‘According to reports, authorities in Belgium have seized documents, financial records and computer equipment form the local branch of the Church of Scientology (Church) and then sealed off the building.
The reports state that the Church in Belgium is being investigated for extortion and fraud for allegedly posting false job openings in newspapers and then attempting to get those who applied to join the Church. Several ex-members of the Church has also reportedly approached authorities with accusations of intimidation and extortion.
Police in Belgium have been investigating the Church for nearly ten years prior to this raid.
In a statement to the press, the Church says that the police “violated their fundamental rights” as a religious organization and accused the police of “malicious justice operations.” The Church plans to contest any charges filed against it. They also state that the postings were requests for volunteers and not employees.’
‘Detectives say a 43-year-old Palm Bay Woman trespassed into a home and attacked her estranged husband in the shower with a bar of unwrapped soap.
Palm Bay Police charged Cheryl Ann Lunderman was charged with battery and burglary to an occupied dwelling. [..]
Palm Bay Police said the man was home taking a shower about 9:30 p.m. on April 2 when Lunderman got into the residence, walked into the bathroom and struck him in the face with an unwrapped bar of soap.
The man’s right eye was bruised by the soap, investigators said. The couple had been married for over two decades when they separated, officials reported.’
‘As upsets go, it ranks alongside the most extraordinary results in sporting history. When the New York Mets, one of America’s most revered baseball teams, asked their fans to select a new theme song, they could never have predicted that the winner would be a has-been Lancastrian pop star.
But five million people had apparently voted on the Mets’ website for Rick Astley and his 1987 classic, Never Gonna Give You Up. Organisers were, to put it mildly, puzzled. [..]
It was only when internet blogs began buzzing with reports of the Astley success that organisers realised that they had been “rickrolled”.
The Mets, it emerged, had become the latest, and most high-profile, victim of a bizarre web phenomenon aimed at ensuring that Astley’s 1980s single, made by the bubblegum pop producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman, is played as often as possible.’
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I just passed 10,000 images hosted on the image site. There’s shitloads of stuff there now, and it’s good. 🙂
Judging by the various sites I source images from, my image site is now one of the larger sites of its type on the internet. [Photobucket and the like don’t count, is my theory. :)]
Go and have a look, because you know love it. And so does your mother.
‘As an avid reader of your column, I thought of you and only you for help with this problem. My grandmother, 78 and widowed, is a kind, generous woman who has seen her share of difficult times. She is a bit offbeat, but extremely conservative and religious. After my grandfather passed on, she purchased a lively little parakeet and named him Pretty Baby. Pretty Baby has provided wonderful companionship and entertainment for my grandmother, even learning to speak to her. Pretty is an amazing mimic, repeating phrases she has taught him: “I love you,” “lock the door!”, “give me kisses,” etc.
The problem is the kissing… or what I recently witnessed the kissing leads to. One evening Pretty began to squawk “give me kisses, give me kisses” and my grandmother walked over to the cage and slipped one finger between the bars. Pretty Baby proceeded to “kiss” her fingernail and flutter about. She purred, “Give Grandma lovin’, Pretty Baby, give Grandma lovin’.” She then turned to me and said, “Pretty Baby wants to give me lovin’ and he won’t quiet down until he does.” Pretty Baby proceeded to screech more and more loudly, as he humped my grandmother’s finger wildly. She also moved it back and forth for him. I was stunned and unsure of what was happening so I sat quietly in my chair looking in the opposite direction, hoping I wasn’t really witnessing what I thought I was. My grandmother cleared it up quickly, saying, “He’ll calm down after he climaxes,” smiling away and continuing to repeat, “Give me your lovin’, Pretty Baby, that’s it….” When Pretty Baby was finished, she looked back at me and said, “I better wash my hands!” I left minutes later, unable to process what had just happened. Grandmother, however, never flinched, acting like it was an everyday occurrence.’
‘A Bay Shore man was arrested Saturday morning after booby-trapping his apartment door with a crutch, an elastic cord and a large knife, Suffolk police said.
Eric Stetz, of Brook Avenue, was charged with reckless endangerment after the building superintendent discovered the ready-to-stab device while trying to open Stetz’s door Thursday, police said.
The superintendent and a Verizon agent had come to Stetz’s home for a visit the super had warned Stetz would be necessary, police said. When their knocks went unanswered — Stetz was not home — the super went to open the door, felt resistance and found the rigged contraption, police said. [..]
Stetz was not charged in connection with a similar booby trap installed on a bedroom door in the apartment, said Sgt. Kevin Beyrer of the Third Precinct.
Stetz’s mother, Freda Stetz, said her son had rigged the device with a steak knife to protect himself from squatters who had taken up residence in the building.’
‘Powerful infection-fighting proteins found in alligator blood could help fight HIV and antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’ in humans, suggests new American research.
Scientists who successfully extracted the active proteins from alligators’ white blood cells have found that these kill a wide variety of bacteria, fungi and viruses. The findings were presented over the weekend at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans.
“We’re very excited about the potential of these alligator blood proteins as both antibacterial and antifungal agents,” says Mark Merchant, principal investigator at McNeese State University in Louisiana, USA, and co-author of the study. “There’s a very real possibility that you could be treated with an alligator blood product one day.”‘
‘Hundreds of police officers across South Australia caught using their work computers to illegally copy movie DVDs will escape prosecution.
The activity – strictly banned under federal copyright laws – was detected during an audit conducted by the information technology branch of SA Police.
Senior police, including Commissioner Mal Hyde, have been briefed on the extent of the problem.
An internal email to police management said the audit had “identified a number of instances where commercial DVD movies have been copied to the hard-drives of police computers which potentially had been burnt to blank DVDs”.
“This practice is potentially a breach of copyright and misuse of SAPOL equipment,” it said.’
‘Tom Cruise isn’t getting any giggles from a new strain of medical marijuana being marketed as “Tom Cruise Purple.”
Word is that the actor’s lawyers are taking a serious look at the strong brand of bud after we brought it to their attention.
One of Cruise’s friends found it “outrageous” that licensed cannabis clubs in Northern California are selling vials of pot featuring a picture of Cruise laughing hysterically. [..]
Staffers at several California clinics we called said they were forbidden to discuss any of the herbal varieties in their “inventory.”
But one weed devotee said, “I heard it’s the kind of pot that makes you hallucinate.”‘
‘A man who was poisoned March 19 while trying to use mercury to extract gold from computer parts has died and the home is so contaminated that it cannot be lived in, an emergency official said. [..]
The home is located on Winnett Road southeast of Colbert. Winnett and Melissa Lake drove themselves to the hospital after inhaling mercury vapors, according to authorities. [..]
Mercury has a chemical reaction with gold and causes it to separate, according to Dalton. Authorities believe the couple heated the mercury and accidentally inhaled it.
The home was immediately cordoned off after the incident. Dalton said he did not know how much mercury was inside the home, but the residence would have to be gutted before it could ever be used again.’
‘A 12-year-old boy fatally slashed a man who was attacking his mother at the boarding house where they lived, authorities said.
Salomon Noubissie, 64, died at a hospital after he was slashed across the neck Monday night in the home in the Landover area.
Cpl. Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for Prince George’s County police, said Wednesday that authorities hadn’t decided whether the boy would be charged with anything. They were reviewing the case with the state’s attorney’s office. [..]
The boy said he was not happy with what happened but felt he had no choice.’
‘Former The A-Team star Mr. T once stunned a sick child’s family by bringing him out of a coma – after doctors begged the actor for help.
The poorly kid fell unconscious in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1980s – and the only physical movement he made was in response to hearing Mr. T’s name.
And when the mohawked star was in town, he stopped by the hospital to visit the ill boy – with miraculous results.’
‘Apple deceptively marketed its new 20-inch iMac in a way that grossly inflated the capabilities of its monitor, which is vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP.
According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, Apple is deceiving consumers by concealing that the new 20-inch iMac monitors are inferior to the previous generation’s and those of the new 24-inch iMac. In addition, the monitors are incapable of displaying “millions of colors,” despite Apple’s marketing claims.
Apple’s newest iMac – an “all-in-one” desktop computer that combines the monitor into the same case as the CPU – was unveiled in August 2007.’
Hooray for urban rhino exploration. [shrug] 🙂
‘I suppose you were windsurfing. I’ve never seen anyone windsurf with a porch umbrella for a sail, boldly charging across the bay like a cross between Admiral Nelson and Mary Poppins. I was amazed — you didn’t just sail downwind, I swear I saw you tacking. You, sir, are my hero. I wanted to tell you so, but alas, I was on the shore. I had so many questions. No, I really only had one question (why?) but it seemed like a really, really good question. Every time I went back, I hoped to see you again, Umbrella Man, but alas, I have not seen you since. Should you happen to read this, could I trouble you for the story behind your brave voyage?’
Australian Formula 2 racing has existed since 1964, making it one of oldest classes of motor racing in the country. The format allows participants to compete with relatively cheap vehicles whilst still remaining competitive, which basically means anyone can have a go. Except hippies, because they won’t run on soy bean oil.
The website has information about upcoming events as well as results for current and past seasons, as you’d expect. There’s also plenty of photos of the cars in action. Occasionally you can even buy one of the cars through the website. [I think they should give me one for free in return for the link, really. :)]
The 2008 season starts in about a fortnight, so if you care to go and see these cars driving around the place, that’s the time to do it. 🙂 Good stuff. 🙂
‘According to the standard model of physics, matter and antimatter were created in equal quantities shortly after the Big Bang. The two types of particles should have thus cancelled each other out and the universe should be permeated by energy.
But as our existence attests, that did not happen. Experiments suggests the universe today is composed of about 75 per cent dark energy, 20 per cent dark matter, and five per cent matter/antimatter, with the overwhelming bulk of the latter consisting of normal matter.
A major mystery of modern physics is why normal matter particles are the building blocks of the observable universe. Why are we not made of antimatter? Or pure energy? Scientists speculate that a tiny imbalance in the early universe allowed a small fraction of normal matter – one particle for every one billion – to avoid annihilation and survive to form stars, planets, and humans.’
‘A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation. [..]
Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.
The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.
Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.
Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.’
‘Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users.
The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security.
“We are seeing people affected,” says Ken Lowenberg, senior director of web and print publishing at the Epilepsy Foundation. “It’s fortunately only a handful. It’s possible that people are just not reporting yet — people affected by it may not be coming back to the forum so fast.”
The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.
The attackers turned to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting JavaScript into some posts that redirected users’ browsers to a page with a more complex image designed to trigger seizures in both photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.’
People are cunts.
‘A lawsuit has been filed in Hawaii in an attempt to hold up the start of operations by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) atom-smasher on the French-Swiss border.
A colourful American botanist, teacher, former biologist and sometime physicist says (in outline) that the LHC may rip a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum and so destroy the Earth. He wants the US government to act now and delay the LHC’s startup while a new safety review is carried out. [..]
Firstly Wagner is concerned that careless atom boffins might slip up and create a miniature black hole. This would then suck in surrounding mass, gaining unstoppably in size and power in a runaway process until it had engulfed the entire Earth and packed it down inside its swelling, unescapable event horizon.’
‘On a frosty Canadian morning, a masked crusader tromps across a parking lot, over a snow bank and onto the sidewalk. He has a loudspeaker strapped ominously to his chest.
He halts, aiming the speaker toward the building across the street. “This is a song by some dead guy,” he says. And then, music booms forth:
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.” [..]
“It’s a bit spooky, innit?” said Rick Astley, the singer who made the song famous in 1987 and who is not dead. With considerable help, including assists from RCA Records, the webmaster of Astley’s U.K. fan site, and his manager at Sony BMG, I tracked down Astley at his home in London last weekend. He spoke for the first time about the phenomenon called Rickrolling, best described by example: You are reading your favorite Hollywood gossip blog and arrive at a link urging you to “Click here for exclusive video of Britney’s latest freakout!!” Click you do, but instead of Britney, it’s a dashing 21-year-old Briton that pops onto the screen. You, sir, have been Rickroll’d.’
‘A Mukilteo man has been sentenced to three years in a California prison for tricking 911 dispatchers into sending a SWAT team to the Orange County home of a randomly selected family.
Randal T. Ellis, 19, was sentenced Thursday in Orange County Superior Court after pleading guilty to felonies including false imprisonment by violence and falsely reporting a crime. He also was ordered to pay $14,765 in restitution, nearly all of it to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Ellis was arrested last year after hacking into a telephone network and impersonating a caller from a Lake Forest home, saying he had murdered someone in the house and was threatening to shoot others. The technique in which a prank call is made to 911 dispatchers is known among hackers as “SWATting.”
The Sheriff’s Department dispatched a SWAT team and surrounded the home with dozens of officers, dogs and a helicopter.’
Apparently Creative sound cards barely work in Windows vista, and Creative won’t make drivers for them.
“If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.”
Some clever fellow has been writing his own drivers that have make the cards work as they should, but creative aren’t happy about it. Intellectual property and all that.
What follows is many forum pages worth of people telling Creative they’re stupid and claiming they’re never buying a Creative sound card again.
“My god, you guys got some balls on you, either that or you’r all bordeline mad.”
Hilarious. 🙂
and the whores like a choir go ‘uh’ all night..
and Mary ain’t you tired of this?
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‘Chicago Police say no one could make this story up…
18-year-old Ruben Zarate, entered a muffler shop in the 2600 block of North Laramie Avenue yesterday and declared a robbery. He allegedly waved a gun around and demanded money, according to police.
When he was told the money was in a safe and that the manager who knew how to open it was not there, the suspect had a brilliant idea; at least he thought it was brilliant.
He gave the shop employees his cell phone number and asked them to call him when the manager arrived so he could open the safe for him.
He left and the employees opted to call 911. Authorities stationed plain clothes officers in the shop and called the would-be robber back.
Zarate, showed up again, and waved his gun around again, but this time was shot in the leg by an officer.’
‘Two hoax ads on Craigslist cost a Jacksonville man thousands of dollars in property Saturday and could land the pranksters in jail on theft and burglary charges.
The classified ads popped up Saturday afternoon on the Web site saying the owner of a home in the 7900 block of Sterling Creek Road was forced to leave the area suddenly and that his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.
The only problem is that Robert Salisbury has no plans of leaving his home any time soon.
Salisbury, who works as an independent contractor, was at Emigrant Lake when he received a call from a woman had stopped by his house to claim his horse.
On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.’
‘To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird’s Nest, the city’s branch of the national Weather Modification Office–itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration–has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August.
First, Beijing’s Weather Modification Office will track the region’s weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer, purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) accurately enough to generate hourly forecasts for each kilometer. [..]’
How many years in a decade? 🙂
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