Thief steals poop from woman walking dog

Ex-Boy Scouts Official Faces Porn Charges

Smith, reached Tuesday at his home in Colleyville, near Fort Worth, referred all questions to his attorney, Jack Strickland, who said: "He's not taking this well. I've got to tell you, this is a good man and I would hate to see the entirety of his life and the good things he's done defined by one incident. "

Thief steals poop from woman walking dog

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March 31, 2005 | SAN DIEGO -- The hunt is on for a turd burglar. Police in San Diego are searching for a gunman who swiped a bag of poop from a woman out walking her dog.

On this day in 1960, a 12-year-old Robert Anthony Plant unwrapped one of his Christmas gifts to find his first record player.

It was a Dansette brand record player, the model either a Conquest or a Major. Its colors were red and cream. It played only mono records.

It contained yet another gift inside, Plant recalled for an interview some 30 years later. "When I opened it up, on the turntable was 'Dreamin'' by Johnny Burnette, with 'Cincinnati Fireball' on the B-side, something I've always wanted to record."

The mono record player lasted almost 10 years. Plant said he "used it until Led Zeppelin II , so I didn't hear the stereo effect on 'Whole Lotta Love' for about six months!"

Plant said that he kept his obsolete Dansette record player all those years as his record collection grew. In his adult life, Christmas was not a time for Plant to collect records but actually to make some.

"During quiet times with Zep I used to record with chums," he said. "Every Christmas this chap from my village pub would get and sing doo-wop carols in the bar -- so well, in fact, that we rented a studio in Worcester and cut 'Three Months to Kill' by Heulyn Duvall ... and 'Buzz Buzz A Diddly' by Freddy Cannon." Plant said he made these recordings with a group known as Melvyn Giganticus and the Turd Burglars.

So... what's yer point???

Not that I eat at Wendy's, but that happened just down the freeway from me, and I heard jokes about it all weekend.

So thanks for, you know, pointing it out. Not that I'm all out of joint about it, but if you keep poking fun you'll end up with a knuckle sandwich. And believe me, my friend, I'm as tough as nails.


heh.

Sales drop sharply at Wendy's after finger found in chili

Via Salon.com

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By Andy Resnik

March 26, 2005 | COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Sales have dropped sharply at Wendy's fast food restaurants in the area of northern California where a woman claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili, but analysts say the company's long-term prognosis should not be affected.

Peter Oakes, a restaurant analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York, said he doesn't expect Wendy's business to suffer long term from the discovery Tuesday night of a partial finger.

The hamburger chain serves about 6 million meals a day across the country and has a "national reputation for both quality and cleanliness," he said.

"To me the yard stick here is whether the single incident prompts the consumer to lose confidence in the brand. It's understandable to see some kind of knee-jerk reaction," Oakes said.

Franchise owners have informed the company's corporate headquarters in the Columbus suburb of Dublin that business is down, said Denny Lynch, spokesman for Wendy's International Inc. He said he could not release specific sales figures because Wendy's does not own those restaurants.

"It is an isolated incident. However, it is dramatically affecting sales in that market," Lynch said.

Authorities in San Jose, Calif., planned to search a fingerprint database on Friday to try to identify the finger's owner.

Capt. Bob Dixon of the Santa Clara County coroner's office said he did not know when their fingerprint expert might have a match. "Nobody's claimed it yet," he said.

U.S. financial markets were closed Friday for the holiday weekend. The day before, on Thursday, Wendy's shares rose 43 cents, or 1.1 percent, to close at $39.43 on the New York Stock Exchange -- near the high end of their 52-week trading range of $31.74 to $42.12.

Wendy's said the finger did not come from the restaurant's employees. It is also confident company suppliers are not to blame because of product coding that allows the company to trace where a product comes from, the day it was produced, when it was shipped and when it arrived at the restaurant, Lynch said.

However, he acknowledged the process was "not absolutely 100 percent perfect."

Matt Baun, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said it was doubtful a person working at a federal beef producer would have lost the finger in an accident.

"The production line would have stopped, there would have been immediate need for medical attention and the meat products would be destroyed and not used for food," he said.

A Louisville, Ky., lawyer who has handled similar cases said he doesn't expect Wendy's image to take much of a hit.

Bo Bolus, who has represented plaintiffs over foreign objects found in McDonald's food and defended insurance companies against those claims, said consumers tend to realize that incidents like the one at Wendy's are accidents.

"I haven't found any big institutional problems in the fast-food chains," Bolus said. "I still go to McDonald's with my four boys."

(click here)
Scary dinosaur preys on visitors
The animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex
The Tyrannosaurus rex model detects prey using sensors
Sensitive museum-goers are being warned to take care near the realistic Tyrannosaurus rex unveiled in the London's Natural History Museum.

The 8m-long computer-controlled T.rex uses sensors to detect its "prey", can swing its tail, swivel its head, roll its eyes and open its jaws.

The £275,000 animatronic model also makes grumbling sounds.

"Once those beady eyes fix on you it can be quite unnerving and scary," said the museum's John Phillips.

"From what I've seen, parents seem to be more unnerved than the kids."


The T.rex is about three-quarters the size of an adult T.rex.

The dinosaur had one of the strongest bites of any animal ever known - about eight times more powerful than that of a modern lion.

"It makes a deep-throated rumble when it's sitting there contentedly, but roars a lot more when agitated," Mr Phillips said.

Dinosaur expert Dr Angela Milner said: "We're confident that it's pretty realistic."

Fossil remains have allowed scientists to work out how the dinosaur moved and looked.

"We even know about the skin texture from preserved remains. The only thing we're not sure about is the colour," Dr Milner said.

"It's a pretty stunning beast, and everyone's favourite dinosaur."

Speak of the Devil: Couple Sees Satan’s Face on Pet Turtle’s Shell

from Secrets, Lies & Democracy:

Aside from the uncanny capability of pattern recognition people have, like in clouds, coffee, tea leaves, etc. ;)