Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

A New Way to Determine Your Body Fat

For a $100 bucks you can buy a high-tech scale that shoots a low-level electrical signal through your bare heels to measure your body fat. Sounds like a great way to start the day, doesn't it? Business 2.0 reports that the new line of body-fat scales from Tanita gives you the bold and ugly truth of how fat you really are--just in case your spouse isn't already telling you.

Here's how it works: The electrical current darts through your heel and courses through your body fluid, measuring how much it's impeded by pockets of fat. Then voila! It gives you a handy-dandy digital readout of the results.

Business 2.0 reviewer Shoshana Berger loved the clean look, easy-to-read LCD, and somewhat moderate price point. Up to four people in the household can program this scale with his or her own age, height, and athletic (or sedentary) status. The Tanita BF-578 Body Fat Scale even has a memory. It will compare today's readings to previous ones. It does have one redeeming feature: During post-holiday weeks, it only gives you your weight and no body fat readings.

[Jolie Rouge]

Easy Way to Lose 10 Pounds


http://channels.netscape.com/ns/home...nds&floc=wn-nn
It isn't a gimmick. You don't have to buy anything. And you really can drop 10 pounds without a lot of work.

How?

Take advantage of the fact that even the smallest changes matter.

Eating one tablespoon less fat per day will lead to a 10-pound weight loss in a year, according to Katherine Tallmadge of the American Dietetic Association. "It's not about trying to make sweeping overhauls that are doomed to fail," she explained to The Associated Press.

The American Dietetic Association has other advice for would-be dieters:

Some fats are good for you, most notably the fatty acids found in fish.

When it comes to losing weight, the only thing that counts is calories. Just so you know, about 3,500 are in a pound.

And as AP so cleverly puts it, it's time to "stop stuffin' it and start huffin' it."


The Ideal Diet


The ideal diet, according to Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at Harvard School of Public Health, consists of lots of fruits and vegetables and healthy protein sources, including fish, poultry, nuts, and legumes. Red meat and high-fat dairy products should be avoided. Carbohydrates are fine, as long as they're high-fiber. Think wheat pasta and brown rice. Avoid refined grains, such as white rice and white potatoes. Also, take a multivitamin daily, do enjoy an alcoholic drink every day, and get regular physical activity.


The Ideal Meal

Slice of oily fish, such as salmon, cooked in garlic, shallots, onions, and tomatoes
Broccoli
Wine or beer
Fresh fruit for dessert with a steaming cup of tea

Why is this meal so good for you?

Oily fish, such as salmon or mackerel, may cut the risk of prostate cancer in half. Garlic, shallots, onions, and tomatoes also lower the risk of certain kinds of cancer. Broccoli and broccoli sprouts contain a chemical that kills the bacteria responsible for most stomach cancers. Moderate alcohol consumption can reduce the risk of heart attacks. Tea makes bones stronger and reduces the risk of dying after a heart attack.


Bon appetit!

[Jolie Rouge]

Young Activist Changes Name to GoVeg.com
By MARTHA IRVINE

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...41.htm&sc=1110

She knew her new name might finally stick when she got a phone message recently: ``Hi, GoVeg.com. This is your mother. Please call me.''

It might sound more than a little odd - but it's true. A young animal rights activist from Indiana once known as Karin Robertson has legally changed her name to that of a Web site run by her employer, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

It's not a first name or a last name - just one name. And don't call her ``Veg'' or ``Dot,'' as some have tried to do.

``I like the whole name together,'' says the 23-year-old recent college graduate, who is now a youth educator for PETA and living in Norfolk, Va., where the organization is based.


The point, she says, isn't necessarily to promote PETA, where her bosses were as surprised as anyone when she came to them with the idea this past spring.


She says she made the switch to get people talking about vegetarianism and animal rights wherever she pulls out her new driver's license - at the airport, the bank or anyplace else.


``People are really perplexed,'' she says. ``They say, 'You've got to be joking.'''


They usually laugh - and so does she.


``Every time I go to the bank, the tellers will report back about vegetarian food they've tried,'' she says, gleefully.


Her decision to take on such an unusual name also offers a chance to talk about the treatment of animals on farms and in processing plants - a source of heated debate.


The conditions under which chickens are raised and slaughtered was, for example, the topic of much discussion at the International Poultry Exposition in Atlanta earlier this year.


Agriculture experts there said animal rights activists are simply choosing sentimentality over science and practicality.


Now those in the agriculture field are rolling their eyes over GoVeg.com's name change.


``It sounds like she needs to get a life,'' says Kara Flynn, a spokeswoman for the National Pork Producers Council, a lobbying group in Washington. ``If she actually went on a farm and saw what was happening there, she might be pleasantly surprised.''


The activist formerly known as Karin Robertson seems undaunted by the criticism - and that's not unusual, says her mother, Melanie Robertson, of Culver, Ind.


She says her daughter first became concerned about conditions of animals on farms after doing a science project for school. While still in high school, her daughter then joined an animal rights group on the campus of nearby Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.


Admittedly, her mother says, the name change has been difficult to get used to.


``My first comment was 'But your real name is so pretty. Why would you want to do that?''' says Melanie Robertson, a kindergarten teacher who named her daughter for a college friend.


GoVeg.com's father, Bob, regularly eats vegetarian food, too, since having triple bypass surgery two years ago. But when it comes to his youngest daughter's name change, the fisheries biologist, who counts many hunters among his friends, is taking his share of ribbing.


Still, the family - most of whom GoVeg.com says aren't vegetarians ``yet'' - is standing behind her.


``To us, she will always be Karin,'' her mother says. ``But I think she has a good reason for doing what she's doing.''


On the Net:


Pork Producers: http://www.nppc.org


People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: http://www.peta.org


Martha Irvine can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org



07/31/03 02:42

[Jolie Rouge]

Stalin Plotted to Kill John Wayne?


LONDON (Reuters) - Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was so outraged at the anti-communism of film star John Wayne that he plotted to have him murdered, according to a new biography of the American icon.

"John Wayne -- The man behind the myth" by British writer and actor Michael Munn says there were several attempts in the late 1940s and early 1950s to kill the man known to audiences around the world as "Duke."

In the first attempt, two Russian assassins posing as FBI agents tried to kill Wayne -- born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907 -- in his office at Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood.

But the plot was uncovered and the would-be killers captured, the book says, citing several sources including director Orson Welles.


The book says the Soviet plots were canceled after Stalin's death in 1953, by his successor Nikita Krushchev, who was a fan of the larger-than-life star of more than 100 films.


"That was a decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died I rescinded that order," the book quotes Krushchev as telling Wayne during a private meeting in 1958.


But it says American communist groups took up the cudgels against Wayne who was a supporter of the anti-communist witch-hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, citing an attempt in Mexico on the set of the film "Hondo."


Wayne survived these attempts and another by a sniper during a trip to visit American troops in Vietnam in 1966. He eventually died of cancer in 1979.



07/31/03 10:31

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MILL VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - Mill Valley's newest 500 employees work cheap, start early, stay late and never gripe about where their office is located.

That's because the employees are all goats.

Mill Valley hired the four-legged firefighters to gobble up tinder-dry brush and grass on four acres at the Edgewood Reservoir.

"These are working goats," said Fire Battalion Chief Greg Moore, lauding the herd that went to work Tuesday. "They are environmentally friendly."

The black, white and brown spotted goats will take 21 days to 30 days to eat the area clear of French broom, acacia, blackberry and dry grass that are a combustible fire hazard.

Moore, who runs the Vegetation Management Program, said different methods have been used to reduce the threat of fire. The goats are being tried for the first time, in part because they don't produce any air pollution.

The last two years the department did controlled burns.

"I believe a prescribed burn is the least expensive and good for the soil," said Moore. "But in this location, the goats were the best alternative."

The service, provided by Living Systems Land Management of Santa Cruz, will cost $4,000 to $5,000 depending on how long the goats stay and how much they eat.

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CRYSTAL, N.D. (AP) - It's enough to make Lorraine Martinson weep.

More than 7,000 onions were picked from her field and pocketed by thieves, Pembina County Sheriff Wayne Samdahl said.

Seven rows of onions, worth about $4,000, were taken from the field where Martinson grows a variety of vegetables.

"It would be at least a good-sized pickup load," Samdahl said.


The theft apparently happened over the weekend. Martinson discovered it Monday, when she was picking peas.

"I looked down and there's no onions," she said. "I was like, 'Where's my onions?'"

Authorities took pictures of footprints and tire prints.

Samdahl said the thieves must have spent considerable time in the field, which has about 1,000 onions for each of the seven rows. He believes more than one person was involved.

"They didn't do it in a couple of minutes," he said. "They had to pull each one by hand."

Martinson says onions are her major source of income in the summer.

"This is what I make my pickup payment and taxes with," she said.

Martinson is offering a $500 award for tips that lead to an arrest in the case.

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LONDON (AP) - A judge was forced to bow out of a dangerous dog case Thursday after learning his own pet mongrel was appearing for the defense.

Justice Barrington Black had been scheduled to preside at the trial of Geraldine Green, 53, whose dog allegedly bit a jogger. She was charged with having a dog "dangerously out of control."

Court officials said Thursday that the judge learned that his dog Vinnie had been filmed frolicking on Hampstead Heath in north London with the defendant's dog, Zak, and that the video would be offered in evidence.

Black told Harrow Crown Court in west London that he had to declare a "four-footed interest" and asked for the case to be heard by another judge.

Green was subsequently found innocent by a jury.

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SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A herd of nonchalant camels is being blasted with high-volume opera music in Australia's Outback in preparation for their walk-on role in a lavish opera production in South Korea, the owner said Thursday.

But they've so far been unimpressed, with "no reaction whatsoever" to the music, owner John Geappen told The Associated Press.

The animals are to be part of an US$5.3 million production of Verdi's Aida to be staged over two nights in Seoul this September by Italy's Parma Theater.

They will appear during the opera's most famous moment, the Triumphal March and chorus in the second act, featuring alongside other camels, horses pulling 12 chariots and an elephant.


"They walk on stage tethered together with singers on their back, for about 10 minutes, then walk off," Geappen said.

His company, Red Sun Camels in Broome, Western Australia State, won an international tender to supply the animals, which are to be flown to South Korea via Hong Kong in specially constructed crates.

They will have to be quarantined for 15 days before their role in Aida - the tragic love story of the young warrior Radames and the Ethiopian princess Aida, taken prisoner by Egypt.

Large numbers of wild camels roam Australia's Outback deserts. The camels are descendants of animals brought from the Middle East to Australia by colonial explorers and pioneers in the 19th century.

The camels are not likely to return home from the opera.

Geappen said after the production, they are to remain in Korea they are likely return to their old job - giving tourist rides.

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NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - A Louisiana woman has been charged with stealing the ring off the hand of a dead man at his funeral wake, police said on Wednesday.
Susan Duhon, 44, was accused of taking the diamond ring while mourning at the deceased man's open casket on Friday, said Capt. Richard Sammartino of the Crowley, Louisiana police department.

"Employees of the Geesey-Ferguson Funeral Home noticed she was leaning over the casket at the time she was visiting it, which they thought was suspicious," he told Reuters.

They questioned her and she admitted to having the ring, which was valued at $500, so police were called in, Sammartino said.

Duhon was charged with theft and placed in the Acadia Parish Jail until Wednesday when she was released on $10,000 bond, he said.

Duhon signed the visitor's book at the wake, according to Sammartino, but her relationship to the deceased was not clear.

"We don't know if she was a family member or just a friend," he said.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (Reuters) - Oh heck. You can't drive on the Devil's highway in New Mexico anymore.
Route 666, often referred to by locals as the "Highway to Hell" or "Satan's Highway" was formally re-christened Route 491 on Wednesday. Several prominent voices wanted new numbers for one of the state's deadliest roads that lacked associations with the biblical beast.

"After 77 years of concern and discontent we have finally removed any reference to the devil from this highway," said Gov. Bill Richardson in a ceremonial dedication.

The tortuous stretch of road runs through mountain valleys from Gallup to Shiprock for just over 100 miles in the northwest part of the state. It has some of the highest fatalities per mile of any highway in New Mexico because of its poor condition.

In 2002, 11 people were killed in crashes on U.S. 666 in New Mexico, while in the first six months of this year, six have perished, the state transportation department said.

The number 666 is called the number of the beast because of a passage in the New Testament -- from Revelations -- and over the centuries triple sixes have become associated with Satan.

The road was renamed Route 491 because it is the fourth route off U.S. 191.

Most of the 666 highway signs were stolen after the name change was announced in May. Officials blame thieves looking for souvenirs and not the Devil.

[Jolie Rouge]

Where's Nessie? Loch Ness Search

Is it the Loch Ness monster bubbling beneath the surface of the most famous loch in Scotland or is it a myth started innocently enough by the good Saint Columba in the year 565 and then carried on through the ages by the gullible? Apparently, it's the latter. That's the word from the venerable British Broadcasting Corp. which decided to settle this monster-or-myth debate once and for all. So the BBC trawled the loch with 600 separate sonar beams and satellite navigation technology and found no trace of any monster, reports The Associated Press. It did find a buoy, though.

Nessie, as the monster has been nicknamed by her true believers, is said to be a large beast who occasionally pokes her long, slender neck out of the dark, deep waters of the loch--just long enough for a grainy snapshot to be taken. Some thought the monster could actually be a relic from the age of dinosaurs, perhaps the marine reptile plesiosaur. Scientists who believe Nessie exists have given her a more serious name: Nessiteras rhombopteryx. To conduct this high-tech search for the monster of centuries-old legends, the BBC researchers first studied the habits of modern marine reptiles, such as crocodiles and leatherback turtles, to figure out how a plesiosaur might have behaved, reports AP. If Nessie were really lurking in the murky depths of the loch, it was hoped that the air in her lungs would reflect a distorted signal to the sonar sensors. No such luck.

"We went from shoreline to shoreline, top to bottom on this one. We have covered everything in this loch, and we saw no signs of any large living animal in the loch," Ian Florence, one of the specialists who carried out the survey for the BBC, told AP. What the researchers did learn is that the loch is steep on the sides and flat on the bottom.

And apparently free of monsters.