Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

The Right Combination Is Key to CIA Job Offer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Know your way around a lock? The CIA wants you.

"The Central Intelligence Agency is seeking locksmiths to work with the best minds in the country while performing a mission critical to our nation," the CIA said in a recent job posting on its Web site www.cia.gov.

Locksmiths, who in spy agency lingo are called technical operations officers, are needed for such tasks as to "familiarize non-technical people with technical capabilities; do hands-on work; and travel worldwide."

The skill to fabricate lock parts was an asset for prospective CIA locksmiths.


"Knowledge of electronic and manual safe lock servicing, electricity, and alarms is ideal. Knowing how to operate machinery to fabricate lock parts and tools will be beneficial," the CIA job posting said.


Applicants must be willing to travel domestically and overseas.


"There is a wide range of requirements that the agency would have for which individuals with locksmith capabilities could be utilized, but what they do and how they do it is not something we're going to be able to discuss publicly," CIA spokesman Tom Crispell said.



06/24/03 07:41

[Advertisement]

[Jolie Rouge]

. "Initial reports indicated that some passengers may have seen flames from (an) engine and some elected to open the emergency exits, automatically deploying chutes,"

hhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm .... seems logical

[Jolie Rouge]

Woman Tries to Slap Holidaying Ex-Dictator Pinochet



SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - A protester posing as an admirer tried to slap former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the face as he was holidaying in northern Chile on Monday, a witness said.

Pinochet, 87, has been vacationing for the past 12 days in Iquique, where a woman approached his entourage on a street on Monday. When she got close enough, she raised her hand to slap him but Pinochet was held back by bodyguards, Aldo Solimano, a witness, told Reuters.

As police dragged her away, she screamed "murderer" and other insults at him, accusing him of ordering the death of her brother in 1973.

Some 3,000 people, mostly leftists, were killed or "disappeared" by the military under Pinochet, who is accused of widespread human rights violations during his 1973-1990 rule.


Chilean courts found Pinochet unfit to stand trial due to poor health last year on charges of human rights violations.


He was limping but relaxed in recent television shots from Iquique, showing him shopping and visiting military friends.



06/24/03 07:41

[Jolie Rouge]

Washington as Whiskey-Maker: Digging His Distillery
By Deborah Zabarenko

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...1.htm&sc=reodd

MOUNT VERNON, Va. (Reuters) - George Washington made whiskey here.

As America's first president and one of its canniest early entrepreneurs, Washington liked a sip of cinnamon whiskey -- and he distilled his own. More than that, he started a thriving business selling a raw, clear liquor made from rye and corn.

"Two hundred gallons of Whiskey will be ready this day for your call, and the sooner it is taken the better, as the demand for this article (in these parts) is brisk," Washington wrote in a letter to his nephew in October 1799.

At its peak, the distillery produced 11,000 gallons (50,010 liters) of liquor, which fetched the then-astronomical sum of $7,500. After Washington's death late in 1799, the distillery passed to his nephew Lawrence Lewis, who appeared to have less success with it. By 1815, the building was gone.


Folks around Washington's estate at Mount Vernon always knew there was a distillery on the property when he was alive, and archaeologists uncovered its location in 1932. Now scholars are digging at the site of the liquor-making operation, hoping to learn enough to rebuild it and start making whiskey again.


About three miles from Washington's elegant, idiosyncratic mansion at Mount Vernon, workers in shorts, T-shirts and thin coatings of mud have been scraping the dirt around the distillery's old foundation stones.


CONNOISSEURS OF DIRT


"We are connoisseurs of dirt," said Laura Seifert, one of the project's crew chiefs, on a recent sweltering day. Around her, a dozen or so diggers use sharpened trowels to pare away the layers of earth, one bucket at a time, until they get down to the layers that would have been in place around 1799.


Of particular interest are patches where the dirt appears burned or scorched, which could mean they were just beneath a spot where one of five stills sat in Washington's day.


The dirt that is scraped away is sifted for any significant objects -- an amber-colored bottle from the 1930s was a prized find -- before being carted to a mound at the side of the site, waiting to be redeposited during reconstruction.


That could be fairly soon, according to Mount Vernon's chief archaeologist, Esther White. Investigation of the site began in 1999 and is expected to conclude this November, with findings expected to be presented to architects so they can work out how to rebuild the place.


Dennis Pogue, Mount Vernon's associate director for preservation, said reconstruction might be completed by 2006. "If you build a stone building and you get five copper pot stills, where are you going to put them?" White asked rhetorically. "Those are the kinds of details that...the restoration staff need in order to be able to put the building back, and that our interpreters will need to be able to go into the building in costume and start distilling."


The spirits they expect to distil, if the required permits are approved, would not be for sale but serve as part of a living history exhibition. More on the distillery dig is online at http://www.archeology.org/interactiv...on/index.html.


WHISKEY AND RUM


Still, there is prime liquor aging in barrels even now at Mount Vernon. The Distilled Spirits Council, a U.S. liquor industry group that has donated $1.2 million to the distillery project, arranged to have barrels of whiskey and rum aged on the premises and bottled.


Not for sale to the public, a batch of these liquors brought a total of $107,000 at auction last year, with this amount added to the Mount Vernon distillery effort. The industry group got involved in part to celebrate George Washington the entrepreneur, according to its president Peter Cressy.


"In the history books, he too often pales beside the lasting legacy of (Thomas) Jefferson, when in terms of all the interesting entrepreneurial things, Jefferson was almost a dilettante compared to Washington," Cressy said. The location of the modern liquor barrels is secret, but some of these liquors were offered to visitors recently to be savored on the mansion's piazza overlooking the Potomac River as a ferocious thunderstorm moved into the area.


After aging in charred barrels, these rums and whiskeys took on a mellow golden color and a smooth taste despite their high alcoholic content, up to 128 proof in one case. They were a far cry from the unrefined spirits Washington and his guests and customers might have enjoyed, White said. "Washington was making what today would be called rye whiskey," White said. "It was about 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn and about five percent malted barley." Though it was probably distilled several times, White said modern distillers would consider it "white lightning, mad dog, moonshine" -- clear, young and sharp-tasting.


"We do think that he drank his own," she said in an interview. "They flavored quite a bit of the whiskey and we know that when Washington died in 1799 there was cinnamon whiskey stored in the cellar of Mount Vernon."



06/24/03 07:40

[Jolie Rouge]

Great White Shark Gatecrashes Tuna Dinner Party



SYDNEY (Reuters) - A Great White Shark has gatecrashed a tuna research project in Australia, mysteriously appearing inside a fishing pen containing around 100 tuna.

The 13-foot shark, weighing about 1,500 pounds, is thought to have either bitten its way into the tuna pond or leapt a 7.5 foot electrified fence while chasing a seal last Thursday.

Scientists at the pen off the coast of the South Australian tuna fishing town of Port Lincoln said Tuesday the shark had swum contently around the pen, but they were not sure how the tuna felt about their uninvited guest.

A head count of the tuna showed two had disappeared.


"When the shark swims to the surface the tuna swim to the bottom of the net and vice versa," said a spokesman for the South Australian Research Development Institute.


The scientists, who are studying tuna feeding, said they eventually coaxed the Great White from the cage by using a net to funnel it out through underwater gates.



06/24/03 07:39

[janelle]

I don't have a newspaper to relate this story but everyone in Hutchinson, KS knows it happened.

They had a large field of prairie dogs where they wanted to build a shopping center. A hew and cry went up from the enviormentalists about preserving the prairie dogs and the shopping center would kill them off. So the town gathered the money together to relocate the prairie dogs to other quarters so they wouldn't be harmed and live to see another day. It was so touted within the enviormental circles that it even got a big spread in National Geographic. Yeah, how wonderful, what a lovely ending.

The only thing was (and National Geographic never published) is the badgers in the prairie dogs' new home ate all the prairie dogs. Thanks for the vittles guys. Sad but true.

[Jolie Rouge]

poor babies.

Reminds me of the time the PETA-types went to a Mink ranch and released 25,000 caged minks into "the wild" ... All they did was bust open the cages and toss the animals into the snow. Most of the minks didn't even get off the property, they got into fights with each other or froze to death, some few were even runover by their "liberaters" as the fools drove away. Some were found in the woods nearby, starving or torn up by other predators; some found along the highways.

Sad, very sad ...

[Jolie Rouge]

Shipwrecked Dad, Daughter Swim 5 Hours

He is 42. She is 11.

He thought poisonous gases were spreading across Florida and taking his daughter out to sea was the only way to save her. She did as she was told.

But when the 8-foot boat in which Benjamin Dilalla and his daughter, Celeste, were sailing capsized in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, they had to swim for their lives. For five hours.

The two set sail on Sunday evening and spent the night in the boat. But when they woke up on Monday morning, the little boat was taking on water. When it capsized, they hung onto the hull and when they spotted land in the distance, they started swimming, reports The Associated Press. It took them five hours to reach the shore. It was there they were found, collapsed on Floridana Beach in Brevard County. They were rushed to the hospital and other than suffering from hypothermia, the two are in remarkably good condition.

"I did not expect to take another breath," said the survivor of a shipwreck earlier this month off the Oregon coast. Find out his dramatic story.

Now the father is undergoing a psychological evaluation. "He has some mental health or behavioral issues and apparently had stopped taking his medication," Brevard County Sheriff's Agent Gary Harrell told the Orlando Sentinel. The girl is now in the custody of Florida's Department of Children and Families.

[Jolie Rouge]

Ireland's foray into reality TV put 10 folks on a ship.

All was well with "Cabin Fever" until the ship sank.

Thursday, June 19, 2003 Posted: 11:58 AM EDT



LONDON, England (Hollywood Reporter) -- Ireland's state broadcaster said Wednesday it is reviewing the future of its proposed international reality format "Cabin Fever" after the ship on which the show was filming sank with the cast and crew on board. And though the cast of 10 shipmates was uninjured, they are understood to have since consulted with lawyers.

RTE's elimination-style reality show was two weeks into a planned broadcast run of eight weeks when the accident occurred Friday.

The shipmates were forced to wade, walk and swim to the shore of a nearby island after the 90-foot, two-masted schooner hit rocks and went down off the northwest coast of Donegal, Ireland. Members of the crew remained with the ship but had to be winched to safety by helicopter.

"The future of the program is being reviewed by RTE in consultation with the show's 10 contestants," reps for the broadcaster said, but they conceded that early plans to relaunch the show using another ship are unlikely. "This was a freak accident. We will review the options and make an announcement when we know what is going to happen."

RTE had hoped to use the domestic success of the show to launch the format internationally. Broadcasters that took the format would have been able to use the specially constructed ship, which was fitted with cameras, lights and broadcasting equipment.

All that now remains of the multimillion-dollar boat, however, is a shattered underwater wreck and floating debris. The accident is the subject of an inquiry by Irish marine investigators.

[Jolie Rouge]

Do This Before Bedtime. You Won't Sleep

If you're having trouble falling asleep at night, your passion for your computer could be to blame.

According to researchers from the Akita University School of Medicine in Akita, Japan doing work on a computer or playing video games right before bedtime can keep you awake--for hours. The bright light of the computer screen is to blame for this. That light can actually alter your biological clock and suppress the natural production of melatonin that governs your normal sleep-wake cycle. Sleep problems ensue when melatonin declines and exposure to light can cause it to dip.

The study:

The Japanese researchers tested the effect of late-night computer use on melatonin production, as well as other bodily functions that are known to change when we sleep, such as temperature and heart rate. For this experiment, seven male computer users with an average age of 25 awakened between 8 and 9 a.m. and went to bed--without using the computer--between midnight and 1 a.m. for one week. At the end of that week, they used the computer--either playing a video game or solving math problems--with a bright or dark display monitor on alternating nights between 11:30 p.m. and 2 a.m. And then they went to bed.

The results:

The brightness of the computer screen and the type of task performed significantly affected the melatonin production. The brighter the screen and the more exciting the task, the lower the melatonin. Body temperature, which normally drops at night, also rose. The takeaway: Use the computer earlier in the evening, and it will be easier to fall asleep. The study findings were published in Journal of Applied Physiology.

[Jolie Rouge]

Eminem Dangles Doll in Jackson Imitation


LONDON (AP) - The real Slim Shady stood up and made fun of Michael Jackson by dangling a baby doll over a hotel balcony. Rapper Eminem also wore a surgical mask over his face Tuesday in an obvious swipe at Jackson, who dangled his baby, Prince Michael II, over a balcony railing in Berlin in November.

Eminem, who was staying at the Art House Hotel in Glasgow, went further than Jackson by tossing the doll into the air and catching it. ``Empersonator,'' said a headline in the Daily Mirror tabloid, which published three photos. The New York Post's front page blared: ``Oh baby! Eminem does his best Jacko.''


Scotland's Daily Record tabloid said the incident occurred as fans and photographers gathered outside the hotel before Eminem's concert in the city Tuesday. Eminem, whose nickname is Slim Shady, is on a British tour but has kept a low-profile between shows. The Daily Record said he took over 50 rooms at the hotel for his entourage.



06/25/03 11:14