Weird News Thread ....

[Widgetsx3]

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) - Jim Hoel is very glad to have his watch back, even though it's stopped working since he last saw it - during World War II.

The last time he remembers wearing the old Gallet chronometer was on May 17, 1943, the day he used it while navigating a B-26 Marauder before the bomber was forced to ditch in a canal in the Netherlands.

He knows he no longer had the elaborate watch when he arrived at a German prisoner of war camp a few days later.

The watch arrived at his home this past week in a package sent from England by truck driver Peter Cooper, 56, who found it in the possession of an elderly neighbor in the village of Kirton, about 75 miles northeast of London.


"It's just eerie, isn't it? That was 60 years ago. I've sort of got gooseflesh," Hoel, 82, told the Chicago Tribune.

Cooper said the neighbor, "Tiny" Baxter, 89, told him his mother gave it to him.

"Whether she found it or it was given to her, I do not know," Baxter, a retired carpenter, said in a telephone interview.

The watch, an enlistment present from the bank where Hoel worked before the war, bore his name and Evanston address on its back.

Cooper was able to track him down at his new address using the Internet and friends who had contacts in the United States. He got his neighbor to give the watch to him so he could forward it to Hoel.

Hoel said the B-26 was one of a flight of 10 that encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire while en route to bomb a power plant near Amsterdam. He and three others of the plane's six crewmen survived, as did 16 other fliers from the 60-man mission. He spent the next two years in German prisoner of war camps.

[Jolie Rouge]

So THIS Is Why Guys Cheat!

No matter if they're single, married, or gay, men are hardwired genetically to want more sexual partners than women.

That's the word from the largest and most comprehensive study ever on this topic--16,288 men and women from 50 countries--that was conducted by an evolutionary psychologist at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, report The Washington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. "The results are strong and conclusive--the sexes differ, and these differences appear to be universal," wrote lead researcher David P. Schmitt in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology where the study findings were published. And, oh, has that created a firestorm.

Among other things, Schmitt asked the 16,288 male and female study volunteers the following questions, which measured desire, not how likely they were to act on those desires.

How many partners do you desire to have over the next month?

Men wanted 1.87 partners.

Women wanted 0.78 partners.

How many partners do you desire to have over the next 10 years?

Men wanted 5.95 partners.

Women wanted 2.17 partners.


What does this mean for us today now that we've moved out of the cave and into homes? There are two takeaways:

1. When one's significant other has an affair, men are more bothered by the sexual infidelity, while women are more troubled by the emotional infidelity.

2. Men seek women who are young and beautiful and presumably fertile, while women seek men who are rich since money helps when raising a child.


Are men really born to fool around?

No.

Your genes don't decide what you do. YOU do that. Or so says Pamela Regan, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University in Los Angeles. She told The Post, "I have heard people say, 'I can't help it, I am a man.' That's using science to justify your bad behavior." Dr. Domeena Renshaw, director of the Loyola Sexual Dysfunction Clinic at Loyola University in Chicago, agrees. She told the Chicago Sun-Times, "No, it's not genes. It's learned behavior."

[Jolie Rouge]

'100 women' Web scheme raises questions
'No name' actors' headshots sold online
Monday, August 25, 2003 Posted: 6:17 PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...eut/index.html


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Until the scheme came to a halt earlier this month, buyers on the Internet auction site eBay had been enticed to an auction of actors' photographs with the following pitch:

"Where else can you get 100 women in the mail? This is a lot of 100 agency photos, with resumes attached to each one. A mixed bag of actors with a range of experience from none at all to those that have been working for years and years. Some you may know, some may be the stars of tomorrow."

Stars or not, all of the actors in this "lot" of 8x10 photos had submitted headshots to the office of Tony Sepulveda, who was until recently the casting director for the NBC series The West Wing (Laura Schiff currently casts the show).

eBay records show that a West Wing casting assistant, Elayne Teitelbaum, had made 1,100 sales of actors' headshots through auctions over two years under the name "MaxiRyder," turning the office's overflow of headshot submissions from agents, managers, and actors into a tidy side income. Prices ranged between $7 and $60.

Teitelbaum shut down her eBay headshot auctions after casting director and industry gadfly Billy DaMota sent her an angry letter and raised the issue on the popular actors' site www.wolfesden.net. Another factor in the closing of Teitelbaum's auctions may have been an Internet watchdog from the William Morris Agency, who reportedly bid on a headshot of Morris client Sarah Polley to catch the seller redhanded.

Murky moral territory?

Reached at the West Wing casting office, Teitelbaum refused to comment about the issue; Sepulveda returned a call but said he couldn't comment, either.

The practice raises several issues about the legal status of actors' headshots -- once submitted, are they the actors' property or the casting director's property? -- and about the murky moral territory of the demand for actors' images in the vast Internet marketplace.

While publicity photos, both approved and unauthorized, of well-known actors sell briskly to fans via the Internet, the sale of the headshots of "no name" actors -- headshots clearly culled from the overflow of hundreds of casting offices -- is also rampant in some corners of the Internet.

In fact, the only unusual thing about Teitelbaum's case is that she was selling them directly on eBay. Though almost all of the headshots that end up for sale can only have come from casting offices, they appear to go through a series of intermediaries: First a seller, who either acquired the headshots from a casting office for a fee or spuriously offered to "recycle" an office's old headshots, auctions the pictures in bulk, roughly sorted by gender or age. They're bought by more specialized sellers who pare the bulk piles down to the photos they think will fetch a good price.

Worried about children's pics

And here is where things get sketchy. Though Teitelbaum is not claimed to have sold many photos of child actors -- The West Wing employs few -- it is the sale of children's headshots, many with resumes attached, and many of them in eBay's untraceable "private" auctions, that has some parents and child actor advocates worried.

"What they're doing is bringing non-recognizable performers, specifically little boys, not just to public sites but to sites that are borderline pedophilia sites, and posting their photo and resume," said Bonnie Ventis, a children's agent at Kazarian Spencer Associates. "In some cases, the talent has their Social Security number on it, or it will say what school they're at, where they did such-and-such a play.

"And these aren't the kids who have a TV series. You tell me why buyers are going into a private auction 'room' on eBay and bidding $200 for a photo of a no-name boy."

Said Anne Henry, mother of three child actors whose 12-year-old son Michael had his headshot up for auction on eBay, "It started with photos of kids who had some recognizability, even minor -- that's to be expected. But I and some of my friends who are parents of child actors started realizing that there were no-name actors being sold. There was an auction last week, where sellers are getting blocks of 100; 100 boy actors, ages 5-16, sold for $103.50. A block of 100 girl actors sold for $76. That particular one was sold by a dealer called 'hightide,' who does huge amounts of adults and children."

Responding to parents

Another eBay dealer who sells a large volume of young actors' photos and goes by the moniker "showbizkids" has been responsive to parents' concerns, announcing last week that he would voluntarily cease selling agency photos that didn't come directly from actors or with their express permission. "While I don't believe there is anything illegal about it," he wrote, "I don't want to participate in an activity that might cause needless concern to a parent."

Henry understands that there is a proper place for collectibles and fan material.

"I'm not sure I want to say, Pull all headshot selling off eBay," she said. "There are collectors, there are fans, and that's your audience. There are lots of actors who sell their own headshots. But when you're seeing private auctions of your kid's stuff all the time, that's a little bit scary. I'll like to get eBay to not allow private auctions of kid's pictures."

Kevin Pursglove, a spokesman for eBay, said that agency photos of children are generally assumed to be "publicity shots, appropriately staged, and that the legal guardian of the child entered into a relationship with an agent to send those out in pursuit of employment. We would consider that a legitimate item and would let that remain. If it were a photo of random kids walking around a school, we might have some concerns."

Possible legal action?

Pursglove said that if items with personal information, such as resumes, are posted visibly on eBay, they are removed, but that a listing promising the inclusion of such material -- say, a displayed photo with a caption saying, "resume included" -- would not prompt concerns unless eBay had reason to believe that any item on sale had been obtained illegally. That criterion wouldn't apply to headshots or resumes, Pursglove said.

"There are state laws that allow individuals to control the commercialization of their name or image," said Pursglove. "But if they're photographs that are distributed to a large market, unsolicited, it would appear to us that it's the right of the individual who receives them to do what they wish with them."

Countered Bonnie Ventis, the children's agent, "Headshots are job applications, so there are legal implications. It is actionable, and I think that if enough parents come forward, there could be a class-action suit."

Said Paul Peterson, who runs the child-actor advocacy group A Minor Consideration, "There may be some rather tricky legal issues, because when you give your headshot, you are in fact making a gift of that. But the understanding is that no one in the casting business turns around and then sells them."

[Jolie Rouge]

Bada bing! Gangster grammar rules
The language of Tony Soprano passes the test of time.
Thursday, August 21, 2003 Posted: 8:18 AM EDT



LONDON, England (Reuters) -- "Bada bing" -- a catchphrase made famous by hit television show "The Sopranos" -- has earned a place alongside 3,000 other new entries in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English.

"Reality TV," "SARS" and "Muggle," someone lacking magic powers from the "Harry Potter" series of novels by author J.K. Rowling, have also been added to the tome, the largest one-volume dictionary of English, the book's publishers said.

The Oxford dictionary describes "bada bing" (also "bada bing bada boom") as an exclamation to emphasize that something will happen effortlessly and predictably. The word is also the name of a strip club in the mob drama.

Not to be outdone, British television produced "lovely jubbly" -- an expression of delight -- from wisecracking comedy "Only Fools and Horses."

From pop culture comes "Boy" and "Girl bands," "bootylicious" and "turntablist," a DJ proficient at spinning records.

Another trove of new words is the Internet, which added "cyberslacker," "egosurf" and "hacktivist" to the dictionary, which concentrates on the living language and is separate from the more established and multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary.

Though some entries may perplex and infuriate linguistic purists, the dictionary's publishers say words are only included if they are well-known and have proven they can pass the test of time.

It said texts including comics, newspapers, TV scripts, novels, scholarly journals and the Web are all scoured as fonts for new words.

[Jolie Rouge]

'Joe Schmo' duped in new reality show
Spike TV chronicles guy taken in by actors
Friday, August 29, 2003 Posted: 1:32 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- It sounded like the ideal job for a college dropout-turned-pizza deliveryman in today's America: go on a reality TV show, live in a fancy house, spend time with good-looking women and vie for the chance to win a lot of money and national fame.

Except the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, perpetrated on an unsuspecting "Joe Schmo" by a cast of actors and a team of producers known for reality competition shows and irreverent, male-oriented programming.

"The Joe Schmo Show" premieres next Tuesday on the Spike TV cable channel, culminating more than a year of work creating a reality series as elaborate as any that have aired on the mainstream broadcast networks.

"I never had a question about whether we could pull it off; we had a question about whether we could find the right guy," David Stanley, one of the show's producers, told Reuters.

That "right guy" turned out to be Matt Kennedy Gould, who was delivering pizzas in Pittsburgh after leaving law school. Enticed by the chance to appear on the show "Lap of Luxury" and compete for the chance to win $100,000, Gould signed on for what turned out to be a month in a mansion this June in southern California, competing in reality-style reward and immunity competitions and participating in evictions.

Among the competitions Gould is asked to endure: "Hands on a High-Priced Hooker," where the contestant who keeps a hand on the prostitute for the longest wins; a talent show; and a mock sumo wrestling battle.

"What we set out to do was to parody reality TV," said Rhett Reese, one of the show's creators and executive producers.


Stereotypical contestants

The cast of eight "contestants" includes all of the most common reality show stereotypes, including "grizzled veteran" Earl, played by Franklin Dennis Jones; "schemer" Gina, portrayed by Nikki Davis; and "buddy" Brian, played by segment producer Brian Keith Etheridge.

Producers saw 1,500 people for the cast, all of whom needed to be newer and unrecognizable talent so as not to give away the scam.

"Joe Schmo" is "hosted" by Los Angeles radio personality Ralph Garman, playing "himself." Garman, best known for his work doing comic relief on the popular L.A. morning radio show "Kevin & Bean," said one of the biggest surprises of the program was finding he actually liked Gould.

"It was definitely surprising that I developed some real genuine affection for Matt as we started working on the show," he told Reuters. But he also said it was difficult to try and maintain the fiction as time went by. "There were lots of moments where the show didn't go as planned ... there were plenty of moments where I thought the 'jig is up, this guy knows what's going on,' " he said.

Scott Stone, Stanley's partner and another producer on the show, agreed that there were mixed emotions as the project rolled on. "All of us got to that point where we realized how vested he was in the show and the people around him, that we felt bad for the emotional rollercoaster he was going through," he said.

Paul Wernick, a veteran news producer who with Reese co-created the show, was more blunt about the emotional impact. "There were times we wanted to stop the show," he said, though he also allowed that "the bottom line is Matt had the experience of a lifetime."

But does Gould agree? He was not available for interviews about the show, and all of the producers declined to talk about how happy or unhappy he is, now that he knows that he was put up, for America's amusement, as a "Schmo."

[Jolie Rouge]

Penguin poacher's fish theft charges dismissed
Tuesday, September 2, 2003 Posted: 5:06 AM EDT

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, New Jersey (AP) -- A man once sentenced to three years in prison for stealing a rare penguin is off the hook, for now, on charges he netted two koi from a neighbor's pond.

A judge dismissed an indictment against C. Thomas Caucci III, saying no one had proven the fish were worth $600, as claimed by the prosecution. At that value, Caucci and Michael Petitt faced charges of third-degree theft, which carries a one- to three-year prison sentence.

Caucci, 32, maintained his innocence -- and said he the fish weren't worth $600 anyway.

"I paid 30 bucks for them," he told The Press of Atlantic City last week.

Prosecutor James Herlihy said the value of the koi grew as the fish did, and their color and type also were factors. He planned to reindict the men and provide the documentation requested by the judge.

In 1991, a Humboldt penguin and two geese disappeared from the Philadelphia Zoo. Caucci's uncle found the penguin in his outdoor pond, and Caucci was sentenced to prison the next year.

In court, prosecutors also said Caucci once was charged with trading a stolen tractor for a $3,000 cockatoo.

Superior Court Judge Carmen Alvarez observed that, where animals were concerned, Caucci had "issues."

[Jolie Rouge]

Where frog legs, grits share a plate
French chef back in kitchen, this time in small-town Georgia
From Bruce Burkhardt CNN
Friday, August 29, 2003 Posted: 9:45 PM EDT


NEWNAN, Georgia (CNN) -- Like many small towns across the South, snuggled around the courthouse and the Confederate memorial in Newnan are a seed store, a gun shop, and a lawyers office -- and then a surprise: a French bistro.

"When we started selling duck here, everybody thought we were going out in the backwoods here, shooting it and bringing it back in," bistro chef Patrick Terrail says.

It's been something of an adjustment for Terrail. Most of his customers might be more comfortable with grits than with frog legs. Newnan is a nice town, but it's not Hollywood, where Sylvester Stallone, Jack Lemmon, Dinah Shore, Orson Welles and many other celebrities hung out in Terrail's previous restaurant, Ma Maison.

"Of course, everyone knows that Mr. Welles was a staple in our restaurant until he died," the chef says while showing photographs of himself and the actor. "He had his last meal there."

During the 1970s and 1980s, Ma Maison was the place to be and be seen in Hollywood, and Terrail was among the first of the so-called celebrity chefs. The restaurant was also where Wolfgang Puck got his start.

Terrail describes those times as magical.

But the magic ended when Terrail learned he had cancer, and he closed Ma Maison to focus on getting better.

Terrail got his health back, and he also married a woman from Georgia. The couple settled in Newnan, and a few years ago, Terrail got back in the restaurant business.

There are no celebrities giving the his new place of business a boost. But there is Nell Jackson, who runs the feed store across the street from the restaurant. "We've had reports," she says. "Customers that have eaten there that say its good."

But just to keep the record straight, Nell has not eaten at the restaurant -- yet. Meanwhile, that little spat the United States had with the French a while back over the war in Iraq didn't help things much for Terrail's French bistro.

If "Liberty Fries" are on most menus around Newnan, then the French-flavored escargots and the quiche aren't exactly going to move like hotcakes in the small town. "The first time I put quiche on the menu – I didn't sell it," Terrail says. "Then one day, I said, 'Maybe I'm not marketing it right,' and I changed it to cheese pie. Now it's our number-one seller."



So it turns out frog legs and grits can share the same plate.

[janelle]

Are men really born to fool around?

No.

Your genes don't decide what you do. YOU do that. Or so says Pamela Regan, an evolutionary psychologist at California State University in Los Angeles. She told The Post, "I have heard people say, 'I can't help it, I am a man.' That's using science to justify your bad behavior." Dr. Domeena Renshaw, director of the Loyola Sexual Dysfunction Clinic at Loyola University in Chicago, agrees. She told the Chicago Sun-Times, "No, it's not genes. It's learned behavior."
================================================== ===================

Boy is she not with the new times. No PC for her. So tell him he is all wet or to go get all wet by jumping into the lake. LOL The devil made me do it. Yeah, right.

[Jolie Rouge]

So, Janelle - are you agreeing with her or mocking her ??

[janelle]

I'm agreeing with her 1,000%!!!!!!!

Just a little scarcasim. Sorry. You go girl, yeah for Pam. Whoops, I guess it was Domeena who said it.

[Jolie Rouge]

'Punk' fish, fruit piranha among newfound species
Friday, August 29, 2003 Posted: 1:58 PM EDT


CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Scientists studying an unspoiled jungle river wilderness in Venezuela announced this week the discovery of 10 new fish species, including a red-tailed tiddler, a "punk" catfish with a spiky head and a piranha that eats fruit as well as flesh.

They called on the Venezuelan government and international conservation bodies to protect the Caura River Basin in Bolivar state, a vast area of pristine tropical forest and waterways covering five percent of the surface of the oil-rich country.

Conservationists fear encroachment by human settlement, as well as fishing, farming, mining and possible government hydroelectric projects, could destroy what they call one of the world's richest biodiversity "hotspots."

"The Caura River Basin requires immediate and urgent protection as a wildlife reserve," said Antonio Machado, a zoologist from Venezuela's Central University who announced the new fish discoveries in Caracas.

Among the 10 new freshwater fish species logged was a tiny fish with a blood-red tail, a previously unknown variety of the Bloodfin Tetra family, which is popular with aquarium owners.

This had been given the scientific name in Latin of Aphyocharax yekwanae in honor of the Ye'Kwana Indians who live among the Caura River Basin's flooded forests and waterways. "These indigenous people depend on the water," Machado said.

Other new and as yet unclassified species found included a variety of tentacled armored catfish, whose tangle of spiky protuberances on its mouth and forehead -- looking like a punk rocker's hairstyle -- has earned it the name of "punk" fish.

Also discovered was a new piranha, different in size and shape from other known varieties of the South American flesh-eater. It supplemented its meat diet by eating fruit from submerged trees, Machado said.

A new species of freshwater shrimp was also found.


'Biological swat teams'

The 70-meter Salto Pará waterfall divides the Caura River into two biologically distinct zones. In conjunction with Washington-based Conservation International, he presented, after several years of exhaustive study, the definitive findings of a three-week expedition that studied the biology of the Caura River Basin in late 2000.

Explaining the delay in announcing the expedition results, Leeanne Alonso, a director at Conservation International, told Reuters: "These scientific studies are a lengthy process".

The conservation group, which studies and protects the world's natural wildernesses, calls its expeditions Rapid Assessment Programs or RAPs in which "biological SWAT teams" of scientists swoop into often unexplored regions by plane, helicopter or boat to assess their ecological value.

Machado said it was essential to preserve intact the free-flowing watercourse of the 420-mile Caura River, which is one of the tributaries of the mighty Orinoco.

He said any attempt to divert or dam the river for hydro-power development -- like the huge power dams on the eastern Caroni River that generate more than 70 percent of Venezuela's electricity -- would reduce water levels and dry up waterfalls. This would threaten hundreds of varieties of freshwater fish, shrimps, crabs and aquatic plants.

"They can do what they like on the Caroni, but they must leave the Caura alone," Machado said.