Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Unexpected! Nodding Your Head Means...

...you are influencing your own attitudes about important issues. When you nod your head in affirmation or shake it in disapproval, that action not only sends a message to others, but also influences how you feel and think about the subject at hand, reports Science Daily of new research from The Ohio State University.

Led by psychology professor Richard Petty, the Ohio State researchers also found that other body movements, such as writing with a non-dominant hand, can affect our self-esteem. What's important about these findings is that body movements can exert their influence even when we're not aware it's happening. "We think of nodding or shaking our head as something that communicates to other people, but it turns out that it is also communicating to ourselves," Petty said in a news release announcing the study findings. He calls the nodding or shaking head a type of "self-validation" that confirms to us how we feel about our own thoughts. "If we are nodding our heads up and down, we gain confidence in what we are thinking. But when we shake our heads from side to side, we lose confidence in our own thoughts."

Nodding your head up and down is a way to tell yourself that you have confidence in your own thoughts--whether those thoughts are positive or negative. Shaking your head does the opposite, giving you less confidence in your own thoughts. Nodding your head even when you disagree with what is being said actually strengthens your disapproval. "Nodding your head doesn't mean you'll agree with whatever you hear. One of the most surprising things we found is that if you're thinking negative thoughts while you're nodding, this actually strengthens your disapproval," Petty said. "What the head nodding is doing is making you more confident in your negative thoughts. In contrast, when the thoughts were mostly positive, then nodding increased confidence in these thoughts and thereby increased persuasion." The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

[Jolie Rouge]

Harry Potter House Up for Sale


LONDON (Reuters) - For sale: a prim suburban house in middle England that boasts a boy wizard and an owl among its former residents.

The house that played host to the loathsome Dursleys and their magical nephew in the Harry Potter movies is on the market, British newspapers reported on Tuesday.

With fans gripped by the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's series, the owner of No 4 Privet Drive -- in reality No 12 Picket Post Close -- is putting the house up for auction with a price guide of $415,000.

The detached house in Bracknell, south-east England, was first used by Warner Brothers when they filmed "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" -- known as "The Sorcerer's Stone" in America -- in 1999.


It is the place to which Harry reluctantly returns from wizarding school Hogwarts to spend his holidays.


From its gleaming front door to its pristine lawns, the house was selected by a location spotter for its lack of interesting features, the papers said.


But as readers will know, Harry saw little of the house in his formative years, spending much of them locked either under the stairs or in his sparse bedroom.


It will be auctioned on July 22 in London.



07/09/03 09:53

[Jolie Rouge]

Does Stonehenge Depict Female Genitalia??



TORONTO (Reuters) - Stonehenge is a massive fertility symbol, according to Canadian researchers who believe they have finally cracked the mystery of the ancient monument in southern England.

In the arrangement of the stones, the researchers say they have spotted the original design: female genitalia.

The theory is laid out in a paper entitled "Stonehenge: a view from medicine" in the July issue of Britain's Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

"To the builders of the henge, the most critical events in life were birth and death," Anthony Perks, a retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia, wrote in the paper.


He noted there was no evidence of tombs built by the original builders.


"Of birth, we could expect little evidence. However, evidence may be there but so large as to be overlooked."


Viewed from above, Perks suggests Stonehenge's inner bluestone circle represents the labia minora and the giant outer sarsen stone circle is the labia majora. The altar stone is the clitoris and the open center is the birth canal.


"Could the outer avenue of Stonehenge...represent the way by which new life entered?" the article wondered, adding that when comparing "the layout of the henge with the anatomy of the human vulva. There is a distinct similarity."



07/09/03 09:29

[Jolie Rouge]

Nuns Seek to Copyright Mother Teresa's Name

CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - The order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa seeks to copyright her name in a bid to stop other organizations -- from banks to business schools -- trying to cash in on the Nobel peace laureate's image worldwide.

"We are seeking legal protection for the use of our logo, and also want such protection for the name of Mother Teresa and that of the Missionaries of Charity," Sister Nirmala, the head of the order, said in a statement.

"In her lifetime, Mother Teresa expressed on a number occasions her wish that her name not be used by any other individuals or organizations without her permission, and after her death, the permission of her successor."

The Missionaries of Charity, established in 1950, says it has received reports that several organizations are using Mother Teresa's name as well as the order's logo -- a cross set within an oval and surrounded by rosary beads.


In one case, the order managed to convince the "Mother Teresa Institute of Management" to drop the name. Media reports said a bank was among other organizations trying to capitalize on the name.


Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 in Calcutta at the age of 87, was of Albanian descent, and won the Nobel Prize in 1979.



07/09/03 09:32

[Jolie Rouge]

A Traveler's Nightmare



MELBOURNE (Reuters) - It's every air traveler's secret fear: minutes from landing, you suddenly realize you're on the wrong plane and are about to end up thousands of miles from your intended destination.

That fear came true for an unidentified woman who mistakenly boarded the wrong plane in Los Angeles. Instead of arriving in Hong Kong as she planned, the woman found herself in the southern Australian city of Melbourne on Sunday.

The woman had a boarding pass for a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong but instead boarded a Qantas flight to Melbourne which left earlier from the same gate at Los Angeles international airport, a Qantas spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

She said the mistake happened because a computerized system used to check boarding passes was out of order and ground staff in Los Angeles missed the error.


The woman then sat in an unoccupied seat and did not realize her mistake until minutes before landing, the spokeswoman said.


Australia's Courier-Mail newspaper reported that the Asian woman slept quietly in seat 8C for most of the flight.


The woman arrived in Melbourne without her luggage, which was left in Los Angeles after she failed to board her scheduled flight. Qantas arranged for her to stay in Melbourne on Sunday night and then put her on a flight to Hong Kong, where she was to be reunited with her luggage.



07/09/03 09:51

[the fugative]

Chuck Shepherd: News of The Weird

Retailers in Los Angeles, New York and Miami say that more and more young, urban, heterosexual men are choosing to dress in women's tight, low-slung jeans and to use stylish lotions, fragrances and hair-care colors and products, according to June reports in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Some marketers call men who are eager to embrace their feminine sides "metrosexuals" and point to English soccer star David Beckham (who braids his hair and paints his fingernails) as an icon. The Bravo cable channel will air a makeover show Tuesday, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

• A man who was hit by lightning at a Cincinnati amusement park two years ago (who survived, but with brain damage) sued the park in June. According to the man's lawyer, Drake Ebner, the man did not already know enough about how serious lightning storms are and the park management was negligent in not warning him against heading for his car, where he was struck.

News that sounds like a joke

To publicize an April 1 town festival near Cedar City, Utah, the mayor dreamed up a fanciful narrative: that a 10th-century, Viking-discovered island had been carried ashore by a Pacific Ocean volcano, to a point near what is now Cedar City, and by a 19th-century treaty, the U.S. had swindled the Vikings out of ownership of the island's artifacts, allowing Vikings only the privilege of the April festival. Everyone took the story in good spirit until several residents of nearby St. George grimly wrote the mayor claiming to be Viking descendants and demanding "their" artifacts back. When the mayor told them it was a joke, the claimants accused the mayor of a coverup.

• Anthony Scott Ward, 40, and Melissa Coleman, 27, were arrested in Prestonburg, Ky., following a Memorial Day incident at a playground (with kids nearby), in which Coleman was bound face down on a picnic table, being paddled by Ward with a boat oar, in what authorities described as consensual "foreplay." Police recovered a cache of bondage items from the couple, including ceremonial hoods, handcuffs, prosthetic sexual tools, ropes, chains, collars, clamps, vibrating devices, lubricants and a cattle prod.

The continuing crisis

• In May, Elizabeth Rudavsky stabbed to death her severely abusive husband of seven months, Angelo Heddington, in Thedford, Ontario, but to Rudavsky's shock, Heddington was soon identified as a woman (who had long ago adopted male mannerisms and dress). A former Heddington girlfriend, who had discovered the secret earlier, told a reporter that Heddington "had soft hands, but she spit like a guy. The whole time you were talking to her, she'd have her hands in her pockets playing with herself like she was a guy."

• London's Daily Mirror revealed in May that "Dr. Death" Harold Shipman, serving a life sentence for killing 15 older patients (and perhaps as many as 200 more), had been allowed to help sick prisoners in the hospital wing of England's Frankland jail in Durham County. Said one prison source, "This man has spent his career secretly killing [people]. Just imagine some poor guy's face when he looks up from his wheelchair and sees Dr. Death is pushing it."

• In May the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an Iowa Supreme Court order that the Interstate Power Co. should pay a family $700,000 because stray voltage had been juicing up their farm's cows. Daniel and Coleen Martins said that because of a nearby power substation, their cows had been kicking off their milkers, swinging from side to side, and "dancing," to the detriment of their milk production.

• One beneficiary of Oregon's budget woes, according to an April report in the Salem Statesman Journal, is Jose Leonidas Selva Jr., who had just been arrested behind the wheel of a stolen car, his third arrest in two months. As in the previous arrests, Selva was summarily released two days later because Oregon had no money to pay a public defender to represent him. The limited defense funds were to be used for suspects in violent crimes, and by his third arrest, Selva knew that: "I figured, they're just going to release me. They're not going to hold me. I'm just going to keep doing it." Selva was ordered to return after July 1, when new budget money is supposedly available.

• According to a suit filed in May against the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, Conn., Catholic Sister Linda Cusano repeatedly wrestled a student to the floor in a secluded office in incidents in 1991 and 1992, for sexual purposes and to impress upon the student that she needed to join the convent upon graduation and submit herself to God. Cusano was known by students as "the recruiter" because of her aggressive (but more mainstream) encouragement toward sisterhood.

Least competent criminals

• Police in Scotia, N.Y., arrested Malinda Kelly in March on several charges but only after they had scurried around for several hours trying to find her "stolen" car and her 3-month-old son, who was inside. The next day, Kelly's story fell apart. Actually, said police, she had forgotten where she had left the car, which was idling, with the child inside, while she ran down the street to burglarize her uncle's home. (She came away with some money, but meanwhile lost her own money when a stranger took her purse from the idling car.)

• Illinois became the latest state to propose a ban on having one's tongue aesthetically split, reptile-like (unless done by a doctor or dentist). But the move is unpopular among devotees. "When I first saw it, I thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing I've seen in my life," said satisfied splittee James Keen, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter, who observed that Keen "now speaks with a slight lisp." Said another splitee, who said he could now do party tricks like picking up a pencil with the two halves, "It's done to better yourself."

• Jessica Parks graduated from high school in Oakland County, Mich., in May, with high grades, a varsity letter in cheerleading, and other entirely typical achievements of high-performing teens, all done without benefit of arms, which she has been without since birth. Among her special skills: putting her contact lenses in with her toes, and driving her car with no special equipment, just one foot on the gas and one on the steering wheel. In June, NewsChannel 4 in Oklahoma City featured Laura Stringfellow's dog Faith, whose front legs failed to develop and so now, at age seven months, has learned to walk and chase cats while on her hind legs.

Homeland security blues

• CBS News reported in May that while 90 percent of gun purchasers go through instant criminal background checks on an FBI database, the State Department's list of known foreign terrorists is not yet on the database. At Pittsburgh International Airport in May, a 21-year-old mental patient almost effortlessly penetrated several security barriers and was able to board an empty passenger jet on the runway. A June General Accounting Office report found that as many as 30 suspected terrorists whose visas have been revoked may still be in the United States because of the State Department's laxness in notifying Justice Department agencies.

Also, in the past month: A Southport, England, driver showed a judge a note from his doctor certifying that a blood clot had erased his short-term memory and thus that his 30 parking tickets should be dismissed because he can never remember where he parked. The Texas Legislature adopted a bill to ban doctors' performing surgery while intoxicated, except in an emergency. Officials in Lagos, Nigeria, announced that people ticketed for driving recklessly to avoid the city's notorious gridlock will not be able to drive again until certified "mentally sound" by a psychiatric clinic.

[Jolie Rouge]

Couple Says Cruise Line Held Them Captive



NEW YORK (Reuters) - A married couple sued Norwegian Cruise Lines alleging they were held captive on one of its luxury ships in Hawaii because the wife was doing work for a law firm suing the company.

The couple, Mark and Beth Lurie, filed suit Monday in Manhattan federal court alleging they were prevented from leaving the Norwegian Star when it docked at Maui on Feb. 28 and held incommunicado in a locked room for several hours. They said they were forced to leave the ship before the cruise ended.

The Luries, who said they paid $1,499 for the week-long cruise, are seeking more than $500,000 in actual damages and over $1 million in punitive damages.

They said the ship's crew held them captive because Beth Lurie is a paralegal for Jenkens & Gilchrist Parker Chapin, a Manhattan law firm that has filed a class action suit on behalf of Norwegian Cruise employees alleging they were not fully paid.


Barry Fertel, the couple's lawyer, told Reuters the vacationing Beth Lurie had been asked by her firm to question some cruise line employees regarding the class action suit. The law firm could not be reached for comment.


The suit alleges Norwegian Cruise, a unit of NCL Holding which is owned by Malaysia's Star Cruises, refused to reimburse the couple for the cost of the cruise.


A spokeswoman for the cruise line, Susan Robison, said that at no time were the lawyers confined to their cabin and that the suit was the first it had heard of their allegations.



07/09/03 09:41

[Jolie Rouge]

For Sale Car with Cocaine -- Apply with Customs

BERLIN (Reuters) - German customs unwittingly auctioned a car containing 22 pounds of cocaine, the Customs Investigation Authority (ZFA) in the northern city of Hamburg said on Tuesday.

The Chevrolet estate was originally imported from Mexico and impounded in 1997 after an X-ray revealed it was carrying 120 pounds of the drug. But that wasn't all.

"The software used to scan the car in 1997 was not sophisticated enough to pick up the other 10 kilograms," said Hamburg ZFA spokesman Robert Duetsch.

The car sat in storage until being auctioned off last month, whereupon the new owner discovered 11 bags of the white powder stashed in the boot, each weighing around 900 grams.


The man immediately returned to customs with the drugs, which Duetsch said would have had a street value of some $564,000 in 1997.



07/08/03 10:25

[Jolie Rouge]

• Anthony Scott Ward, 40, and Melissa Coleman, 27, were arrested in Prestonburg, Ky., following a Memorial Day incident at a playground (with kids nearby), in which Coleman was bound face down on a picnic table, being paddled by Ward with a boat oar, in what authorities described as consensual "foreplay." Police recovered a cache of bondage items from the couple, including ceremonial hoods, handcuffs, prosthetic sexual tools, ropes, chains, collars, clamps, vibrating devices, lubricants and a cattle prod.

A CATTLE PROD ????

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TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - A wrestling match Wednesday between two of the world's largest preschoolers ended in a draw - and a party with ice cream and chocolate.

In one corner was Russia's Dzhambulat Khotokhov. At 123 pounds and 3 feet 11 inches, he is the world's largest 4-year-old, according to match organizers.

In the other corner: Georgy Bibilauri, a native of the Georgian capital who stands 4 feet tall and weighs 112 pounds.

After the boys tied on the mat, they went off to celebrate Bibilauri's fifth birthday.

Georgian wrestling champion Levan Tediashvili refereed the match, organized by a journalist who had seen a newspaper article about the Russian boy.

"They are fantastic kids," Tediashvili said. "These two giants give off such positive vibes. We Russians and Georgians should follow their example."

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CHOWCHILLA, Calif. (AP) - Usually people go to court to fight a drug rap. But one man says he's going to court to get his drugs back.

Michael Celli, 42, who had a pound of medicinal marijuana seized by police, says he needs it to ease chronic migraine headaches.

Celli had hoped to receive his stash on Monday after a judge ordered Chowchilla police to return it, citing a 1996 California referendum legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.

But Police Chief John Robinson called the Drug Enforcement Agency instead. The freezer bag full of pot will remain in an evidence locker until federal agents pick it up.

"It was suggested by the district attorney's office to confer with the DEA," Robinson said. "If I release it to (Celli), I can be arrested for a felony, which is trafficking and distributing."

Celli was booked on suspicion of drug possession with intent to sell while being issued a citation for illegal parking April 25. He said an officer laughed when he showed a card to prove he had medical reasons for using marijuana.

Robinson said Celli had "one of these cards you can buy on the street corner in San Francisco," not a doctor's prescription as mandated by state law.

Robinson also said he's following a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared the state medical marijuana statute does not take precedence over federal drug laws.