Month: January 2004

  •               


    Drivers fuming over tickets for snow emergency -- without snow!

    By The Associated Press
    (1/29/04 - SOMERVILLE, MA)     — Some residents of this Boston suburb are being asked to pay for the mayor's snow job.

     Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone declared a snow emergency at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Within hours, with nary a flake in sight and barely any on the way, 3,000 cars were ticketed and another 200 were towed before the ban was lifted at 4:20 a.m.


    The tickets cost $50, and the tow jobs $145.


    The mayor said that he has no plans to forgive the tickets or the towing charges, which could combine for a possible $179,000 windfall for the city.

  •                                      The Stanford Prison Experiment


    What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.



                                      


    How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour of describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of Human Nature.

       --Philip G. Zimbardo


    http://www.prisonexp.org/index.html


    From MissJSerenity

     

  •                                  


                                                 Tiffany Eunick


    Wrestling Death Teen Goes Free

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 26, 2004


    (CBS/AP) Lionel Tate, the teen who killed a 6-year-old playmate and became the youngest defendant in the nation to be locked away for life, was released Monday after three years behind bars.


    Tate was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 6-year-old playmate Tiffany Eunick three years ago. He punched, kicked and stomped the 48-pound girl to death.

    Tate had claimed he accidentally killed the girl while imitating professional wrestling moves.

  •                   

     

    Dingo Howls His Way Into History

    CANBERRA (Reuters) - A howling success in outback Australia, Dinky, a singing and piano-playing dingo, is about to be immortalized in a board game.






     

    The three-year-old native wild dog has won a nationwide competition to identify the Australian with the most trivial feat, to star in a question in a 20th anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit.

  • "Excitement ran high as Faeroe islanders went to the polls after the collapse of the coalition between the Folkaflokkurin, the Tjodveldisflokkurin, the Midflokkurin and the Sjalvstyrisflokkurin; both the Sambandsflokkurin and the Javnadarflokkurin were confident of improving their representation in the 32-member Lagting."

     

    That quote from the Spectator's news of the week via SwiftOne

  •                               







    Chef fired for too many diners


    A Swedish chef said he was shocked to find out he will lose his job because his cooking is too good. An engineering company in central Sweden said they won’t renew chef Richard Norberg’s contract because he attracts too many people to the company’s cafeteria.

    “Some feel that the staff has had to stand in line for too long and that they can’t choose where they want to sit.”

  •  


    Landmine-detecting plant grown


    From correspondents in Denmark
    January 27, 2004


    DANISH researchers said Sunday they have produced a plant that can help detect landmines by changing its colour from green to red when its roots come in contact with explosives.


    Initial testing will take place in Bosnia, Sri Lanka and parts of Africa.

  •  


     





    Baby bites snake

    A baby boy has bitten a snake after it slithered out of a bag of potatoes his mother bought while shopping.


    Toni Barnard bought the bag at a local Wal-Mart store in Semes, Alabama.


    She said the snake appeared after she brought her shopping home and was putting it away. When she turned her back her 11-month old son Trevor grabbed the snake, put it in his mouth and took a bite.


    Barnard said she got the snake out of her baby's fist, and someone else cut off the snake's head.

  •                              


    Security measures urged for voting machines
    Many forms of tampering possible, consultant says


    By Stephanie Desmon
    Sun Staff
    Originally published January 30, 2004



    Results tallied by Maryland's 16,000 new electronic voting machines can be trusted only with some added security measures, a consultant told legislators yesterday.

    Maryland is spending $55 million on the Diebold AccuVote-TS touch screen machines.


    Yet the review found that it is possible to vote multiple times, break into machines and disrupt results or get voters to select the wrong candidates. It's also possible to dial in to election headquarters and alter results or wipe out all of them.

    "You're more secure buying a book from Amazon.com than you are uploading your results to the Diebold server."


     

  • 15 YEARS AGO TODAY



    Jan 31 1989  


    Copies of the March Playboy with LaToya Jackson posing with snakes hit the newsstands. She also has a snake tattoo.

dingus5

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