Harp's Blog

Hide-and-seek turns up abandoned baby in bushes

1 hour, 43 minutes ago

A 6-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek with her grandmother found a newborn baby girl abandoned in a vacant lot next to her home.

Lilliana Williams-Rodriguez told her grandmother Thursday evening that she had found a doll in the bushes.

But Thelma Williams, 55, who has six children, knew right away the baby lying motionless in the weeds near a basketball hoop was no doll. She called 911 and wrapped the baby in clothing until firefighters arrived.

Police estimated the child was born an hour or two before she was discovered. The baby girl was taken to the hospital with a fever but was expected to recover.

The infant, partially wrapped in a black shirt, still had her umbilical cord attached, said police Sgt. Tom Connellan. Police weren't sure if she was born at the scene or brought there and abandoned. They were searching for the infant's mother.

The state's Abandoned Infant Protection law allows parents unable to care for their newborns to leave them, no questions asked, with a responsible person at a hospital, police station or fire station.

"Leaving the baby in the bushes like that — if the baby hadn't been found, it probably wouldn't have survived for long," Connellan said.

Williams said it was lucky her granddaughter asked her to play that evening. "It was a game of hide-and-go-seek that turned into a day of reckoning," she told The Post-Standard of Syracuse.

 

Sweden's Loch Ness monster possibly caught on camera

  GO HERE TO SEE VIDEO AND VIDEO OF IT LOOKS LIKE GIANT FISH TO ME..

GO DOWN TO BOTTOM LEFT VIDEO IT SHOWS IT REALY GOOD..

http://www.storsjoodjuret.nu/bildarkiv.html

2 hours, 33 minutes ago

Sweden's own version of the Loch Ness monster, the Storsjoe or Great Lake monster, has been caught on film by surveillance videos, an association that installed the cameras said Friday.

The legend of the Swedish beast has swirled for nearly four centuries, with some 200 sightings reported in the lake in central Sweden.

"On Thursday at 12:21 pm, we filmed the movements of a live being. And it was not a pike, nor a perch, we're sure of that," Gunnar Nilsson, the head of a shopkeepers' association in Svenstavik, told AFP.

The association, together with the Jaemtland province and local municipality of Berg, installed six surveillance cameras in the lake in June, including two underwater devices.

The project, which has so far cost some 400,000 kronor (43,000 euros, 62,500 dollars), is aimed at resolving the mystery of the Swedish Nessie.

The first sighting dates back to 1635 and the most recent to July 2007, with most speaking of a long, serpent-like beast with humps, a small cat or dog-like head, and ears or fins pressed against the neck.

The association employs one person full-time to review the recorded video footage each day.

In the images filmed Thursday and posted on a website dedicated to the Storsjoe monster (www.storsjoodjuret.nu), a long serpent-like being is seen swimming in the murky waters.

"A highly-advanced system on one of the cameras detected heat produced by the cells," indicating that it was a live being, Nilsson said.

"It's very exciting and quite spectacular," he said.

He readily admitted however that the project was also "aimed at improving business around the lake."

"The monster has helped us," he added.

Some 20 more cameras are due to be installed soon, including one at a depth of 30 metres (100 feet) to catch any movements under the winter ice.

I RATHER EAT DIRT THAT A 100 BAREFEET KIDS WALK ON THAN RAT MEAT ANY DAY..

Rat meat in demand as inflation bites

 The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.

Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.

"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.

"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us."

He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a day to Vietnam.

Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

($1 = 3,900 riel)

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Alan Raybould and Paul Tait)

 

Help-wanted ad for nanny: `My kids are a pain'

Thu Aug 28, 6:17 PM ET

It was an unusually honest ad for a live-in nanny, a 1,000-word tome beginning, "My kids are a pain." But it worked, attracting a brave soul who's never been a nanny before.

"If you cannot multitask, or communicate without being passive aggressive, don't even bother replying," Rebecca Land Soodak, a mother of four on Manhattan's Upper East Side, wrote Aug. 19 in her advertisement on Craigslist.

"I can be a tad difficult to work for. I'm loud, pushy and while I used to think we paid well, I am no longer sure."

This being the age of instant communications, the ad took on a life of its own, making the rounds of parenting blogs and e-mail inboxes and inspiring an article in Thursday's New York Times.

Soodak, a 40-year-old painter whose husband owns a wine store, eventually hired Christina Wynn, a 25-year-old University of Virginia graduate, to take care of Rubin, 12; Ellis, 9; and Shay and Cassie, both 6.

"I made a commitment to stay in the job for at least a year," Wynn told the Times. "I met the oldest child, but not the others, which my mother said was crazy — to accept the job without meeting all the kids. So we'll see." She noted that one of the pluses is that the children are all in school for several hours each day.

Some other excerpts from the listing: "If you are fundamentally unhappy with your life, you will be more unhappy if you take this job, so do us all a favor and get some treatment or move to the Rockies, but do not apply for employment with us."

And this: "Also, if you suspect all wealthy women are frivolous, we are not for you."

And this: "I have all sorts of theories on how to stack my dishwasher, and if you are judgmental about Ritalin for ADHD, or think such things are caused by too much sugar, again, deal-break city."

No word yet on whether a sequel to "The Nanny Diaries" is in the works. Meanwhile, Soodak tells the Times: "I hope she likes it here. I sent the ad to one of my old sitters and she said she felt it was pretty accurate, which sort of stung a little bit."

 

First off by law there consderd to be indecent exposuer..

Second there not even NAKED!!! they have a apron on..

To be naked you have NO CLOTHING on at all..

There only part naked and in my mind they are by law indecent in public and should be arrested..

But then agin it funny LOL

9-year-old boy told he's too good to pitch

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 32 minutes ago

Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player — too good, it turns out. The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.

But Vidro says he didn't quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league's field on Saturday urging the league to let Jericho pitch.

"He's never hurt any one," Vidro said. "He's on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?"

The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.

"I feel sad," he said. "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play."

Jericho's coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league's administrators.

Jericho instead joined a team sponsored by Will Power Fitness. The team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.

"I think it's discouraging when you're telling a 9-year-old you're too good at something," said his mother, Nicole Scott. "The whole objective in life is to find something you're good at and stick with it. I'd rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner."

League attorney Peter Noble says the only factor in banning Jericho from the mound is his pitches are just too fast.

"He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower," Noble said. "There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport."

Noble acknowledged that Jericho had not beaned any batters in the co-ed league of 8- to 10-year-olds, but say parents expressed safety concerns.

"Facing that kind of speed" is frighteneing for beginning players, Noble said.

League officials say they first told Vidro that the boy could not pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Jericho played second base the next game on Aug. 16. But when he took the mound Wednesday, the other team walked off and a forfeit was called.

League officials say Jericho's mother became irate, threatening them and vowing to get the league shut down.

"I have never seen behavior of a parent like the behavior Jericho's mother exhibited Wednesday night," Noble said.

Scott denies threatening any one, but said she did call the police.

League officials suggested that Jericho play other positions, or pitch against older players or in a different league.

Local attorney John Williams was planning to meet with Jericho's parents Monday to discuss legal options.

"You don't have to be learned in the law to know in your heart that it's wrong," he said. "Now you have to be punished because you excel at something?"

Whopping Fish Declared New Species A man-sized grouper that trolls the tropical waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean for octopuses and crabs has been identified as a new fish species after genetic tests.

 

Called the goliath grouper, the fish can grow to six feet (1.8 meters) in length and weigh a whopping 1,000 pounds (454 kg). Until now, scientists had grouped this species with an identical looking fish (also called the goliath grouper, or Epinephelus itajara) living in the Atlantic Ocean.

 

"For more than a century, ichthyologists have thought that Pacific and Atlantic goliath grouper were the same species," said lead researcher Matthew Craig of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, "and the argument was settled before the widespread use of genetic techniques."

 

Once upon a time, about 3.5 million years ago - before the Caribbean and the Pacific were separated by present-day Panama - they were, in fact, the same species. Now, DNA tests have revealed the two populations have distinct genes, indicating they likely evolved into two separate species after their ocean homes were divided by Central America.

 

Scientists disagree about how to define the term "species" and what separates species from one another biologically, though some say that a species is a group that can mate with one another and produce offspring that are not sterile. However, this biological definition doesn't always hold up, for instance, with coyotes and wolves (considered separate species), which can successfully produce fertile offspring. In this study, the scientists relied on differences in the fishes' genetic codes to establish the separate grouper species.

 

The new Pacific species, now designated as Epinephelus quinquefasciatus, is described in a recent issue of the journal Endangered Species Research.

 

The Atlantic variety, E. itajara, is currently listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, or International Union for Conservation of Nature. Due to its scarcity, E. quinquefasciatus also may be considered critically endangered.

 

"In light of our new findings, the Pacific goliath grouper should be treated with separate management and conservation strategies," said researcher Rachel Graham of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York.

 

The research was funded by Programa Petrobras Ambiental, Conservation International Brazil to Projeto Meros do Brasil, The Summit Foundation, National Science Foundation and Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. 

Video: Surprising Fish Tale Top 10 Species Success Stories Image Gallery: Freaky Fish Original Story: Whopping Fish Declared New Species LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

 

 

Ok some want McCain for president

some want Obama and some don't want eather..

So here is what I do if i was president

 

1) Start bring home troops from Iraq slowly

2) Talk to Iran try and fix things out

3)Talk to russia try and fix that mess

4)Then go to Ahganstan and compleatly bomb the mounians

till there nothing but dust..will not stop till all al-quida are dead or in our prisons

5)Give Arabia 6 month to turn Bin Laden over to us

(will not tell them what we do if they don't)

But will bomb them till they hand him over

they was all in on that 9/11 and we know it

6)Big companys will have to give 5% of there proffits

to Medicade and Medicare and S.S.

7) All people will be taxed depending how much money they make

the more you make the more you will be taxed..

8)all people who recive food stamps or gov. help will be

check up on 100%..if your healthy and can work

you will be given 6 months to get a job because

you will be taken off food stamps and gov.help..

9)NO more American jobs will go over sea's

10) raise minaman wages to $9.00 a hour

11)All Health insurance will have to be at a fixed price so all can afford it

12) All drug company will have to lower prices and be checked on all the time

13)All people on death row if there is DNA and

3other 100% evidence proving that person is giulty

he/she will be put to death

14)Drill for oil in our own country and do not depend on others for oil

15)Check out everything about Bush and Cheney

if can prove he did anything wrong including war crimes

they will be delt with acordaly..

16)All laws will be changed for molesters,pedifiles and anything aginst a child

that anyone does..No matter what it is you did to a chiled you

will be put in prison for life without parole and you will be in a small cell with nothing but a bed blanaket and potty an sink no window nothing and you will not be aloud to go out your cell at all.

if you murder a child you will be put to death.

this is not the ordere of things to be done but is what I would do if President.

 

SORRY BUT THIS IS WRONG THEY ARE TAKING THE KIDS FREEDOM AWAY AND IT ALSO IN MY BOOK A COMMY THING TO DO...THIS IS AMERICA NOT CHINA OR CUBA!!!!!

Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets

By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press WriterSat Aug 23, 3:28 AM ET

Court authorities here will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.

But at least one group is worried the ankle bracelets will infringe on students' privacy.

Linda Penn, a Bexar County justice of the peace, said she anticipates that about 50 students from four San Antonio-area school districts — likely to be mostly high schoolers — will wear the anklets during the six-month pilot program announced Friday. She said the time the students wear the anklets will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

"We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate," Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity. "We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on in life. I don't want to see the latter."

Penn said students in the program will wear the ankle bracelets full-time and will not be able to remove them. They'll be selected as they come through her court, and Penn will target truant students with gang affiliations, those with a history of running away and skipping school and those who have been through her court multiple times.

"Students and parents must understand that attending school is not optional," Penn said. "When they fail to attend school, they are breaking the law."

Penn said the electronic monitoring is part of a comprehensive program she started four years ago to reduce truancy. She cited programs in Midland and Dallas as having success with similar electronic monitoring measures.

But Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said requiring students to wear the GPS bracelets full-time raises privacy concerns.

"We're all for keeping kids in school, and we applaud any efforts to make that happen," Burke said. "But the privacy issue: What happens with the bracelet or anklet after school is out? Is that appropriate for the school or courts to know where and what this person is doing outside of school?"

Asked why the students have to wear the ankle bracelet all the time instead of just the school day, Penn cited problems with runaways.

"Sometimes, as I said, students are runaways. Parents don't know where they are," Penn said. "So it's for the safety of the child, as well as the safety of the community."

Burke said truant students and runaway kids are different issues.

Asked specifically about privacy concerns, Penn said she didn't have a comment. But, she added, her priority is "looking for the good of making these children accountable ... it's for the concern of these children getting an education."

 

I was looking at old videos I made and saw this it was my first time to use a Video cam and trying to figer out how to edit it..Never did learn that till months later and mom said it was cute and funny..So put it online and thought  show it on here agin...LOL

 

India's oldest man dies at the age of 139

PTI | August 19, 2008 | 12:42 IST

Habib Mian, perhaps the longest surviving man in India, passed away in Jaipur on Tuesday at the age of 139.

 

Born on May 28, 1870, at Rajgarh in Rajasthan's Alwar district, Habib Mian had been suffering from fever and a bout of dysentery.

 

He had joined the band of the erstwhile Jaipur Royal family as a clarinet player and retired from service in 1938. At that time, he received a pension of just Rs 1.46, which was later increased to Rs 2698.

 

Habib Mian did not celebrate his birthday this year as he was saddened by the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur on May 13, which claimed 62 lives, according to his grandson Chuttan Khan.

 

According to Mian's family friend, Rajesh Nagpal, the old man had called him on Monday and said 'Mera samay aagaya hai. Mujhe chod kar mat jana (my time has come, don't leave me at this time)'.

 

Beside Chuttan Mian and his eldest grandson Mahmood Mian, Habib Mian has left behind 140 grand and great-grand children.

 

His four sons and wife had died several years ago, Chuttan said.

 

In 2005, the Limca Book had recorded Habib Mian as the oldest man of Jaipur.

 

Habib Mian used to draw a pension of Rs 350 from Maharani Gayatri Devi Trust.

Angel the dog credited with saving kittens

Wed Aug 20, 9:01 PM ET

You've heard of man bites dog. What about, dog saves cats? A two-year-old dog that had been turned over to the Nevada Humane Society's shelter in Reno is being credited with rescuing six abandoned kittens.

Shelter Director Diane Blankenburg said it happened Monday while the two-year-old Boxer/Pit Bull mix named Angel was on a walk with a pair of volunteers, Frank Gomez and his 9-year-old stepson, Joel Fontes.

They were walking on the hot day with temperatures in the 90s when the dog became obsessed with something in the bushes. When she refused to move on, Gomez investigated and discovered a box full of 3-week-old orange tabby kittens that were frightened and hungry.

One of the abandoned kittens escaped before shelter staff were summoned to the scene, but Angel tracked it down and Gomez handed it over to safety.

 

Researcher says bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit

By JUANITA COUSINS, Associated Press WriterTue Aug 19, 7:12 PM ET

Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice — handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it — was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.

The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.

Steve Kulls, executive director of squatchdetective.com and host of Squatchdetective Radio, says in a posting on a Web site run by Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi that as the "evidence" was thawed, the claim began to unravel as a giant hoax.

First, the hair sample was burned and "melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair," Kulls said in the posting.

The thawing process was sped up and the exposed head was found to be "unusually hollow in one small section." An hour of thawing later and the feet were exposed — and they were found to be made of rubber.

Matt Whitton, an officer who has been on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, and Rick Dyer, a former Georgia corrections officer, announced the find in early July on YouTube videos and a Web site.

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," Whitton said at the time.

Phone calls to Whitton and Dyer went unreturned on Tuesday. But the voicemail recording for their Bigfoot Tip Line — which proclaims they search for leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster — has been updated and announcing they're also in search of "big cats and dinosaurs. If you see any of those, give us a call."

On Tuesday, Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner said he has not spoken to Whitton but processed paperwork to fire him.

"Once he perpetrated a fraud, that goes into his credibility and integrity," Turner said. "He has violated the duty of a police officer."

___

Puerto Rico corpse kept upright for 3-day wake

Tue Aug 19

A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing — even in death.

A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.

Dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, Pantoja was mourned by relatives while propped upright in his mother's living room.

His brother Carlos told the El Nuevo Dia newspaper the victim had long said he wanted to be upright for his own wake: "He wanted to be happy, standing."

The owner of the Marin Funeral Home, Damaris Marin, told The Associated Press the mother asked him to fulfill her dead son's last wish.

Pantoja was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan and buried Monday. Police are investigating.

 

Dog dies after traffic cop apathetic to owner's pleas THIS MAKES Me MAD NO REASON TO DETAIN THEM  

 

SAN MARCOS, Texas -- A police officer was accused of inappropriate behavior after his misconduct may have resulted in a dog's death, ABC News reported.

Officer Paul Stephens pulled over Michael Gonzalez for speeding at 100 miles an hour down an interstate highway, prompting the driver to get out of the car, saying, "He's dying."

Gonzales and his girlfriend Krystal Hernandez explained that they were speeding to reach a veterinary clinic because their pet poodle Missy was choking.

The dashboard camera of the police car shows Officer Stephens yelling and criticizing the couple for putting other people's lives at risk for a dog.

"You're driving down the highway at 100 per hour," he said. "It's a dog, it's OK. You can get another one. Relax."

Stephens kept Gonzalez on the roadside for 15 minutes. The dog died as the couple waited for Stephens to issue a citation.

The couple tried to convince the officers several different ways to allow them to save their pet, KWTX Channel 10 News reported.

Gonzalez and Hernandez said they begged Stephens to let them go to the vet and turn themselves in for the speeding ticket later.

Gonzalez also offered to stay behind with the officer while Hernandez took the dog to the vet.

But Stephens ignored their pleas.

Police supervisors called the incident a "rookie mistake" and did not found Stephens guilty of any misconduct.

"This was not our finest hour," said San Marcos Police Chief Howard Williams.

However, Williams did say that Stephens behavior was less than stellar.

"His world was collapsing. And what the officer says to him, basically, is, 'I don't care,'" Williams said.

Earlier this week, a police officer in Arizona was acquitted of charges of animal cruelty after leaving a police dog in a patrol car for 13 hours on a hot day last summer, the Associated Press reported.

Recent examples of police misconduct towards people are unfortunately no less appalling and usually include the use of tasers.

Police in South Carolina punched a teenage boy 13 times in the face before tasering him as he lay prone on the ground.

Police tasered an injured teen from Ozark, Missouri up to 19 times after he fell from a highway overpass in late July.

The 16-year-old had broken his back and heel when the officers began tasering him.

In yet another bizarre instance of police violence, a 66-year-old minister was tasered and beaten by hospital security guards for what he claims was a joke.

In that incident, hospital security cameras caught five officers kicking Rev. Al Poisson on the ground for at least five minutes.