Weird News Thread ....

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Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Obscenity Forcibly Tattooed on Boy's Face

A 17-year-old boy from Norwich, N.Y., was assaulted by a man and another teenager who pinned him down and forcibly tattooed an obscene phrase on his forehead using a homemade tattoo tool. The Associated Press reports that the adult assailant, Kenneth D. Peer, 23, has been charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment. The 17-year-old, who is not being identified since he is a minor, was charged as a youthful offender. Both are being held in jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

The police refused to describe the tattoo other than to say it was an obscene phrase. "It's just ludicrous that someone would do something like this to another person," Officer Craig Berry told AP. A court hearing was scheduled for Tuesday.

The victim, whose name is being withheld by police, walked into the police station on Friday to file a complaint against his attackers, reports AP. He said he was held down against his will by the two assailants at a home in Norwich while they forcibly tattooed the vulgarity on his forehead. So far, police have no motive for the bizarre attack. Officer Berry said the victim will require plastic surgery or a laser process to remove the tattoo ink.

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Forced Tattoo Victim Describes the Attack

As reported in What's New earlier this week, a 17-year-old boy from Norwich, N.Y., was assaulted by a man and another teenager who pinned him down and forcibly tattooed an obscene phrase on his forehead using a homemade tattoo tool. Now that boy, identified as Milton Romanowski Jr., a high school dropout, is speaking about the vicious and bizarre attack against him.

Although Romanowski said he struggled for 20 minutes while the two tattooed him against his will, attorneys for the alleged assailants, Kenneth D. Peer, 23, and Travis D. Foster, 17, question why none of the three has any scratches, bruises, or other injuries that would indicate a struggle took place, report The Associated Press and Oneonta Daily Star. Peer and Foster have been charged with second-degree assault and first-degree unlawful imprisonment. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison. The two remain in jail on $25,000 bail.

Whose side of this story do you believe? Do you agree with the judge that the case should go to the grand jury? Sound off in the Crime Forum.

Romanowski told the judge in a 90-minute hearing that "Peer and Foster physically restrained him in a chair as they used a tattoo gun to mark his forehead with a four-word phrase and an obscene image," reports AP. The two teens had been friends since they were children, but Romanowski said Foster was angry with him because he thought Romanowski was trying to steal his girlfriend. He said that Peer pinned his arms behind him, while Foster straddled his body and sat on him. Romanowski told the judge he tried to resist at first, but then submitted because "there was no way to get away." He said Peer and Foster "were laughing hysterically" when they applied the tattoo.

The defense maintains that Romanowski consented to the tattooing, calling his account of the events "preposterous." The judge determined that no one consents to that kind of tattoo on his forehead and ordered the case be handed over to the grand jury. Romanowski has scheduled medical appointments for the lengthy and expensive process of having the tattoo removed. The Oneonta Daily Star reports that a local doctor has offered to remove the tattoo at no charge. "I just cried. I was so happy to hear that someone wanted to give up between $3,000 and $4,000 to do it for free," he told the Daily Star. "At least I know there are some good people out there." He admitted he is worried about scarring.

Click to see a photo of Milton Romanowski Jr. who has figured out a clever way to hide the obscenity that was forcibly tattooed on his forehead. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...tosized141.jpg

An Extraordinary Discovery in Colorado

The fossil of a completely new animal--rat-sized and termite-eating--that lived when the dinosaurs roamed the land has been found in Fruita, Colorado, report Reuters and The Associated Press. The critter seems to resemble an armadillo and would have survived by eating bugs.

Officially named Fruitafossor windscheffelia, the animal lived some 150 million years ago and is not related to anything that is alive today. Reuters notes, "Anteaters, armadillos, and other creatures that dig up insects evolved their specialized abilities several times during the history of the world. This is known as convergent evolution."

The mammal had hollow, tube-like teeth that had no enamel and used them to suck in its prey and swallow it whole. Its forelimbs were used for digging, just like today's aardvarks, anteaters, and armadillos, explains AP. It most likely ate termites, other insects, invertebrates, and plants. Termites, just like their close relative the cockroach, evolved millions of years before Fruitafossor windscheffelia lived. The discovery has been detailed in the journal Science.

NASA Searching for Alien Life WHERE?

NASA is on the hunt for extraterrestrial life, and they're looking for it in Mexico. Really. Reuters reports that top researchers at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration are hunting for clues to alien life in the archipelago of 170 lakes in Mexico's Chihuahuan desert. Specifically, they're searching for calcified clumps of primitive bacteria swimming in the pools.

Located around the town of Cuatro Cienegas, the lagoons have long intrigued evolutionary biologists with their unique aquatic life, much of which is found nowhere else on Earth. What has intrigued the NASA researchers the most are the lakes' rocks, which are ancient formations called stromatolites. Formed by layers of algae that trap silt, these structures are similar to those on Earth more than 2 billion years before the dinosaurs.

NASA says that by studying these organisms, they may be able to identify the unique atmospheric conditions created by primitive life on planets orbiting nearby stars and help settle the question of whether we are alone in the universe, explains Reuters. "They may be our best example of what to look for on other planets," Brad Bebout, a researcher at the NASA Ames Research Center, told the news service.

This is NASA's theory about alien life: Primitive bacteria could be living on planets around nearby stars, possibly thriving in colonies similar to that of the Chihuahuan lagoons. This kind of bacteria served as the basis from which multicellular plants and animals evolved on Earth--and it could be the same on other planets.

The plan is to use the information and data learned from scuba dives into the lagoons to create complex computer models of the atmospheric conditions needed to generate and sustain life on other planets. "We believe, and it is only a belief at this point, that there is probably a lot of life out in the universe, but it may only be at the microbial stage," Victoria Meadows, the institute's virtual planetary laboratory chief told Reuters. "Not people flying UFOs, but nevertheless life elsewhere in the universe."

Gross! Newest Place to Pierce Your Body

This is not for the squeamish. A Dallas, Texas man who calls himself an artist has created a whole new way to wear eyeglasses: Hold them on your face with a piercing bar attachment that goes right through the bridge of your nose. (We'll pause here so you can squeal "Ew!")

The 1-inch bar is inserted through the bridge of the nose, much like shoving a barbell between your eyes. Even the inventor, artist James Sooy, is realistic enough to acknowledge it's not likely to become a huge fad. Still, he and co-inventor Oliver Gilson, whose day job is bartending, are seeking a patent and plan to have a model available by June that will sell for about $75 to $100, reports The Associated Press.

Besides the ick factor, what are the drawbacks?

The piercing bar could move or pop out, Elayne Angel, medical coordinator for the Association of Professional Piercers, told AP. If you want to take the lenses off your face at bedtime, for a shower, or to clean them, you actually have to do it with a screwdriver. In addition, the piercing location may mean that the lenses cannot be positioned properly for optimal eyesight.


Sooy claims the piercing is relatively painless. (We're thinking the key word here is "relatively.") He also claims that pierced glasses are more comfortable than regular glasses because they have no frames, only lenses, and they don't rub against the ears.

The artist in question, James Sooy, has actually done this to himself already. Click to see it--if you dare. (Photo: bmezine.com)

http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20041214-6.jpg




If you think piercing the bridge of your nose is gross, how about being strung up by fishhooks--for fun! This story is not for the queasy.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...odd&floc=wn-np :eek: :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

If you think piercing the bridge of your nose is gross, how about being strung up by fishhooks--for fun! This story is not for the queasy.
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...odd&floc=wn-np :eek: :eek:

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Jess Robins concentrates as hooks through her upper chest are used to hang her during a Suspension Convention, held in Providence, Rhode Island, April 2, 2005. From tentative first-timers to well-practiced masters, more than a hundred aficionados celebrated their passion for body suspension at the three-day gathering, held in an old textile mill.

Click for pics ... http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...e=13&ncid=1756

be warned :eek: :eek:

Women building a motorcycle shaped to fit
Mon Apr 11, 2005
By M. Daniel Gibbard Tribune staff reporter

Christine Vaughn hits the starter on the low-slung chopper she designed and built, and as the pipes spit unmuffled thunder from a big chrome engine, she changes.


The self-described "good girl" and mother disappears, shoved aside by the outlaw biker chick from Alaska who created Wicked Women Choppers, the company she bills as the first run by women to design and produce bikes for other women.


Hear her roar? No, hear her rumble.


"We want it to be just as mean, just as bad as a guy's bike. We want to make it look like we're going to get off and take the boots to you," said Vaughn, 35, who has long blond hair, a husky smoker's laugh and a quick sense of humor thoroughly devoid of political correctness.


Her company's slogan--and philosophy of life--is borrowed from a Harvard professor: "Well-behaved women seldom make history."


The difference in the bikes, barely noticeable, is size. Vaughn, who is 5 foot 6, designs her motorcycles with narrower handlebars and a lower frame and seat that create a lower center of gravity and an easier reach. "A wrong-size bike is not only uncomfortable, it's unsafe," she said.


Vaughn's vision has struck a chord with riders. She and her year-old company have been profiled in newspapers and magazines. A PBS station is recording the process as she and her team create a bike from the frame up, and an independent production company plans a reality show pilot.


Suppliers quickly jumped on board: Tool companies sent new gear to use in her shop, and dozens of dealers have asked about selling her lines, she said. She has received inquiries from prospective buyers in Japan and India. This despite that she just got her first firm order last month and is gearing up for production.


The attention has been a little overwhelming, she acknowledged. "I knew what the niche was," she said, but "I just had never anticipated the reaction. I wanted to just build a couple of bikes a year."


Instead, she said, she will probably end up producing about 50 annually once production is up to full speed, perhaps by late summer. To make many more than that would mean moving from her new 1,300-square-foot shop in this small town in southern Illinois near Carbondale. "My only battle is to stay small," said Vaughn, who also customizes motorcycles for clients. "We've had people who wanted to come in as a partnership, but we want to keep it manageable."


One reason for all the attention is the rapid growth in women owning and riding motorcycles. From 1998 to 2003, the estimated number of female owners jumped 36 percent, from 467,000 to 635,000, according to a survey by the Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade group based in Irvine, Calif. Ridership increased similarly, and there are now more than 4 million women operators, the group says.


"We got tired of looking at the back of someone's helmet," said Lois Wyatt, a trustee with Women on Wheels, a riders club with more than 100 chapters, including half a dozen in Illinois.


Wicked Women's first model is the Shady Lady.

The prototype sports a 96 cubic inch--1,600 cubic centimeters--S&S motor, pipes that Vaughn designed and enough chrome to cause blindness.

On the other hand, its heart-shaped flames are painted fingernail-polish pink. "It's a bike every man would be proud to ride--except for the pink," said Vaughn, adding that she chose the color to show up in photographs.

"Women want to be macho," she said. "We want the loud pipes, the power--all the stuff that makes you feel you know what testosterone is all about."

With all the trimmings, the bike lists for $34,500, which she says is competitive with a similar Harley. She also plans a downscale version, the Vixen, and a hardtail (no rear suspension) model called the Black Mariah.

A seventh-generation Alaskan from the rough and ready island town of Ketchikan, Vaughn credits frontier roots for her independence.

Wicked Women Choppers' name comes from the Old West, Vaughn said, and refers to any woman who defied the conventions of the day. The company motto is a quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich that Vaughn came across in a magazine about quilting, of all things. "It's about women who are independent and live their own lives despite what society says," Vaughn said.

She got her first motorcycle when she was 10, a dirt bike from her father. When she began doing stunts on it, he decided she should channel her efforts into something slightly safer, like racing.

Sometimes she competed against girls; other times she would enter boys' races as "Chris." When she finished in the top three, she would take off her helmet during the trophy ceremony and shake out her long blond hair.

That, she said, did not always go over well in conservative Alaska, though her father used to sit back and smile at the reactions.

Her brother, Dan Diamond, also raced, and she would watch as he tinkered with the machinery. "It looked important, so I tried to do the same thing," she said. Unfortunately, "I usually ended up with a lot of parts left over."

Her dad and brother just laughed, so she taught herself how to fix her own bike.

In her teens, she would "borrow" her brother's street bike--usually dumping it, which is when she realized that the taller, top-heavy cycles were not made for someone her size.

She began to customize Harley-Davidsons to fit, but she couldn't keep them long before someone offered her too much money to refuse. Clearly, there was a market.

But Wicked Women Choppers is not really about commerce, she said. One of Vaughn's main goals is to blast open a traditionally male bastion. "It's important not only to break open the industry, but also to show [other women] they can do this," she said. "There are a lot of very talented women out there."

Vaughn has two machinist/metal fabricators on board already, Shara Peyton, 28, and Rhonda Heifner, 24. "This is a man's job, and we're doing it," said Heifner, whose dark hair is partly dyed pinkish-purple. "There ain't a lot about me that's feminine."

Vaughn also hopes to start an internship program with local schools, offering girls in shop classes the chance at hands-on experience in a comfortable environment.

Amid this swirl of femaledom is Vaughn's husband, a biker who said he's happy to ride in the figurative sidecar.

A Vietnam War veteran, Dan Vaughn worked in the telecommunications industry in the Caribbean, Hungary and Siberia before retiring to southern Illinois a few years ago. The Vaughns have a teenage son.

"It's been fairly easy for a husband," Dan Vaughn said. "She followed me all over the world and has always been there to support me. To take a back seat to someone so talented is not a problem for me at all."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...cleshapedtofit


On the Net : http://www.wickedwomenchoppers.com/

Scientific Conference Falls for Gibberish Prank
April 15, 2005
By Greg Frost

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



Jeremy Stribling said on Thursday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams.


The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida.


To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.


The prank recalled a 1996 hoax in which New York University physicist Alan Sokal succeeded in getting an entire paper with a mix of truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs and otherwise meaningless mumbo-jumbo published in the journal Social Text.


Stribling said he and his colleagues only learned about the Social Text affair after submitting their paper.


"Rooter" features such mind-bending gems as: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."


Stribling said the trio targeted WMSCI because it is notorious within the field of computer science for sending copious e-mails that solicit admissions to the conference. "We were tired of the spam," Stribling told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding that his team wanted to challenge the standards of the conference's peer review process.


Nagib Callaos, a conference organizer, said the paper was one of a small number accepted on a "non-reviewed" basis -- meaning that reviewers had not yet given their feedback by the acceptance deadline.


"We thought that it might be unfair to refuse a paper that was not refused by any of its three selected reviewers," Callaos wrote in an e-mail. "The author of a non-reviewed paper has complete responsibility of the content of their paper."


However, Callaos said conference organizers were reviewing their acceptance procedures in light of the hoax. Asked whether he would disinvite the MIT students, he replied: "Bogus papers should not be included in the conference program."


Stribling said conference organizers had not yet formally rescinded their invitation to present the paper.


The students were soliciting cash donations so they could attend the conference and give what Stribling billed as a "randomly generated talk." So far, they have raised more than $2,000 over the Internet.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d_gibberish_dc

Man barred from making slavery tax claims
Fri Apr 15, 2005


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man was temporarily barred on Friday from preparing income tax returns for others because he has been including bogus tax credits such as reparations for African-American slavery and segregation.


The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office said it obtained a restraining order against Kevin Hardy of Mount Vernon that immediately barred him from working as a tax preparer until a full hearing can be held.

Prosecutors said that the Internal Revenue Code does not provide any such slavery reparations tax credit and that Hardy repeatedly prepared returns for others making such claims.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...oe_odd_tax&e=2


Can you say "audit" ?

Zoo Wants Chimpanzee to Stop Smoking
April 15, 2005; 8:39 AM ET


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.

Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them -- a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday. "Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.

Barnes said Charlie was already showing the signs of a true nicotine addict. "He even acts like a naughty schoolboy by hiding the cigarette when staff approach the area," Barnes said, adding that the zoo was determined to help him quit.

Barnes said the most important thing was that people stop providing Charlie with cigarettes or any other treats, noting the chimp already had three bad teeth because of all the cans of sweet soft drinks that people throw at him.


Charlie is not the only smoking chimpanzee. A zoo in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou reported last year that one of its chimps had taken up smoking and was desperately bumming cigarette butts off visitors.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...p_dc&e=5&ncid=

Porn Flick Profits Offered to Hospital
Friday April 15, 2005; 8:34 AM



TORONTO (Reuters) - A porn star's first, and last, film about lesbian sex could end up boosting the coffers of Canada's best known children's hospital, if the agent for dead actress Natel King has his way.



Agent Stephan Sirard said he had approached Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children about accepting the proceeds from King's last movie, "Lesbian Lover," in memory of the 23-year-old Canadian star, who was stabbed to death last year in the United States. "It's her first original solo... All the proceeds would go to Sick Kids' Hospital," Sirard told Reuters.


Sirard said lawyers for his FCF agency in California had asked the hospital if they could highlight the promised gift on the cover of their video, using wording like "all proceeds from the sale of this video go to Sick Kid's Hospital in Toronto."


But hospital spokeswoman Carol Duncan said she has not heard anything about the issue, and she declined to say how the hospital might react to a donation of this kind. "We have to send the issue to the ethics committee and the board of directors for consideration," she said.


Sirard said King, whose stage name was Taylor Sumers, had helped raise money for the hospital before she was murdered. He described her as a "porn star with principles" who had refused to perform sexual acts with others on screen until this film.


He admitted it might be hard to persuade Sick Kids to accept the offer. "A lot of big corporations are involved in the adult industry and most people don't know," he said. "So, it's like a gray area. I think people don't want to be directly linked to it."


King was stabbed to death in February 2004 after a photography shoot near Philadelphia. The photographer has pleaded guilty to murder and could face 25 years in jail.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...n_dc&e=8&ncid=

Bushes Report Taxable Income of $672,788
By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press Writer

President Bush reported taxable income of $672,788 for last year, on which he paid $207,307 in federal income taxes, according to presidential returns released Friday by the White House.

The tax bill for the president and first lady Laura Bush was lower than the previous year when the first couple reported $822,126 in adjusted gross income and paid $227,490 in federal income taxes.

The Bushes listed as income his presidential salary and investment income from trusts that hold their assets. The couple contributed $77,785 to churches and charitable organizations, including Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, Md., St. John's Church in Washington, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army World Service Office, AmeriCares, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the Federal Government's Combined Federal Campaign.

The White House also released the 2004 tax return filed by Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne.

The report shows the Cheneys owe federal taxes for 2004 of $393,518 on taxable income of roughly $1.3 million.

Throughout last year, the Cheneys paid $290,855 in taxes through withholding and estimated tax payments. When they filed their return on Friday, they paid the remaining $102,663.

http://money.netscape.cnn.com/packag..._bushpaidtaxes