Kitty pictures: http://www.happyperson.co.uk/clown.html

US military now trying to buy abused prisoners

AFP, Baquba

At the Camp War Horse detention centre in Baguba, north of Baghdad, it is a surreal scene: US soldiers handing out cash to freed prisoners along with a note saying "You have not been mistreated." Desperate to limit the damage from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the US military has launched something of a charm offensive surrounding their detention centres.

"Have you been mistreated?" the governor asks the detainees, dressed in orange boilersuits. "No. We have never been tortured," chorused those behind bars as some 50 soldiers stood nearby.

The outspoken left-wing Venezuelan president urged Bush to use his planned visit to the Vatican on June 4 to announce the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"Even though he's not a Catholic ... he should ask God's forgiveness at the Vatican ... go down on his knees in front of the Pope and ask for the forgiveness of the world, not just the Iraqi people," Chavez told a news conference Friday.

From shortfused

From I_am_the_incredible

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving.

A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?"

From truth_and_fiction

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday May 16, 2004
The Observer

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

 
-New Yorker

80 YEARS AGO TODAY

May 17 1924

Two youths discover a human skull on the banks of the Leine in Hanover, Germany. And although two more skulls are found a month later, police ignore it until a sackful of bones turn up on the riverbank. Dragging the Leine yields another 500 bones, belonging to about 27 victims. Eventually, police arrest Fritz Haarmann for the crimes.

Haarmann was a butcher and during the ‘lean’ times after the First World War, he would kill and sell human meat. Housewives believed the meat they bought was human, the police laughed and sent them away.

The first murders took place 1918 when Haarmann would patrol the local train station looking for weak and vulnerable boys. Haarmann would offer gifts (drinks and sweets) to the boys then invite them to stay with him for the night, offering safe shelter. Ironically, Haarmann was a police informer with a crime record; the police did not suspect Haarmann’s evil ways.

Known as Germany's "Hanover Vampire," Haarmann was a homeless vagrant who learned to butcher meat, which allowed him to start a business. He then brought wandering waifs to his home, fed them, and forced them to have sex. 

He confessed to the murder of some 50 young men.  He described how he would grab the boys, and while sodomizing them, would chew through their throat until the head was practically severed from the body.  As he tasted their blood, he achieved orgasm.  He would then cut the flesh from their bodies, consume some of it, and sell the rest on the open market as butchered meat.  Fritz Haarmann was beheaded 20th December 1924.

  www.arminm.com/ fritz_haarmann.htm

Fritz Haarmann The Butcher Lyrics
Artist(Band):Macabre

In a far away town
many years ago
There lived a man
who caused much woe
He'd murder young men
and slice up the meat
And sell to hungry town people to eat

Fritz Haarmann-
He chopped up young men
The Butcher
Made steaks out of them
Fritz Haarmann-
He sold them as meat
The Butcher-
For the people to eat

Young men were missing
nowhere in sight
But they ate their steak
with hungry delight
They'd go to Fritz Haarmann
to get more meat
But they didn't know
young men they'd eat

Fritz Haarmann-
Made young men into meat
The butcher-
sold them on the street
Fritz Haarmann-
He'd sell them as steaks
The Butcher-
For the profit he'd make

After a 17-year nap a newly emerged Cicada is seen in the yard of a home in suburban Washington, Saturday, May 15, 2004. Trillions of red-eyed insects are crawling their way above ground in 14 states and the nation's capital. Loudmouthed and ugly, the cicadas will fly clumsily into pets, bushes and unwitting pedestrians as they engage in a frenetic mating ritual that lasts well into June. Then they'll disappear for another 17 years.