Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Bush Budget: Aliens May Be Out There

WASHINGTON (AP) - Proof that life exists outside the boundaries of Earth continues to elude scientists, but President Bush's budget suggests that ``space aliens'' may be out there. And it could just be a matter of time before they are discovered.

In a brief passage titled ``Where Are the Real Space Aliens?'' Bush's budget document released Monday says several important scientific discoveries in the past decade indicate that ``habitable worlds'' in outer space may be much more prevalent than once thought.The finds include evidence of currently or previously existing large bodies of water - a key ingredient of life as we know it - on Mars and on Jupiter's moons.


Astronomers also are finding planets outside the solar system, including about 90 stars with at least one planet orbiting them.``Perhaps the notion that 'there's something out there' is closer to reality than we have imagined,'' the passage concludes.

The president calls for $279 million next year and $3 billion over five years for Project Prometheus, which includes building the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter.

"This mission will conduct extensive, in-depth studies of the moons of Jupiter that may harbor subsurface oceans and thus have important implications in the search for life beyond Earth," the budget reads.

The budget is the second time in recent months that the Bush administration has addressed questions about life in space.

On Dec. 24, the White House issued a September determination by Mr. Bush in which he followed his predecessors' lead by issuing a determination exempting the Air Force facility near Groom Lake, Nevada, from environmental laws allowing the release of classified information about the area.

Groom Lake is the place that UFO buffs call Area 51.

"I find that it is in the paramount interest of the United States to exempt the United States Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake … from any applicable requirement for the disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location," the president wrote.

[Jolie Rouge]

UFO Mysteries: Feds Hiding Secret Info?
- Cathryn Conroy

It was a cold December night in 1965. A fireball streaked over the skies of North America. It banked. It turned. And then it appeared to crash in western Pennsylvania. At least that's what numerous eyewitnesses saw and reported.

What happened to that UFO?

Swarms of military personnel took the reports very seriously. They combed Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, and when they were finished they left in a flatbed truck covered by a tarp. Bottom line: All these years later, we still don't know what really happened on December 5, 1965 or what the military found there. Officially, the government won't even acknowledge it happened. When pressed, all it will say is that it was a meteorite. But some eyewitnesses insist that the tarp-covered military truck took an acorn-shaped object the size of a small car from the crash site to an Air Force base in Ohio.

All these hush-hush secrets and mysteries have John Podesta, formerly chief-of-staff for President Bill Clinton, in a tizzy. Podesta has made a plea to the Pentagon to release its classified files about this and other UFO incidents. "It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon," John Podesta told CNN.

Podesta is part of an initiative by a newly formed group called the Coalition for Freedom of Information that wants the Air Force to hand over documents on the so-called Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly. These were secret operations that supposedly existed decades ago to investigate UFOs and retrieve objects of unknown origins--like anything that might have crashed in western Pennsylvania on that December night in 1965.

Podesta and company want to make one thing clear: They are not out to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. They do want to legitimize the scientific investigation of unexplained aerial phenomena. So the group's first official act is to request the records through the Freedom of Information Act for that rural Pennsylvania UFO crash.

Regarding UFOs, Leslie Kean, a California-based freelance reporter who drafted the FOIA request, told CNN, "Most people don't think that there is evidence because they haven't looked for it. There's such a little green men mindset in this culture. It's hard to work your way through that."

Kean may be surprised to learn that most people DO think there is UFO evidence and that the government is hiding it. RoperASW and the Sci-Fi Channel recently conducted a nationwide poll of 1,021 adults and concluded the following:

72 percent of Americans believe the government is not telling the public everything it knows about UFO activity.

68 percent think the government knows more about extraterrestrial life than it is letting on.

The younger you are, the stronger your belief that the government is withholding information about UFOs and extraterrestrial life: 80 percent of respondents 18 to 24 years old said so, compared with 75 percent of those 25 to 34 years old and 73 percent of those 35 to 49 years old.

60 percent said the U.S. government should not withhold information about UFO sightings and potential encounters with extraterrestrial life when national security is not an issue.

[Jolie Rouge]

Government Cover-up? You Decide!

Rumors persist about an area in the Nevada desert that houses a secret military testing facility and, very possibly, alien technology/remains. The government denies the very existence of the facility as well as any/all alien contact.

You may think that only kooks, crazies and people with too much time on their hands think the U.S. Government is hiding something out in Hangar 18. But some very plausible and reliable information points to a government cover-up:


Executive Order: Read Bill Clinton's Executive Order protecting the secrecy of the area around Groom Lake.

http://www.ufomind.com/area51/desert...exemption.html

Popular Mechanics: Read their investigation into Area 51 and how they believe it's been moved.

http://popularmechanics.com/science/...51/index.phtml


Security Guards Strike: Security guards for 'nowhere' strike for a contract and higher pay.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho.../17638293.html


Truth in Fiction: One man's military career inspires idea for novel.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho.../14997134.html


Follow the Money: Review the budgets and see where the Defense Department is spending money.

www.fas.org/irp/budget/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

British Military 'Suppressed UFO Info'

The British government tried to cover up one of the country's most famous sightings of an unidentified flying object, a parliamentary watchdog ruled Tuesday.

The "Rendlesham Files," which were finally published on the Internet Sunday, contain eyewitness accounts by U.S. Air Force officers at a military base close to Rendlesham Forest, near Ipswich in eastern England, who saw a brilliantly lit object land in the forest in December 1980.

The incident is widely regarded as one of the most significant UFO sightings -- the British equivalent of the 1947 incident in which a spacecraft supposedly crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, with aliens aboard.

Several people had complained to the British parliamentary ombudsman, Ann Abraham, that the Ministry of Defense had refused to divulge full details of the Rendlesham witness accounts. Abraham ruled the ministry had "withheld three documents relating to reported sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena in 1980 -- the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident."

A ministry spokeswoman said the files had not been deliberately withheld and had always been available to anyone who asked.

In late December 1980, U.S. officers investigating what they thought must have been a crashed plane in the forest saw a triangular "strange glowing object" that sent farm animals into a frenzy.

"The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters (seven to 10 feet) across the base and approximately two meters (seven feet) high," reads a report in the file by Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt.

"It illuminated the entire forest with a white light," he added. "The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering, or on legs."

Skeptics say the witnesses were merely seeing the beam from a lighthouse on the nearby coast.

But the report adds that the next day three depressions seven feet in diameter were found in the grass and that readings of beta and gamma radiation were 10 times higher than normal. Disturbances were also noted on air force radar at the time.

Later in the night, a second UFO was seen, described as a red sun-like light. "At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects," said the file.

A Ministry of Defense memo in the file notes that: "No evidence was found of any threat to the defense of the United Kingdom. In the absence of any hard evidence, the MoD remains open minded."

Until last week, only around 20 members of the public had seen the file. The government said it would also be publishing other files on reported UFO sightings on www.mod.uk.

The Rendlesham File contains a Ministry of Defense memo suggesting British requests for audiotapes made by the American officers at the time were brushed aside by the United States. Later reports by UFO enthusiasts claimed that photographs and tapes were taken away by senior U.S. officers.

[Jolie Rouge]

Are Raelians for Real?

VALCOURT, Quebec (AP) - From the first sight of a futuristic, curving concrete building amid the barns and grain silos of southern Quebec farmland, something is off-beam.

Entering the headquarters of the Raelian religious sect, past a sign welcoming visitors to UFOland, is like strolling onto the set of a bad 1950s sci-fi movie, complete with a replica of the flying saucer that supposedly brought the space aliens who visited Rael, the sect founder. But the display lights don't work and inflated plastic pool seats create the command post.

This is no theme park, but the Canadian base of a group associated with Clonaid, which stunned the world with the Dec. 26 claim of having cloned a baby but has failed so far to provide proof.

Few believe Clonaid head Brigitte Boisselier's claim, and Rael readily acknowledges it may not have happened.

``If it's real, she deserves the Nobel prize because she is making history and it's the most fantastic scientific advance in history of humanity,'' Rael said, sitting at a small plastic table with his book and a sign with his Web site address.

``If it's not true, she's also making history with one of the biggest hoaxes in history, so in both ways it's wonderful. Because, thanks to what she is doing now, the whole world knows about the Raelian movement. I am very happy with that.''

A former race-car driver and journalist named Claude Vorilhon, Rael wears a pointy-shouldered white outfit, a large silver medallion in the shape of a swirling Star of David around his neck.

With a graying, thin beard and mustache and hair pulled back into a ball, his face has a slight resemblance to the artist's rendition of the extraterrestrial named Yahweh who Rael says came by spacecraft to deliver a message to him on Dec. 13, 1973.

``We were the ones who made all life on earth, you mistook us for gods, we were at the origin of your main religions,'' the messenger told Rael, according his Web site at www.rael.org. ``Now that you are mature enough to understand this, we would like to enter official contact through an embassy.''

Despite such conditions for the one-hour interview as referring to him as ``his holiness'' and avoiding questions that make him repeat himself, Rael came across as calm and charismatic. He smiled and laughed frequently, gesturing gently with his hands.

No matter what subject came up, the answer always seemed to come back to attention for his sect.

Boisselier initially said she would provide DNA proof that an unidentified American woman gave birth to a clone. After a Florida lawyer filed a court motion for the state to take custody of the baby, Boisselier said the parents decided against the DNA testing. The parents have not been identified.

That caused universal dismissal of the cloning claim, though Boisselier says accusations of a huge publicity stunt were the product of prejudice.

Even Rael sought to distance his movement from Clonaid, calling it a separate, independently funded organization and saying he only assists Boisselier - a Raelian bishop - in a ``spiritual'' capacity.

``She has created a new company, I don't know where. I don't know where the lab is, I don't know the family'' of the baby, he said. ``I know absolutely nothing, it is her company. I don't know and I don't want to know, I told her, because I never lie, and I don't want to say to you I don't know if I know. Like that I can tell you honestly I don't know.''

Yet the more he spoke, the more he seemed to know. He told of finding out about the forthcoming birth of baby Eve at a Christmas party he attended with Boisselier and of later telling her to prevent the child from being taken from her parents.

``If you have to choose between your credibility and reputation and the future of the child and the family, choose the child because it's much more important than your reputation,'' he said he told Boisselier.

Stopping the DNA tests was correct to prevent ``any chance that the child is removed from her family,'' Rael said.

No matter how it turns out, the story has attracted new Raelians, according to Rael. He put worldwide membership at 60,000, a figure considered grossly exaggerated by those who follow cults.

``A media analyst said the Raelian movement got about $500 million worth of media coverage across the world and I think it is true, and it is not finished,'' he said, later noting, ``This event saved me 20 years of work.''

That work involves spreading the word of the Elohim, Hebrew for God or, in Raelian translation, ``those who come from the sky'' - a technologically advanced species that chose Rael as their spokesman on Earth.

With the help of the Elohim, Rael believes, scientific and technological breakthroughs will make advanced cloning an everyday feat. Eventually, he said, fully grown clones will be downloaded with memory and experiences, like software in a computer, to enable people to achieve eternal life.

Raelians also embrace free love and nonviolence, Rael said, calling Mahatma Gandhi his model.

Standing next to a model of a DNA strand, guide Daniel Heroux, 45, said a desire for something new drew him to the movement 22 years ago.

``I was pretty lost then,'' Heroux said, mentioning drug use in his past. ``When I asked a friend where he derived all his knowledge about everything from politics to sexuality, he said, `You wouldn't believe me,' and told me about the Raelian presence in Quebec.''

Heroux is now an active member, passing out pamphlets and living at UFOland, where he said he can play his keyboard at all hours without disturbing anyone.

[Jolie Rouge]

[Report: Angler Admits Faking Trout Record


LONDON (AP) - An avid angler who claimed a British record eight years ago for catching a monster rainbow trout has confessed that he didn't hook the fish. It was already dead.

``I just feel so much better about myself now. It's like a weight's been lifted off me,'' said Clive White, 35, who notified the British Fish Record Committee two weeks ago about his deception.

He had claimed a record with a trout weighing 36 pounds, 14 ounces.

White said Monday that a friend had raised the trout, and provided it to him in a plot to set a record, the British news agency Press Association reported. The friend, who was not identified, denied any involvement in such a plot, Press Association added.

White told a different story to The Times newspaper, which quoted him as saying he had found the dead fish floating on the water, scooped it into his net and told two other fisherman that he had caught it.

White said he had felt guilty ever since.

``It's destroyed me, my marriage and everything I ever wanted. I felt so guilty. Not a week went by without me thinking about it. But I do feel a lot better now it's out in the open,'' Press Association quoted him as saying.



08/04/03 11:24

[Jolie Rouge]

Report: Police Resolve Stones Tape Case


BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - It took more than 20 years, but police finally got some satisfaction in the case of a stolen Rolling Stones cassette.

David Anthony Leahy, 43, was convicted last week of stealing the tape from a store in the northeastern tourist city of Cairns in 1982, the latest edition of the Gympie Times newspaper reported.

He was ordered to appear in court after police stopped him driving through the town of Gympie, 190 miles north of Brisbane, capital of Queensland state, and discovered an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Magistrate Paul Johnstone last Friday fined Leahy $130 for shoplifting and another $195 for not appearing in court after he was originally charged.

``The law will always catch up with you some time,'' Johnstone told Leahy in court, the Gympie Times reported. ``It doesn't really matter whether it was 21 years ago or 21 hours ago.''

Leahy's lawyer, Steve Cavanagh, said his client did not clearly remember the 1982 incident or his reason for not turning up in court when originally ordered to.

``The offense occurred so long ago, his recollection is very vague, as you can imagine,'' Cavanagh told the court.



08/04/03 08:41

[Jolie Rouge]

Judge Sends Offenders to Tai Chi Class


SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Municipal Court might be the last place you would expect to find offenders meditating and learning to balance their chi.

But this, after all, is Santa Fe.

And it's where Judge Frances Gallegos has placed offenders in her new alternative sentencing program - a tai chi class complete with a Japanese-style tea service and meditation aided by acupuncture.

Instructor Mark De Francis, a doctor of Oriental medicine who works as a psychologist for the state Corrections Department, said he believes violent offenders can benefit from tai chi and meditation.

Tai chi, a meditative self-defense art, is characterized by slow, relaxed movement. De Francis said it teaches practitioners to control impulses and fight their inner opponent.

``It's good for people whether they're in trouble or not,'' he said.

Offenders have a choice - they can either sign up for the tai chi class or participate in a community service program that involves picking up trash.

Gallegos said one of the goals of the 12-week class is to get offenders to rethink violence the next time they're in a dispute.

Geovanni Montijo, 23, didn't want to discuss the charges that brought him to the class. But he said he'd rather meditate than pick up trash.

``I wanted to check this class out,'' he said. ``I think it's working.''



08/04/03 08:39

[Jolie Rouge]

Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
WEEK OF AUGUST 3, 2003

LEAD STORIES

Toning up one's body is apparently a need that unites diverse soldiers in America's so-called culture war. In July, USA Today profiled the Lord's Gym in the West Palm Beach suburb of Greenacres, catering to devout Christians (sales pitch: "Your body is a temple for Christ"), where mothers say they can bring their teenage daughters without men ogling them. But in April, Reuters profiled a "Slavercise" class in New York City, where dominatrix "Mistress Victoria" led her clients through punishing fitness and weight-loss routines while wielding an intimidating riding crop. [USA Today, 7-6-03] [Reuters, 4-15-03]





You Break It, You Bought It: Australia's High Court ruled 4-3 in July that because Dr. Stephen Cattanach's sterilization surgery on Ms. Kerry Melchior had failed, it was Cattanach's (and the Queensland Health Department's) responsibility to pay the cost of raising the Melchiors' unwanted child until age 18. The decision stunned the medical profession and insurers in Australia, especially because Cattanach had relied on Melchior's inaccurate statement that her right fallopian tube had been removed at age 15 (and so performed surgery only on the left tube). [Sydney Morning Herald, 7-17-03]



Leading Economic Indicators

The Salon Mexico restaurant in New York City introduced a $45 burrito in July, with a filling of filet mignon and truffles. [New York Post, 7-18-03] And the founder of Paul Mitchell salon products recently launched John Paul Pets (shampoos for dogs), joining Estee Lauder's Origins line in the so-far-uncrowded upscale pet hair-care field. [Associated Press, 6-12-03] And a June runway show at Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo featured eight dogs modeling fashions such as a yellow dog raincoat (US$72) and a wedding dress and matching hat for dogs. [CNN-AP, 7-21-03]



At a New York legislative committee hearing in May, a Manhattan building owner revealed that he had hired as a lobbyist former U.S. Sen. Alfonse d'Amato to make a single telephone call to the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority regarding a real-estate issue that eventually was decided in the owner's favor and for which he paid d'Amato $500,000. [New York Times, 5-23-03]


People With Issues

Until May, Darlene Heatherington, 40, was a well-regarded, high-achieving city councilwoman in Lethbridge, Alberta, but then she traveled to Great Falls, Mont., on city business, during which trip an incident occurred. In several shifting public statements since then, Heatherington said she was drugged, kidnapped to Las Vegas and raped. However, police in Las Vegas, Great Falls and Lethbridge have contradicted her accounts, and (in Great Falls and Lethbridge) have charged her with filing false reports. Still, she has stuck to her story (baffling most people in Lethbridge) and denies any emotional problems ("I'm a long way from nuts," she said). (A National Post columnist wrote in June that, most likely, she had a consensual tryst and was then tormented by her own super-straight image.)[Great Falls Tribune, 5-9-03] [Canadian Press, 6-15-03] [Calgary Herald, 6-17-03] [National Post, 6-27-03]



Least Competent Criminals

Brian Kline, 10, playing with his father's old handcuffs (Dad used to be a security agent) on Father's Day, lovingly cuffed himself to dad William Kline Jr., 33, but the key was lost, and William called police (in Des Moines, Iowa) to get the cuffs off. As is routine, police ran Kline through their database, found two arrest warrants outstanding, and re-cuffed Kline for real. [Des Moines Register, 6-17-03]

And in Tulsa, Okla., in July, suspected shoplifter Jacob Wise, 18, had cleverly removed security tags from clothes he was allegedly walking out of a store with, but the alarm went off anyway because he had merely put the removed tags in his pocket. [Associated Press, 7-10-03]



Awesome!

In July, at an isolated hospital in Peru's Andes mountains, Dr. Cesar Venero realized that patient Centeno Quispe could not be airlifted to a full-service hospital in time to save his life from a brain injury incurred during a street fight. Luckily, the hardware store in the town of Andahuaylas was open, and with a drill and pliers, Venero (who earns the equivalent of about US$5,000 a year) saved Quispe's life by making the necessary holes in the skull to remove the clots that were putting pressure on the brain. [Reuters, 7-10-03]



Weird Labor News

According to Norway's Newspaper VG (which is currently running a series on odd summer jobs), teenager Svein Tore Hauge's job may take the prize: Armed with a shovel and a container, he works at Saerheim Plant Research, following cattle around and catching their excreta before it can hit the ground. Because the work-product is used for scientific study, it must be "pristine," free of grass, dirt, foreign bacteria, etc. Sometimes, it's easy, he said, but, "Sometimes it just sprays in all directions." [Aftenposten (Oslo), 6-25-03]


A labor tribunal in Denmark concluded in May that the rule about not drinking alcoholic beverages on the job, issued by management of MJ Mason Co. (Broenderslev, Denmark), was illegal and could not be enforced. The Mason owner had issued a no-drinking rule, but since he did not follow the procedure in the union contract, it was declared void, at least as to employees' break times. [Associated Press, 5-6-03]


Updates

In the latest news from Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center, a researcher said in June that his study had found that men's underarm odor has a stress-reducing effect on women. The week before that, The Wall Street Journal, profiling the Gillette Co.'s research lab, reported that lab director Ahmet Baydar is working not just on ordinary antibacterial-plus-fragrance products but on a substance that actually blocks odor receptors in other people's noses. (Gillette's tests use a synthetic malodor compound so strong that more than a few molecules can make a room uninhabitable, and involve five odor judges who sniff actual armpits and rate them 1 to 10, with 10 meaning "your head snaps back.") [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 6-26-03] [Wall Street Journal, 6-16-03]



The 50th Vienna Biennale opened in Austria in June with its usual array of avant-garde art, including another chapter in Canadian videomaker Jana Sterbak's series on reactions to pain. This time, she strapped a camera to a Jack Russell terrier, Stanley. Among his experiences was an innocent but intrusive exploration of a porcupine, which eventually provoked a quill attack, at which point the video goes haywire as Stanley jumps and writhes in pain. (Stanley appeared with Sterbak at the exhibit and, by his demeanor, apparently has no hard feelings.) [Canada.com, 6-23-03]



The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently ruled that just because convicted marijuana dealer Frederick R. James had sent the judge invoices for $500,000 each time the judge uttered his name during the trial (which his threats to do were reported in News of the Weird in 2002), that was not proof that James was legally insane. The court thus rejected James's appeal of his 22-year sentence, which makes it further unlikely James will ever collect on the $151 million he says District Judge Michael R. Reagan owes him for the "copyright" violations. [Chicago Sun-Times, 5-19-03]


Seriously in Denial

Syracuse, N.Y., dungeonmaster John Jamelske, 68, sentenced to 18 years to life in July for holding a series of girls and women as sex slaves underneath his house (though all were eventually released), told the judge that he thought of the slaves as his "buddies," that he would get together with them in the "party room," and that he did not "kidnap" them because no ransom was requested. [New York Post, 7-16-03]


And in Doylestown Borough, Pa., in May, ex-pediatrician Alva Hartwright, sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing homeless teenage boys in his care, continued in May to insist that the many enemas he gave them were "medically necessary" and that the reason he had a huge cache of child pornography was because he found the pictures "aesthetically pleasing," in the same way as his other photos of landscapes and wildlife. [Burlington County Times, 5-23-03]



Also, in the Last Month

A man allegedly seeking a street-corner prostitute was arrested and, per local law, had his vehicle confiscated, even though his vehicle that night was a municipal transit bus, which he was returning after a shift (Cicero, Ill.). [Chicago Sun-Times, 7-13-03]

A 45-year-old man fleeing police in a high-speed chase between Oak Ridge, Texas, and Lebanon, Okla., kept calling 911 on his cell phone, asking the operators to tell police to stop chasing him. [Associated Press, 7-18-03

The Cranbrook (British Columbia) Daily Townsman profiled Irene Weller's cat, Patches, which nurses not only her kittens but also two mice that Weller had recently ejected from the home. ] [Cranbrook Daily Townsman, 7-15-03]

[Jolie Rouge]

Porn King, Billboard Queen Enter Calif. Election
By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Porn king Larry Flynt says slot machines would resolve California's budget crisis. Porn star Mary Carey says it is smarter to tax breast implants.

Hollywood billboard queen Angelyne has adopted the slogan "Think rational pink," whatever that means.

Dozens of other eclectic, eccentric extras have also taken out nomination papers to run in the October recall election for California governor, adding farce, folly and fantasy to deadly serious political combat -- a bid to dump Democratic Gov. Gray Davis eight months into his second term.

"We are becoming a laughing stock. This just exacerbates the impression that we are a bunch of wackos out here," Art Torres, California Democratic party chairman, told Reuters.


"It reminds me of going to the circus and seeing this little car going into the arena and you couldn't believe how many clowns were able to come out of it," Torres said.


While actor/Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was keeping the nation guessing about whether he would try to terminate Davis's career, more than 70 other people were paying the $3,500 fee to file initial paperwork for the Oct. 7 recall election and maybe 15 minutes of fame. More than 180 others have indicated unofficially that they will run.


Aides say Schwarzenegger, after weeks of flirting with the idea, is now leaning against running and will state his intentions next Wednesday moments before an appearance on Jay Leno's NBC show.


A Schwarzenegger departure would delight the likes of Georgy Russell, a 26-year-old computer programmer, who is campaigning for a clean energy policy and selling thong underwear on her Web Site; Art Brown who is promoting a short film; and Michael Jackson and Bill Murray who are promoting the fact that they have the names of famous people.


ANGELYNE SAYS THINK PINK, PORN STAR SAYS THINK BLONDE


Among the more intriguing serious prospects is a potential face-off between gay, former Republican congressman Michael Huffington, who has filed papers, and his ex-wife, columnist Arianna Huffington, who is being pressed to run.


"The rest of the nation already thinks we are a bunch of kooks and this is a circus, and this only underscores that perception," said University of Southern California political analyst Sherry Be*****-Jeffe.


California does not get much more frivolous than Angelyne, a Hollywood icon and wannabe singer, actress, dancer and performer, who has been a household name for 10 years by virtue of plastering her curves on city billboards and once writing a screenplay called "The Bra That Ate L.A."


Angelyne said she had been asked to run by "various communities in Hollywood" and that she planned to campaign for honesty in politics. If everyone paid their taxes, she said, the record budget shortfall behind Davis's plummeting popularity could be wiped out by May 2005.


"My slogan is 'think rational pink.' We've had enough gray and brown and we need pink now and that's me. Entertainment is a lot harder than politics. Entertainment is a matter of emotion and ego and politics is a matter of basic rational mathematics," Angelyne told Reuters.


Porn star Mary Carey says something similar, "We've had Brown, we've tried Gray. Now it is time for some blonde."


Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt has also being doing some basic math. "I have a simple idea to eliminate the deficit without increasing anyone's taxes or cutting funding for any program and that is simply to expand California gaming to include slot machines for all private clubs."


Douglas Muzzio, professor of public affairs at New York's Baruch College in New York, said Flynt's candidacy is "designed for exposure, ego and his whacky commentary."


"It's the politics of celebrity. Things often start first in California, but I hope this is not the forerunner of things to come," Muzzio said.


The heavyweight candidates include Darrell Issa, a wealthy Republican congressman who bankrolled the recall drive against Davis, Republican Bill Simon, who was defeated by Davis last year, and possibly former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.



08/01/03 21:47

[Jolie Rouge]

Michigan Church Burns the Bible




A non-denominational church in Greenville, Mich., has decided that the only Bible of record is the King James version. To make that point crystal clear, the Jesus Non-Denominational Church held a book-burning and tossed other versions of the Bible, as well as the Book of Mormon and the Catholic Rosary, into the flames, reports WXMI-TV, a Fox TV station in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Explaining why any version of the Bible other than King James is a distraction and should be burned, Bishop Tom Turner Sr. told WXMI, "They have changed the key points in the Bible. The majority of it's probably the same, but it takes just a little bit to mislead people." This sort of action is unusual, according to religion expert Dr. Bastiaan VanElderen. A professor of religion at Michigan's Calvin College for more than 50 years, VanElderen says he has never seen anything like this before. "I've heard a lot of harangues about differing viewpoints, but nothing of this caliber," he told WXMI. He said the last time he remembers Bibles being burned was in the 1950s in the South.

Turner justifies the Bible burning, citing a passage from Chapter 19 of the Book of Acts that mentions burning pagan literature. "'So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed,'" he quoted from Acts: 19:20. The passage just before it reads (in the King James version): Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. Says Turner, "When did it prevail? When they burned them and made a public testimony that they are for God."