Canada vows to protect Santa Claus from Russian troops in the Arctic

Canada has vowed to defend the North Pole and Santa Claus, insisting the mythical figure is a citizen, after Russia ordered its military to step up its Arctic presence.

Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, cited Canada's claim of the North Pole to bash an opposition party in Parliament.

"We are defending the north further by making a claim on the North Pole," he said.

"We know that the (opposition) Liberals do not think that the North Pole or Santa Claus are in Canada. We do. We are going to make sure that we protect them as best we can."

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the move by ordering the formation of new military units in the Arctic that are to remain on constant combat alert.
Russia, he said, was "ever more actively reclaiming this promising region, returning to it" after a brief absence that followed the Soviet Union's collapse.

Source: The Telegraph

Man sent threatening letters to himself, others

Syracuse, NY

On December 6, at around 7 p.m., police were called to [Jason] Wilson's residence at 603 E. Pickwick Drive. They found a vehicle on fire in the driveway and Wilson in the backyard leaning against a tree. Wilson told the officers that he noticed his truck on fire and that someone tried to break his sliding glass window to gain entry into the house.

He said he chased the person and the two of them got in a fight, but the unknown male got away. Police searched the area but located no one.
On Saturday, December 7, Wilson and the female in Bremen both again received threatening letters.
After an investigation, it was determined that Wilson sent the threatening letters to himself, the female and her father in Bremen and also to Kohl’s’ department store in Warsaw where the woman works.

Making Eggs Without Chickens (Video)

 

Hampton Creek Foods, San Francisco, California

Chef's poisoning may have sunk plan to battle invasive lionfish by getting Americans to eat them

It happened in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina: WBTW-TV: News, Weather, and Sports for Florence, SC

Lakers Fan Cancels Wedding To Watch Kobe Bryant’s Return

From San Diego:

28 year old Simon Bradley, a self-described ‘obsessed’ Laker fan decided to post-pone his wedding so he can attend Kobe Bryant’s highly anticipated return to the court from a torn Achilles this Sunday at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The man promised his fiance’ Melissa they will set a future date...

Melissa, save yourself a divorce and drop the guy now.

Video of NYPD's vain attempt to stop skateboarding event goes viral

Click here to see the full, uncut video. At nearly 14 minutes long it gets rather boring pretty quickly.

Dog Parking Available at IKEA in Koln, Germany (Photo)

The image and caption above is from the store's website. Here's a translation:

Coming with the dog to IKEA Köln-Am Butzweilerhof ?
There are many adults and children who are afraid of dogs. For this as well as for hygienic reasons we have decided not to allow dogs in IKEA stores, with the exception of guide dogs.
If you do not want to leave your dog at home, we've set up a dog parking area in front of our entrance.

And here is a photo of a couple of dogs parked at the store:

Bigfoot a bigger deal in USA than Canada

People in the United States are more likely than Canadians to consider that Bigfoot is real, an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of representative national samples, three-in-ten Americans (29%) and one-in-five Canadians (21%) think Bigfoot is “definitely” or “probably” real.
The Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, phenomenon is definitely bigger in the United States, where 77 per cent of respondents claim to have heard “a great deal” or a “moderate amount” about Bigfoot (compared to 61% of Canadians).

American and Canadian men are more likely to believe that Bigfoot is real than their female counterparts.
Liberal Party voters in Canada (16%) are the least likely to believe that Bigfoot is real. Democrats in the
United States more likely to believe in Bigfoot (33%) than Republicans or Independents.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

This Exists: Christmas Dinner in a Can

In the UK:

It’s called the Christmas Tinner and consists of nine layers of processed festive food, as demonstrated in the picture below. Apparently the chain has actually trialled this product in its Basingstoke store and is considering a national rollout “if there is enough gamer demand”.
How said “demand” will be measured remains unspecified. Although we do know that it will cost £1.99 per tin if it comes to fruition.
A “without sprouts” variant is available for those who dislike brussel sprouts. But like the idea of an entire Christmas dinner in a tin.

'Penis snake'

Commonly referred to as the 'penis snake,' this animal is actually something called an atretochoana eiselti, which is an amphibian species of the caecilian order. Until it's rediscovery in Brazil in 2011, only reserved specimens were known to exist.

Man sues library after being told he stinks

Salt Lake City, Utah

After being asked to leave a Sugar House library because of his lack of hygiene, a Utah man is suing the Salt Lake City Library for $25,000 — and he wants his library card re-activated.

According to a lawsuit filed in 3rd District Court Wednesday, the man wrote that over the summer, he was banned from the public library at 2131 S. 1100 East by a librarian "who said that I smelled and I was unclean."

The man wrote that the librarian was talking loudly with another man, and the duo then began "badgering" him while he was using a library computer.

Exploding Pig Farm Mystery

At first, the manure was just harmlessly foaming. Only later on did things get lethal. 
Hog farms in the Midwest are great big barns sitting on top of great big pits filled with a great deal of awful-smelling manure. The pigs walk about on a slatted floor that lets manure fall into the pit several feet below. Around 2007, farmers began noticing pig poop acting funny. The normally liquid mixture started producing foamy bubbles, rising up and up, past the slats, right to the pigs’ cloven hooves.
Then it got worse. Among the gases in the bubbling foam are two of special note: methane and hydrogen sulfide—both highly flammable. All it takes is a small spark and Kaboom! In September 2011, a barn explosion killed 1,500 pigs and seriously injured one worker. It was just the most serious in a string of barn explosions that have cost farmers millions of dollars in the past several years.
Scientists have scrambled to solve the mystery of the exploding hog-manure foam, but no straightforward answer as emerged so far.

 Source: Nautilus

Thief who swallowed diamonds must retrieve them from bowel movement himself (Video)

An accused jewel thief who swallowed two diamond engagement rings before his arrest has been ordered to retrieve them himself.

Mark Watts is being held in the Brisbane city watchhouse until he returns the rings, with police insisting he does not need a hand.

"At the moment he hasn't passed them,'' said Francesca Antonaglia-Monteverde, from the chain of stores that owns the rings. "He's in the watchhouse and there's a toilet there. He has to retrieve them himself.''

Watts has been sitting on the country's most anticipated bowel movement ever since the case was revealed in The Courier-Mail on Tuesday.

He is accused of swiping the rings, worth a combined $59,000, after posing as a customer at Crown Family Jewellers at Indooroopilly Shopping Cente on Friday.

When workers cornered him, he swallowed the rings - a one carat diamond solitaire ring and 1.53 carat yellow diamond surrounded by 28 white diamonds.

Doctors have told Watts the jewellery could take five to seven days to reappear...

Source: News.com.au

Update, Dec 6:

Police trusted the alleged ring thief to return his swallowed loot - but he never delivered.
X-rays have confirmed David Watts now has only one of two stolen rings inside him.
The other lost ring is suspected to have been in waste bags he handed to police, which were disposed without a search.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett today said internal investigators from Ethical Standards Command had been called in and police would discuss compensating the owners for their loss.

 

Spike Away: The Thorny Way to Protect Your Personal Space in Public (Photos)

Made of spiky plastic strips & cable ties. Created by Siew Ming Cheng of Singapore.

NORAD tracking Santa with a new twist: armed jet fighters

As Santa streaks through the sky this Christmas Eve, Rudolph merrily guiding the way, he will be flanked by some new and unusual companions: a jet-fighter escort, bristling with missiles.
That is the twist that — to the dismay of at least some child advocates — the US military has chosen to put on this year’s version of its traditional animated tracking of the yuletide journey.
The popular program, without the jet escort, reached 22 million people last year and generated tens of thousands of phone calls from kids and their parents around the country. The mock mission allows families, either by calling or logging on, to get “real-time” updates on Old St. Nick’s global trip to bring holiday cheer to girls and boys.
This year’s updated segment, now previewing on the military’s website, depicts Santa soaring over snow-capped peaks with military aircraft keeping pace on either side.

Adding the jets is “part of our effort to give the program more of an operational feel,” said Navy Captain Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the command that sponsors the event, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD.

Source: The Boston Globe

Walmart is selling 'Destroy Capitalism' by Banksy prints

Corporation is selling alleged prints of graffiti artist's work for $57.99 to $868.99.

The absurdity of the situation was not lost on the Twitterverse:

Walmart is selling a Bansky print titled "Destroy Capitalism," which shows people buying a T-shirt with that slogan http://t.co/b3IMPHS4a4
— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) December 3, 2013

Why is Banksy being sold at @Walmart ? http://t.co/xsjv8YU2Lq #banksy
— Jordan Lea Bender (@mrsJbender) December 3, 2013

Can we all take a moment to admire the fact that Banksy's 'Destroy Capitalism' canvas prints are now available at Walmart?
— Valerie (@ValerieShawley) December 3, 2013

Is nothing sacred RT Walmart's Selling A Bunch Of Banksy Ripoffs
http://t.co/YixQl4Frf3
— Matt Rodriguez (@RodStrategies) December 3, 2013

Source: UPI

Awkward Moments Not Found In Your Average Children’s Bible

 

Awkward Moments Not Found In Your Average Children’s Bible

Island celebrates first birth in 35 years

Ile de Sein, France, population 215:

It’s been a long time coming, but after a 35-year wait the residents of the tiny island of Ile de Sein, off Brittany had cause to pop the Champagne corks this weekend.
On Sunday morning the remote island in the Atlantic Ocean witnessed its first birth in over a third of a century when a mother of three had a baby girl.
The birth of Emily at 6.25am on Sunday was announced later that morning by the island’s doctor Ambroise Menou.
In recent years on the rare times when a newborn has been expected, the birth has taken place on the mainland in Brittany where parents can get access to medical facilities that don’t exist on the island.
But the mother of Emily and her husband, a volunteer firefighter who both live on the island, were determined to end the drought and decided their baby should be born on Ile de Sein.

Camera stolen by eagle retrieved, bird's eye view footage recovered (Video)

[Western Australia] Aboriginal rangers had set up the motion-sensor camera at a gorge on the Margaret River in May, to try and capture images of fresh-water crocodiles.
Gooniyandi ranger Roneil Skeen says the camera disappeared not long afterwards.
"Unexpectedly our camera went missing so we thought we had lost it because it fell into the water," he said.
But a few weeks ago, they got a phone call to say a Parks and Wildlife ranger had found the small device at the Mary River, about 110 kilometres away.
They have been able to extract three 30-second clips that reveal the culprit to be a thieving sea eagle.

Child taken from womb by social services

Big Brother at work in the UK:

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.
Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.
The council said it was acting in the best interests of the woman, an Italian who was in Britain on a work trip, because she had suffered a mental breakdown. The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.
The case has developed into an international legal row, with lawyers for the woman describing it as “unprecedented”.
They claim that even if the council had been acting in the woman’s best interests, officials should have consulted her family beforehand and also involved Italian social services, who would be better-placed to look after the child.
Brendan Fleming, the woman’s British lawyer, told The Sunday Telegraph: “I have never heard of anything like this in all my 40 years in the job.
“I can understand if someone is very ill that they may not be able to consent to a medical procedure, but a forced caesarean is unprecedented.
“If there were concerns about the care of this child by an Italian mother, then the better plan would have been for the authorities here to have notified social services in Italy and for the child to have been taken back there.”
The case, reported by Christopher Booker in his column in The Sunday Telegraph, raises fresh questions about the extent of social workers’ powers.
It will be raised in Parliament this week by John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP. He chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, which wants reform and greater openness in court proceedings involving family matters.

Orchid Mantis: The Predator That Lures Prey By Mimicking Flowers

Praying or preying

The orchid mantis (hymenopus coronatus) is famous for its remarkable similarity to the orchid
flower, but researchers from Macquarie University have now discovered that its’ unique form of deception not only attracts its prey by resembling a blossom, but is in fact even more attractive to pollinators than the real flower.
Since its discovery in South East Asia more than a century ago, the rarity and elusive nature of the orchid mantis has made it difficult for scientists to understand why and how it has evolved this bizarre appearance.
Researchers James O’Hanlon and Marie Herberstein from Macquarie University, along with Gregory Holwell from the University of Auckland mounted an expedition to Malaysia to study the orchid mantis. They observed that the body of the orchid mantis was attractive to flying insects, demonstrating how their flower-like appearance has evolved to lure in unsuspecting pollinators searching for nectar in flowers.
“What really surprised us was the fact that the orchid mantises were even more successful at attracting pollinators than real flowers,” said O’Hanlon.
“Their bright floral colours and petal shaped legs create a tantalizing lure for insects. So it seems that orchid mantises not only look like flowers but also beat flowers at their own game.
“After more than a century of conjecture we provide the first experimental evidence of pollinator deception in the orchid mantis and the first description of a unique predatory strategy that has not been documented in any other animal species.”
Their findings have been published in the Chicago Journals for The American Society of Naturalists.

Chowing down on a butterfly.

Press release source: Macquarie University

Mathematical crime-fighter helps hunt for alien worlds

A curious mathematical crime-fighter has just boosted our confidence that the galaxy is brimming with alien worlds.

The statistical phenomenon, called Benford's law, has been shown to fit existing data on both confirmed and candidate exoplanets. The results suggest that of the thousands of planetary candidates, the majority will turn out to be real worlds and not errors in the data.

Initially a mere mathematical oddity, Benford's law states that the first digits of the numbers in certain sets follow a pattern of probability. For the numbers in a variety of data sets, 1 is the leading digit about 30 per cent of the time. Higher digits are less frequent: on average, just 4.6 per cent of numbers in such sets begin with 9.

Thomas Hair at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers wondered if Benford's law would hold true even beyond the solar system. "I became intrigued with the idea that exoplanet mass might fit," he says.

Hair examined data from the online catalogue exoplanets.org, which lists 755 confirmed exoplanets and nearly 3500 planet candidates, many of them found only in the past few years by NASA's Kepler space telescope. Masses are given in multiples of Earth's or Jupiter's mass. He found that the figures closely fit Benford's law for both units.

"The close fit with Benford's law gives a confirmation to experts' belief that most of the candidates are valid," says Hair, who will present the work in January at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

Source: New Scientist

Historic UFO audio archive dating back to the 40s recovered

"A historic UFO audio archive documenting the beginning of the modern UFO era has been made available online. The archive was compiled by Wendy Connors and Roderick Dyke, and re-discovered and made available online by Isaac Koi and Giuliano Marinkovic.

"You can find the Faded Disk archive at Archive.org."

Source: Open Minds.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week before Thanksgiving, city fires 7 workers for signing a birthday card

From Dyer, Tennessee:

Signing a birthday card has cost seven city workers in Dyer their jobs. It has also cost the city its streets department. On Thursday, the Dyer Board of Alderman voted 4-2 to terminate all seven workers because they signed a birthday card for a female resident. They signed it off the clock. The front of the card mentions a "hairy-chested hunk" in a bathtub. But the inside shows a small puppy. According to the mayor, the female complained it was vulgar and inappropriate.

New York Police ask bars not to serve Santa

From New York City:

"He sees you when you’re barfing — and knows when you’re passed out.
"The impending arrival of SantaCon led an NYPD lieutenant to call humbug on the annual, pre-Chistmas pub crawl, urging bar owners in his Manhattan precinct to ban the cockeyed Kris Kringles. The pie-eyed naughty outnumbered the white-bearded nice at last year’s holiday bacchanal, said Lt. John Cocchi of the Midtown North Precinct.

 

“ 'Having thousands of intoxicated partygoers roam the streets urinating, littering, vomiting and vandalizing will not be tolerated in our neighborhood,' Cocchi wrote to the bar owners.

“ 'The negative impact that this event will bring to your community will far outweigh the short-term benefit to your establishment.'

"The ho-ho-hold-on-there letter went out to about 30 bars and clubs in Midtown and Hell’s Kitchen. Local residents had visions of stumblebums dance in their heads after the revelers descended on watering holes in Cocchi’s precinct during the 2012 SantaCon.

“ 'What do you tell a 5-year-old when they see a Santa passed out on the street, or carried by his buddies, or vomiting or defecating in front of the house?' asked Bob Miner, co-chair of the HK 50-51 Block Association. 'We all grow up, but there’s no reason kids have to learn the truth about Santa that way.' ”

Plane passenger who exposed 'pepperminty’ genitals cleared of wrongdoing

From Provo, Utah:

Thursday, a judge found the man not guilty, saying federal attorneys failed to prove that he meant to break the law.

The man’s troubles began Nov. 17, 2012, when according to documents he sat in 25F, a middle seat between two women. The documents say the woman in the window seat saw the man cover his lap with a coat and "continually moving his arm under the coat."

As the flight neared Salt Lake City, the woman leaned forward to put away her glasses and saw that the man was "holding his exposed penis in his right hand." She confronted the man, who apologized.

The woman reported the incident to police when the plane landed.

During an interview, the man later told investigators he had inadvertently put peppermint oil on his genitals. He explained to police that he had a headache before the flight but didn’t believe in using medication. Instead, he applied the peppermint oils to his head in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. While using the bathroom, the oils got on his genitals, which began to burn and feel irritated during the flight.

Naked man in high heels, turban arrested

From Augusta, Georgia:

Deputies had to use force Sunday to subdue a naked man wearing only high heels and a turban after spotting him hiding behind a tree trying to put on pink women’s panties and pantyhose.
The man, identified as 28-year-old Jermaine Lloyd, fled from deputies while trying to pull on the undergarments and carrying a purple bag and sweatpants, according to a police report.
Police had been called to Lake Olmstead Park about 7:45 a.m. after the naked man was reported running in the area.
After cornering the suspect, Richmond County sheriff’s Deputy Jonathan Counts pulled his Taser and told Lloyd to get on the ground. Police said Lloyd ran “in a threatening manner” toward Deputy Austin Shepherd, who hit him below the knee with a baton.
After being handcuffed, Lloyd again tried to run from deputies, forcing them to use leg shackles.

Church elder suspended from parish for transporting rams on a Sunday

From Scotland:

Calum Macleod was rapped by fellow members of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) (FCC), who oppose Sabbath ferry sailings.
The ram breeder made the Sunday trip back to Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, after missing his Saturday boat home from a market in Ullapool.
The ram breeder reported himself to kirk bosses on his return.
The hardline FCC is among the few churches which claim using Sunday transport to the islands cannot ever be justified. When Sunday ferries to Stornoway began in July 2009, and Sunday flights back in July 2002, it was mainly the FCC which turned out to protest with banners and to sing psalms.
Stornoway FCC minister Rev Graeme Craig, who is also interim moderator for the Knock and Point congregation, confirmed: "After considering the matter carefully and sympathetically, Mr Macleod was suspended from office and membership for one month.

Gotta' draw the line somewhere.

Glimpses of a Journey to Planet Sanity (Video)

Handcuffed man who stole then crashed police car still on the lam

A follow-up story from Syracuse, NY:

Forty-eight hours after he escaped police custody authorities are still looking for Daniel Kantak.
He disappeared around 2 a.m. Friday. Syracuse police said Kantak, 33, of Liverpool, stole a police car after he was handcuffed and placed in the back of that car.
Sgt. Tom Connellan said Kantak is still at large...
Police said the department is conducting an internal investigation to determine whether the officers followed appropriate rules and procedures.

The 'Door to Hell' Has Been Burning for 42 Years (Video)

These are the astonishing images of the very aptly named Door To Hell, a fiery crater caused by a drilling blunder that is baffling scientists after flaming away for more than 40 years.

The 230-feet wide crater, situated near Derweze village in Turkmenistan, was named the Door to Hell by locals, referring to the endless flames and boiling mud that can be found inside.
Originally a level surface, the site was identified by Soviet scientists in 1971 as an area that was believed to house a substantial oil field.

A camp and drilling rig were set up nearby, and, after the Soviets were pleased with amount of gas resources that were believed to be at the site, it was agreed that gas from the field would start being stored.

However, the ground beneath the drilling rig soon collapsed, creating a wide crater that was believed to be releasing large quantities of methane gas, a potential danger to the nearby Turkmenistan villages.
Scientists decided that the most efficient way to solve the problem would be to burn off the poisonous gases - by doing so, it was expected that all of the gas in the crater would be burnt off within days.

More than four decades later, though, the crater is still ablaze - and hundreds of tourists flock to visit it every year.

Stampeding cows trample woman on treasure hunt

From Lincoln, England:

A woman is in intensive care after she was trampled by a herd of cows during a hi-tech geocaching treasure hunt.
Nurse Sarah Leonard, 59, suffered severe injuries in the incident, including broken arms, a broken collarbone, broken jaw and several broken ribs.
​Despite her injuries, Miss Leonard managed to dial 999 herself. But because she couldn't give her exact location, it took emergency services half an hour to rush to her aid. It happened in a field off Church Lane at North Scarle, eight miles from Lincoln city center... Miss Leonard, from Norton near Sheffield, was with her dog Megs when the drama unfolded at 3.25pm on Saturday, November 16.
Geocaching involves hiding a small waterproof box containing a logbook and a pen, recording its co-ordinates and logging its location on a website. Another cacher will see the listing, enter the co-ordinates into their GPS receiver and go in search of it. The Geocaching Association of Great Britain's (GAGB) code of conduct simply states: "Respect property rights and seek permission where appropriate."

Gator-napping

From Albany, Georgia:

Van Hai Tang, of Gainesville, Ga., was charged with taking the 3-foot alligator, which [Flint RiverQuarium] workers recovered about an hour later.
According to APD reports, an aquarium employee, Richard Brown, called police. The report states that Brown told authorities a man had scaled the wall of the RiverQuarium and was seen in the alligator tank handling the reptiles.
Brown said he was later seen by construction workers at the bridge under construction on Broad Avenue carrying the alligator, named “Nubs,” across his shoulders. Brown said he was advised that the man had tossed the alligator into the Flint River. Brown told police he and other aquarium employees then went to the river and retrieved the gator.
Three to four RiverQuarium employees used poles and nooses to retrieve the animal from the river, and the source said one of the men was bitten by the gator during the retrieval process. The reptile then had its mouth taped shut, a bag placed over its head and was walked back to the RiverQuarium.
Since Nubs, who was unharmed during his adventure, was exposed to the Flint River, he is being held in quarantine for the next 30 days. 

Nubs!

Thief a magician, too? Handcuffed man locked in police car back seat manages to steal the vehicle

From Syracuse, NY:

[Daniel] Kantak, 33, of Liverpool, was taken into custody after police responded to a burglary in progress at 320 Ashdale Ave. just after 2 a.m.
When officers got to the home, they saw two men holding down Kantak, police said. The woman who lives in the house told police that Kantak broke into the home. Her brothers were holding him down.
The officers handcuffed Kantak, putting his arms behind his back. The press release notes that officers put Kantak in the back seat of the car. Both doors were locked and the shield between the front and back seats were closed, police said."Even though Kantak was cuffed behind his back and placed in the rear of a patrol car with the shield closed, he was somehow able to slip his cuffs to the front and climb through a small window between the back seat and the front seat and drive away in the car," reads the release...
Several minutes later, they found the police car crashed on Court Street near Assumption Cemetery. It was heavily damaged.
When Kantak crashed the car, he hit a utility pole and knocked out power in the area.
The car was empty. Kantak, police said, ran away from the scene..

Kantak, who is still at large, is wanted for second-degree escape, second-degree burglary, criminal mischief, unauthorized use of motor vehicle, fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, and grand larceny.

He may be dangerous — and may still be wearing handcuffs.

Man arrested for 'airing out' his penis

From Jensen Beach, Florida:

A woman told Martin County Sheriff's deputies Nov. 5 she saw a man identified as William Gibson, 50, in front of a store on Jensen Beach Boulevard with his jeans around his knees. Gibson reached in his undies and fondled his genitals.
"(H)e then removed his hand from his underwear (and) smelled his fingers," records state..
Meanwhile, after the sniffing, a witness statement gives this account of what happened: "Then he jiggled his underware (sic) in the back, as to maybe be hiding something in there. Then all of a sudden he just pulled down the front of his underware (sic), to expose his genitals, fluffing them."
Gibson told a deputy he was "airing out" his penis.

Monkeys to be put on the pill in India

India is planning to put its rising population of primates on the pill to tackle the growing "monkey menace" in its towns and cities, government wildlife officials have confirmed.

Vasectomies and sterilisation programmes are also being developed as part of a broader plan to curb the chaos being caused by troupes of marauding monkeys as urban India expands into their traditional forests.

Thousands of red-bottomed Rhesus Macaques or Bhandar monkeys are the scourge of New Delhi, where they roam through government buildings, chew Internet cables, bite the unwary carrying food and steal from people's homes.

Indian officials are exploring ways to administer the contraceptives and the likely impact of the drugs on primate behaviour before pressing ahead. One official said a mixed approach is likely to be adopted in Uttarakhand, in the Himalayan foothills where thousands of monkeys patrol the main roads and terrorise people in the hill towns.

Monkeys that can be caught will be sterilised while oral contraceptives will be put in food left for those primates that remain at large.

Source: The Telegraph

Beaver got a gun

From Maine:

So here’s Nathan Baron’s tale:
Nathan said Saturday didn’t start off as an extraordinary day. In fact, it was pretty low-key: He was sitting in a chair in the woods, hunting, watching as a doe crossed in front of him.
After the doe left, he ate his lunch. Then nature called.
“I had to go to the bathroom but I had no toilet paper,” he explained.
Luckily, he was hunting right across the road from his family’s St. David home.
“I walked out of the woods and got on my four-wheeler and I went home,” he said.
Another thing he did (which, for the record, we’ve got to advise everyone to avoid): He leaned his Remington .30-06 rifle against the tree, next to the chair he had been sitting in.
“And when I got back, I couldn’t find the gun,” he said.
Nathan said he stood up from his chair and began looking around in the woods. Then things got interesting in a hurry.
Nature had called again … in a different way.
“There was a stream that was running about 100 feet away from me. I look, and there’s a beaver hauling that gun into the water,” he said.
Nathan said he really didn’t know what to do at that point. “I was mad, but I started laughing because it was funny,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it was happening, that I was seeing him take my gun into the water.”
So here’s what Nathan did: Absolutely nothing.
“There was nothing I could do,” he said. “The gun was in the water and the beaver went under. That was it.”
The water was deep, and pursuing the beaver was out of the question. The gun was gone.
Nathan said he figures the beaver’s intentions were more innocent. (So much for my image of a lone rogue beaver arming himself against trappers). Instead, Nathan  just thinks the gun was made of some good-looking wood, and Mr. Beaver decided to haul it home.

Cats receive $250K, house in owner's will (Video)

A couple of contented cats in Memphis, Tennessee:

"Leon Sheppard, Sr., left his 4,270-square-foot house and $250,000 for the care of his cats in his will. His will states the money should be used for the care of Frisco and Jake and the maintenance of this house they live in. Leon Sheppard's daughter said by phone that the family did not want to talk about it. According to the will, when Frisco dies whatever is left of the estate including the house can be passed to Sheppard's human heirs. However, Jake must be cared for. The heirs will be allowed to move Jake out of the house."
WSMV Channel 4

'Nymph' insect with troll-like iridescent tuft of 'hair' discovered in South America

Suriname, to be exact:

The 7mm-long creature is golden  and its elongated body is covered in orange dots and stripes. It has hair-like feelers sticking out of its rear which resemble the fuzzy hair of the colourful Troll Dolls, a popular toy in the 1990s. 

The 7mm-wide insect, pictured, was discovered after researchers from the University of Harvard trekked for three weeks to explore the untouched rainforest of southeast Suriname. The unnamed creature is covered in orange dots and stripes. Its feelers are made of wax that protrude from its rear end

Researchers believe the bug is an immature insect called a nymph, possibly fitting into one of four nymph families: Dictyopharidae, Nogodinidae, Lophopidae, and Tropiduchidae.

A nymph is an immature insect. In insects that undergo a gradual metamorphosis, the stage of the life cycle that hatches from the egg is called the nymph. These insects do not pupate like a butterfly.

Often, the nymph looks like a smaller, wingless version of the adult. The nymph may molt several times to reach adulthood.

Insects that undergo simple or gradual metamorphosis, and have a nymph stage, include grasshoppers and crickets, cockroaches, termites and dragonflies.

Dr. Leeanne Alonso, the expedition's leader, said: 'I have conducted expeditions all over the world, but never have I seen such beautiful, pristine forests so untouched by humans.

'Southern Suriname is one of the last places on earth where there is a large expanse of pristine tropical forest.

Mystery humans spiced up ancients’ rampant sex lives

Genome analysis suggests interbreeding between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and a mysterious archaic population.

New genome sequences from two extinct human relatives suggest that these ‘archaic’ groups bred with humans and with each other more extensively than was previously known.

The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented on 18 November at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia.

“What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work...

The meeting was abuzz with conjecture about the identity of this potentially new population of humans. “We don’t have the faintest idea,” says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum...

Source: Nature

Man steals shoes, says 'must be a Winona Ryder thing'

Gainesville, Florida:

Gainesville police said Michael Maddux was seen by a loss prevention officer stealing a pair of $60 from JCPenney. After being arrested, Maddux told police he did take the merchandise and “didn’t know why … it must be a Winona Ryder thing,” the police report said. He was charged with a misdemeanor charge of petty theft.

Utah town forgets to hold election — again

Wallsburg, Utah

The new recorder in the town of about 275 forgot to announce the opening of the filing period or arrange to hold an election Nov. 5, when voters across the state cast their ballots in municipal elections. By the time the oversight was caught shortly before Election Day, it was too late to field candidates and hold the balloting on the fly.

[Wasatch County Clerk Brent Titcomb said,] "They’re going to have to appoint the current mayor and council for two more years and they’ll advertise and have people elected [in 2015]."

Wallsburg didn’t schedule an election two years ago, either, and the council members had to be appointed then, as well. Those appointed seats should have been up for election in the November election, but were not...

Man accused of murder had handwritten confession note in his wallet (Video)

From Virginia:

Woman deliberately runs over, kills duck after it refused her offer of candy

Karie Lindgren, 36, of Tarpon Springs, Florida, was arrested on one count of felony animal cruelty. Here's why:

About 5:45 p.m. Saturday, Lindgren tried luring the duck with a piece of candy...but when the duck did not approach, Lindgren drove her vehicle across a lawn and ran over it “at a high rate of speed,” according to an arrest report. One witness said Lindgren had “stalked” the duck, the affidavit says.

This Exists: South Africa Occult Crime Unit with membership restricted to Christian police officers

It exists, and University of Cape Town professor Jacques Rousseau calls it out:

Decades after its formation, the Occult-Related Crime Unit (ORCU, founded by Kobus "Donker" Jonker in 1992) continues to waste public resources, misdirect police attention, and stigmatize young people who are by and large more misunderstood than malignant.

Amongst all the crimes that we can speculate police in this unit might have seen, there's one we can be sure of - and it's one that they are complicit in. The crime in question is against common sense and morality, and is vested in the reinforcing of a Christian evangelical "Satanic Panic".

In the context of South Africa's constitutionally-protected freedom of religion, restricting membership of a police unit to only Christians - and dedicating that unit to protecting a Christian version of reality - is itself worthy of special attention as an occult-related crime.

Because a unit can't investigate itself, I'd ask the Minister of Police to consider funding a new Occult-Related-Related Crimes Unit, which I volunteer to lead. Our mission? To be ruthless in pursuing crimes related to simplistic, moralizing, and religiously prejudiced views of crime, society at large, and especially the youth.

Even on the very fuzzy definition of "occult" used by ORCU, too few such crimes occur to merit the existence of a dedicated unit. But it is in the definition of these crimes, as well as the background metaphysics and psychology, that ORCU starts to appear just as spooky as the crimes and motivations ORCU exists to combat.

In response (I presume) to a fairly constant barrage of criticism on social media, the South African Police Service (SAPS) removed the web page that gave us our best insight into how a unit in a 21st-century police force is being guided by ideas from the Dark Ages.

But thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can see not only that "Child has an interest in computer" is a sign that said child might be involved in a cult, but also that this and other equally ridiculous diagnostic advice has remained unchanged since September 2004 (the archived page from then - the earliest date the page was captured - being identical to the one that was removed in November 2013):

http://web.archive.org/web/20040922161210/http://www.saps.gov.za/youth_desk/occult/occult.htm

I don't mean to dispute that adolescents, and others, commit crimes in the service of motivations they themselves think of as occult. But when they do so, why is it that this motivation is singled out for special attention? We don't have a jealousy-related crimes unit, or a greed-related, tender-related, BEE-related, or alien-related unit - even though all of these provide possible motivations to commit crimes, mostly with far greater regularity than the occult would.

Then, if we find that a crime is committed because the guilty party thought themselves under some supernatural instruction, we know full well what to do next: arrange for that person to get the psychological help they clearly need, alongside whatever other sentence is appropriate.

Rare teas more than 50 years old up for auction; rare oolong expected to sell for $137,000

From Hong Kong:

The city's first tea auction expects to pull in up to HK$10 million [$1,289,970 USD]  as mainlanders drive up the prices, with one box of tea leaves expected to fetch HK$1 million [$129,001 USD].
Fortune Auctioneers will auction more than 190 lots of tea, teapots and utensils from private collections from Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing and Guangdong.
Tea expert and auction planner Vincent Chu Ying-wah said the "Sensation of Tea" auction would be the first in the city to sell exclusively tea and tea-related items.
"We have had a tea-drinking tradition for a really long time, just like the French drink wine," he said. "Chinese people have got wealthy and tea is a necessary thing [for us]. This is why the price of tea still keeps going up."
He said he hoped it would be the first of many such auctions.
The prize lot is a 20kg box of narcissus oolong tea bearing the Wu-Yi brand which has been valued at nearly HK$1 million. The tea was exported to Singapore in the 1960s and passed through many hands before being brought back to Hong Kong by a local collector who bought it from a Malaysian-Chinese tea connoisseur from Penang.
Also going under the hammer is a 350 gram cake of pu'er tea manufactured at the highly reputed Menghai Tea Factory in Yunnan province and valued at HK$500,000.
The auction will be held at The Park Lane hotel on November 23 and will be open to the public. A preview will run from November 19 to 22.

Source: South China Morning Post

Man burned friend alive for drinking his last four beers

From Darwin, Australia:

Gary Stewart Miles has pleaded not guilty to murdering Paul John Stamp, 47, on September 19 last year.
The men had been drinking at home when Mr Stamp was warned not to take any of Mr Miles' remaining beers.
He drank the last four. When this was discovered, Mr Miles and his friend Gregory Channing beat Mr Stamp, breaking eight ribs and causing extensive internal injuries.
They dragged him into the car boot and drove to an industrial area, where they planned to "teach him a lesson" by dumping him to find his own way home.
But the car ran out of petrol and when the pair returned with fuel, Mr Miles allegedly poured it all over the car and ignited it.
Channing was found guilty in September of assaulting Mr Stamp and depriving him of liberty and is serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence.
Channing told the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Tuesday that Mr Miles had snapped when they had returned to the car, shouting "I'm going to kill this c---" as he doused the car in petrol.

Woman and father arrested after she bites boyfriend's penis during argument

Athens, Georgia - Clarke County police said they arrested a woman and her father early Monday following an altercation in which the woman allegedly bit her boyfriend’s penis.
Officers responded to a home on Magnolia Terrace at about 12:45 a.m. on the victim’s complaint that he was attacked by his girlfriend and father at the residence where all three live, police said.
The victim alleged that 27-year-old Sade Rene Greene “scratched him in the chest, neck, and also bit his penis through his pants,” according to a police incident report.
During the fight, 52-year-old Ricky Levell Greene allegedly punched the victim in the mouth.
When officers arrived at the residence they found the victim shirtless in the street, with scratches on his body and bleeding from a split lower lip, according to police.
The victim did not say what instigated the fight.

Popular restaurant denies using human feces

Malaysia - The manager of a popular Nasi Kandar restaurant in Ipoh, has vehemently denied the use of human faeces in its dishes after the matter went viral on Facebook.

Mohd Nihmathullah Syed Mustafa said, the closure is due to cleanliness issues and not related to the use of faeces as alleged.

“All our customers from all over Malaysia know about the matter. What had been posted on Facebook has nothing to do with us, it’s merely a misunderstanding,” he stressed.

Oh, it's only due to cleanliness issues – what a relief!

Read more at: http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/popular-restaurant-denies-using-human-faeces-25511?cp