| Would-be cop hid wood in hair |
An Indian man was arrested for hiding a piece of wood in his hair to meet the minimum height requirement to join the police.
Suspicious officers made Gajendra Kharatmal take the height test again and the wood popped out of his hair, reports Mid-Day newspaper.
Kharatmal was arrested on charges of cheating and is currently out on bail.
Thu Oct 28, 3:37 PM ET |
By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months since the U.S.-led invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war.
There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and airstrikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote.
"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.
Nothing about running a small store called Pufferbelly Toys prepared Stephanie Cox for a cryptic phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Two men arrived at the store and showed Cox their badges. The lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube. She said yes. The Magic Cube, he said, was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube. He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.
After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group. A representative told her that the Homeland Security agents had it wrong. The Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on rival toy's trademark.
Homeland Security routinely blocks shipments of products from overseas that violate intellectual property rights.
After gaining assurances from Toysmith officials, Cox put the Magic Cube back on the shelf .
YOUR DREAMS
Somewhere in you is a dream. It's probably buried deeply under all the day-to-day concerns, yet somewhere in you it lives.
It's not at all practical, and it's probably a little outrageous. Even so, it energizes your spirit like nothing else can.
It rises to the surface every now and then. And when it does, for a short while, the years melt away and you touch that place where everything seems possible.
Then it usually sinks back down under the surface of your awareness. And there it waits, patiently, never losing its hope or its luster.
Your dream, as crazy and impractical as it may seem, is trying to tell you something. Your dream, with its promise that you all too quickly, all too often dismiss, wants to tell you who you are.
Isn't it time you truly listen to what it has to say? Perhaps it is time to begin following that dream, and live the purpose with which you're blessed.
-- Ralph Marston
Wed Oct 27,12:21 PM ET |
By Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ed Wood won a cult following after his death and now fans can see his long-lost last film.
"Necromania" -- the last film Wood directed -- was filmed over two or three days with a budget of no more than $7,000 and the only copies went missing soon after it was made. The movie tells the story of Danny and Shirley, a young couple who visit the mysterious Madame Heles for help with their flagging sex life.
Published on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 by The Free Press (Columbus, Ohio) |
Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote |
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman |
| The Republican "November Surprise" to steal the 2004 election is in full force here in Ohio. With polls showing a dead heat, the GOP is staging an all-out attack on a fair vote count in the Buckeye State. Here are a dozen ways they're doing it:
No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. This year the GOP seems determined to win it, no matter what they have do to the electoral process. From TigerLily1
|
Luther's lavatory thrills experts
Archaeologists in Germany say they may have found a lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century.
The stone room is in a newly-unearthed annex to Luther's house in Wittenberg.
Luther is quoted as saying he was "in cloaca", or in the sewer, when he was inspired to argue that salvation is granted because of faith, not deeds.
The scholar suffered from constipation and spent many hours in contemplation on the toilet seat.
'Earthy Christianity'
The lavatory was built in the period 1516-17, according to Dr Martin Treu, a theologian and Luther expert based in Wittenberg.
 |  We still don't know what was used for wiping in those days  Dr Martin Treu |
The toilet is in a niche set inside a room measuring nine by nine metres, which was discovered during the excavation of a garden in the grounds of Luther's house.
Dr Treu said there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther, the radical theologian who argued for a more "earthy Christianity", which regarded the entire human body - and not just the soul - as God's creation.
The Reformation, which resulted in Europe's Protestant churches, is usually reckoned to have begun when Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg's Castle Church on 31 October 1517.
Luther left a candid catalogue of his battle with constipation.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Patrick Deuel, 42, underwent obesity surgery to reduce the size of his stomach four months after being admitted to the hospital at 1,072 pounds.
He had been bedridden since last fall and was malnourished because so many of his calories came from foods high in fat and carbohydrates.
Gastric bypass surgery was thought to be his best chance for permanent weight loss, but doctors said Deuel needed to lose some weight first, to gain enough strength so he could walk on his own and prove he was healthy enough to survive the surgery.
Before going into surgery Deuel had lost 421 pounds. He credited the results to a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet and exercise.
Deuel weighed about 90 pounds in kindergarten and more than 250 pounds in middle school.
By LINDSAY POWERS
October 24, 2004 -- EXCLUSIVE
A young Manhattan woman split open her breakfast muffin - only to find what seemed to be a condom baked inside. Theresa VanHorn, a 29-year-old writer at MTV Networks, said she was eating a carrot-nut cream-cheese-topped muffin from her office building's bodega on West 50th Street when she found a piece of latex baked into the crumbly delicacy. 'I ate almost half the muffin before discovering it,' VanHorn said. 'Then it was like slow motion when I pulled it out - I was screaming.' .
VanHorn called the Health Department to report it, but was told not to bother. "Go ahead and throw away the evidence," a representative told her over the phone, VanHorn said. "We won't get to your complaint for days, or maybe weeks." The representative added that the department routinely gets complaints of foreign objects in food and doesn't have time to deal with them all immediately.
On January 1, 2004 a law banning smoking on the beach sidewalks and boardwalks in Santa Cruz, CA went into effect. Earlier this month, the city counseling passed a resolution that will also ban smoking on the beaches under control of the City Parks and Recreation Department.
In seemingly unrelated news, the District Attorney of Santa Cruz county, exasperated by the DEA's (successful) efforts to shutdown the growing, harvesting and use of medical marijuana announced that his office would no longer prosecute any marijuana usage violations. The Sheriff quickly followed suit and announced that if the DA would not prosecute, then his office would not arrest for usage crimes.
Then, members of the city council started a marijuana give away program to those with Doctor's prescriptions at City Hall.
The upshot of this, if you smoke a cigarette on the boardwalk at Santa Cruz, you can be fined and arrested. However, if it is a joint, seems there is no problem.
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