‘More than 7,000 – including rock star Pete Townshend – were said to have downloaded child-porn images from a U.S. website.
But an investigation has found that many of those charged as part of the police inquiry codenamed Operation Ore were innocent and their card details had been used illegally.
Simon Bunce, who was accused of using the Texas-based Landslide website, said he was certain his personal information had been used fraudulently. Police found no evidence on his computer but his credit card details were found on the site.
“Thirty-nine people committed suicide after being accused of what I was accused of,” he said. “I reacted in a different way. I investigated it diligently and I established I was the victim of credit card fraud.”‘
‘A college degree is fast becoming a necessity for anyone looking to maintain a comfortable middle-class living. Unfortunately for many college students, just paying for this degree is a struggle. The cost of tuition is rising, and two-thirds of all college graduates leave college with debt averaging close to $20,000 (Herbert). In some cases this figure is much higher, and in countless others students can’t even afford to finish college in the first place. According to Tamara Draut, the director of the Economic Opportunity Program for public policy group Demos, the problem is “rooted in the reality that our government no longer really helps people pay for college” (qtd in Herbert). If college students truly want to reap the benefits of their education, they need another source of assistance in paying for college. [..]
This is why I believe students should have the opportunity to sell their organs to the college they are attending in exchange for cash or financial credit.’
‘An upstate New York couple didn’t think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer.
Months later, they found out how wrong they were when they discovered more than a ton and a half of bat droppings up there.
Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly.
Then they forgot about the bats until they smelled a foul odor in January. When they checked the attic, they found dead bats and piles of guano.’
‘A woman forced an 83-year-old housemate to smoke crack cocaine so she could steal personal information to get a credit card and run up more than $3,000 in charges, authorities said.
Pasco County sheriff’s investigators accused Theresa M. Stanley-Morgan, 41, of getting the older woman to smoke the drug at least twice to make it easier to exploit her financially.’
‘A woman who claimed she was raped in her home by a man pretending to be a police officer today admitted in court that she made up the allegation. [..]
Before she went to a doctor to lay the false complaint May made numerous preparations.
Police said she cut her telephone line, pulled out clumps of her hair, rubbed her knees on the carpet until they bled and scratched her buttocks.
She also put a condom over a hammer handle and used it to create sexual attack trauma.’
‘The pursuit of science in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is driven by profit alone and there was less government interference even under Josef Stalin, a Russian Nobel Prize winner said in a interview.
Vitaly Ginzburg’s comments to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper are likely to put Russia’s scientists back on a collision course with the Kremlin.
In March, Russia’s Academy of Sciences, founded by Tsar Peter the Great, spurned a government plan to establish a new supervisory council that would control the body’s finances and include officials from the presidential administration.’
‘A British man who went on a wild spending spree after doctors said he only had a short time to live wants compensation because the diagnosis was wrong and he is now healthy — but broke.
John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.
He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday.
Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected “tumor” was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.
“When they tell you you’ve got a limited time and everything, you do enjoy life,” Brandrick, from Cornwall in the west of England, told Sky television.’
‘A Brazilian brewery has been ordered to pay $49,000 (£24,570) to an alcoholic beer taster who claims the company failed to prevent his condition.
The man, who has not been named, said the company, Ambev, did not provide him with adequate health care to stop him from developing alcoholism.
He said that for more than a decade he drank around one and a half litres of beer each day.
But Ambev says that the employee was an alcoholic before he took the job. [..]
But Judge Jose Felipe Ledur said the company was still negligent because an alcoholic should have never been employed as a beer taster.’
