stop staring at my tote!

Cheat to Win - a really motivational bracelet

Boss kills workers who asked for raise

The owner of a car dealership has been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises. Rolandas Milinavicius has been charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Inga Contreras, 25, and Martynas Simokaitis, 28. All three are from the eastern European nation of Lithuania but had been living in Atlanta, Georgia, authorities said. Milinavicius, who was having financial problems, told police he shot the two Thursday after they kept asking for more pay, said police in East Point, which is just outside Atlanta. "He told us that he was under a lot of stress," East Point police Capt. Russell Popham said. "Unfortunately, he decided to take his anger out with violence."

God-Fearing People

Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.)

Daily work

....this mug sums up my daily work experience...sigh!

Naked photo shoot to draw attention to glacial shrinkage

The appeal by New York artist Spencer Tunick, famous for taking pictures of thousands of

naked people in public settings worldwide, is intended for a photo shoot to highlight the effects of climate change on Switzerland's shrinking glaciers, environmental group Greenpeace said on its Web site Wednesday. Greenpeace said if global warming continues at its current pace, most Swiss glaciers will disappear by 2080. The photo shoot, which follows Tunick's previous shoots in London, Mexico City and Amsterdam, will take place in August at an undisclosed location in Switzerland. Prospective candidates from further afield will have to start making travel arrangements now. "We aim to make this a climate friendly event, so please come by public transport and don't fly," Greenpeace said

Crash victim's headstone is repossessed....sad :(

The cemetery headstone for a teenager who died in a car wreck was repossessed after a $750 bill went unpaid.

Vandals disrobe Hitler, steal Teletubbies from wax museum

Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt are missing their clothes and Fred Flintstone and the Teletubbies are just plain missing after a raid on wax figures owned by Ireland's National Wax Museum. At least 50 figures were stolen or wrecked several weeks ago, the museum reported Monday. The wax museum, closed since 2005, has been storing its 400 figures in a warehouse while it works to reopen this fall. Police say they suspect a door was left unlocked and the warehouse was used for an all-night rave party but museum officials discount that theory. Also stripped of their clothes were Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and rebel icons from Ireland's war of independence with Britain, including Michael Collins and Padraig Pearse.

Swimming pool and water stolen from yard

Daisy Valdivia is annoyed that someone stole her backyard pool — and baffled at how they did it without leaving behind a splash, drip or trace of the 1,000 gallons of water it contained. Valdivia awoke to find her family's hip-high, inflatable, 10-foot diameter swimming pool gone from her backyard Wednesday. Valdivia told The Record of Bergen County the theft must have occurred between 1 a.m., when her husband went to bed, and 5 a.m., when she awoke. She's amazed someone could steal the pool that quickly and just wanted to know "what the heck they did with the water," she said.

Falling ice pelts Iowa neighborhood

Large chunks of ice, one of them reportedly about 50 pounds, fell from the sky in this northeast Iowa city, smashing through a woman's roof and tearing through nearby trees. Authorities were unsure of the ice's origin but have theorized the chunks either fell from an airplane or naturally accumulated high in the atmosphere — both rare occurrences. "It sounded like a bomb!" 78-year-old Jan Kenkel said. She said she was standing in her kitchen when an ice chunk crashed through her roof at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday. "I jumped about a foot!" She traced the damage to her television room, where she found a messy pile of insulation, bits of ceiling, splintered wood and about 50 pounds of solid ice. Karle and Mary Beth Wigginton, who live a block away, heard a loud "whoosh" coming through the trees. They discovered several large chunks of ice in front of their home and some smaller ones in the yard and in the street. FIND MORE

record ketchup packet...huh?

Now citizens of this southern Illinois community are after the record for the world's largest ketchup packet. Collinsville has partnered with the H.J. Heinz Co. to fill an 8-foot tall, 4-foot wide plastic pouch with 1,500 pounds of the tomato goop for a school fundraiser. "That's a lot of ketchup," said Tracey Parsons, a Heinz spokeswoman.

88-year-old finally gets Eagle Scout rank

More than a half-century after he finished the requirements to earn the rank, an 88-year-old man was honored as an Eagle Scout, making him possibly the oldest person to ever collect the Boy Scout honor. Walter Hart could not become an Eagle Scout at the time he earned the rank because his service in World War II got in the way. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time," Hart, who lives in a retirement center in nearby Lehigh Acres, said Saturday. Scout officials say he may be the oldest person to ever earn the honor.

Hollywood pigeons to be put on the pill

Hollywood residents believe they've found a humane way to reduce their pigeon population and the messes the birds make: the pill. Over the next few months a birth control product called OvoControl P, which interferes with egg development, will be placed in bird food in new rooftop feeders.

"We think we've got a good solution to a bad situation," said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Association, the group leading the effort to try the new contraceptive. "The poop problem has become unmanageable and this could be the answer."

Community leaders planned to announce the OvoControl P pilot program, which Dodson believes is the first of its kind in the nation, at a news conference Monday.

Dodson said representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contacted her group with the idea to use OvoControl P. Other animal rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, support the contraceptive over electric shock gates, spiked rooftops, poisons or other methods.

It's estimated about 5,000 pigeons call the area home. Their population boom is blamed in part on people feeding the birds, including a woman known as the Bird Lady, who was responsible for dumping 25-pound bags of seed in 29 spots around Hollywood.

OvoControl P has been registered with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Developed by Rancho Santa Fe-based Innolytics, the substance contains nicarbazin, which interferes with an egg's ability to develop or hatch, said Erick Wolf, Innolytics chief executive.

The pilot program was expected to show results within a year, and the Hollywood area's pigeon population is expected to shrink by at least half by 2012, Dodson said.

Australian school makes sunglasses compulsory for pupils

There was a time when wearing sunglasses would have been seen as too cool for school, but for pupils at a pioneering primary in Australia they are now a compulsory part of the uniform.

The move is aimed at protecting young eyes from the sun's dangerous ultraviolet rays, and education authorities say they are considering adopting the plan at all state schools.

 

The headmaster of Sydney's Arncliffe Public School, where sunglasses are now compulsory for children from kindergarten through Year 6, said they had no problems wearing the glasses in the playground.

 

The "sunnies" as they are called in Australia, would soon become "routine" for the pupils, Stephan Vrachas told commercial radio.

 

The education minister of New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, said the government would consider making sunglasses compulsory in all public school playgrounds.

 

"It is conceivable that in certain environments it might be appropriate to wear sunglasses when they are playing in the sun," John Della Bosca told reporters.

 

Excessive exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays, already blamed for skin cancers, can also lead to cataracts, experts say.

 

A specialist at Sydney Eye Hospital told the national AAP news agency that wraparound glasses were the best for eye protection and children should be encouraged to wear them from the age of three or four.

 

Sunglasses were particularly important in summer, when ultraviolet exposure was up to five times higher than in winter, said Con Petsoglou.

 

Male belly-dance back in vogue in Turkey

At Istanbul's Club Fox on the Sea of Marmara coast the belly dancer's hips gyrate and tassels swirl to the music but the stomach is a little hairier than usual -- it's a man's.

Male belly dancers are thrilling audiences in Turkey and other European capitals, drawing on a tradition dating back to Ottoman times when men in the Sultan's palaces were entertained by young male dancers as the women lived separately in harems. As 36-year-old dancer "Alex" takes to the stage and the repetitive beats are replaced by Arabesque music, the young Turkish crowd goes wild, flinging their arms in the air and jostling for a view of his belly.

"All kinds of people watch me. I dance on stage in clubs, bars and even rock concerts," said Alex, who goes by his stage name.

His costume and dance style are distinct from that of a female dancer. He wears loose black trousers, a chain-mail headdress, a richly-tasselled belt and stole, and a cloak made of sheer fabric, which he extends with his arms like wings. "I am really against people thinking oriental dance is a female dance. In doing this they are trying to give it an identity...but all dances can have male and female characters."

Ballet also has male and female dancers, he points out. Alex began dancing aged 16, drawn to belly dance as he thought it was the most expressive dance for his body shape whilst also being highly in demand.

"He dances often two or three nights a week. It is popular with visitors," said club manager Metin Kemer.

Alex said he learned the history of male belly dance from Ottoman palace archives and then modernized the tradition.

The multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire, governed from Istanbul, spanned three continents in its heyday around 400 years ago. As the empire's reach declined and society modernized women became more in view and the number of female belly dancers rose, but Alex sees the dance as most erotic on a male body. Although the stomach moves are reminiscent of those of a female belly dancer he makes stronger lines with his arms.

The dancer says he has no concerns about intolerance towards his profession in predominantly Muslim Turkey, nor about the re-election of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which has Islamist roots.

"I did not face any problems. There are more marginal jobs than mine in Turkey... I was marginal 10 years ago in Turkey. Now you can watch striptease or a topless DJ."

He says he has become so well known that there are even impersonators operating in the country.

"I am being imitated which means I must be going in the right direction. I registered with a patent institute."

But male belly-dancers still face a battle for wider recognition of their craft, they say.

London-based Turkish Cypriot dancer Ozgen Ozgec said: "I think there are just a few Turkish male belly dancers in the world, including me, doing an international stage job and trying to get it recognized as art and not just a bar job."