Miss Piggy's Grocery Store Checkout Headlines

[Odin'sLaw]

he wanted to see if she'd come back as a zombie so he could be all up in her face about it

[Drex]

Started laughing as soon as I saw his picture. No surprises here.

[Kerberoz]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/he...d-t-cells.html

Oncologists hijack the Kraken, use it to punch out Cthulhu

PHILIPSBURG, Pa. — Emma Whitehead has been bounding around the house lately, practicing somersaults and rugby-style tumbles that make her parents wince.

It is hard to believe, but last spring Emma, then 6, was near death from leukemia. She had relapsed twice after chemotherapy, and doctors had run out of options.

Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.

The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal — giving a patient’s own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer.

[Blubbartron]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/he...d-t-cells.html

And thus it begins...

[Stumblingdrunk]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/he...d-t-cells.html

What this article did not mention was the thousands of people who prayed and gathered together for a candle lit prayer vigil for Emily and her family when things were so critical.

[Skjie]

What this article did not mention was the thousands of people who prayed and gathered together for a candle lit prayer vigil for Emily and her family when things were so critical.

http://2.asset.soup.io/asset/2692/6386_4558.gif

[Cail]

not sure if this should go here or the syria thread soooo

http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-...020228394.html

[The Stig]

Initially I was about to point out that is not a PS2 controller.

Then I re-read and noticed it just said Playstation. And looking at it again, it's been a while, but that black controller is indeed a PS1 controller of some sort. Can't believe how small they were back then !!

[Vuitton]

Shearling Coat-Wearing Monkey Found Wandering Around Canadian Ikea
http://gawker.com/5967012/shearling-...-canadian-ikea

According to various reports, a very fashionably dressed monkey was found wandering around an Ikea in Toronto. Apparently, the monkey, who was wearing a shearling coat and a diaper, was brought to the store by his owners and left in the car while they went inside. But, as you might have guessed from his coat, this wasn't your regular, run-of-the-mill monkey, content to stay in the car while his owners had all the shopping fun. As the Globe and Mail reports:

Toronto Police Staff Sergeant Ed Dzingala described the animal as a "smart monkey," who was somehow able to escape its crate, open the car door and make its way to the customer pick-up area at Ikea's North York location.

Naturally, news of the escaped monkey made the rounds on Twitter.

Bronwyn Iler Page @broniewyn
Umm saw a monkey in the #ikea parking lot. pic.twitter.com/ZFJdIlQl

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A9ssUSBCUAAlWYH.jpg

9 Dec 12

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Lisa Lin @dzd_lisa
Anyone lose their monkey at Ikea? instagr.am/p/TByJK-SsJt/


9 Dec 12

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The monkey was reportedly free in the store for close to an hour before animal control arrived. Eventually, the monkey's owners noticed he was missing and asked about him. Presumably, they were reunited, although that hasn't been confirmed yet.
And if you were thinking of making the inevitable "Ikea monkey" Twitter parody account, bad news; you've been beaten to it, twice.

Ikea Monkey @Ikea_Monkey
What's all the fuss about? #ikea


9 Dec 12

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Ikea Monkey @IKEAmonkey
u guys are all still gonna be following me in a couple days right?


9 Dec 12

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UPDATE: It looks like the monkey's owners won't get him back, after all.

Tom Podolec CTV News @TomPodolec
Owners of #IkeaMonkey came forward; charged with having a prohibited animal; $240 fine. Will not get monkey back. #Toronto #Ikea


9 Dec 12

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Tom Podolec CTV News @TomPodolec
#IkeaMonkey is a Rhesus Macaque Monkey Approx. 7 months old. In good health; stressed. Jacket is wool and said to be his favourite.

I posted these in the RIT, but I'll repost them here because topical.



http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net...GoeAYBay3f6j0_

[Melena]

Ok just realized this is old, but shit for the lulz worth reposting. Saw this on another board I frequent and dug it up not realizing it was almost 3 years old.

PETA interrupts a motorcycle gang gathering to protest against wearing leather cause absolutely nothing could go wrong pissing off a bunch of bikers.

http://glossynews.com/society/201001...orcycle-rally/

Activists Missing After Declaring “War on Leather” at Motorcycle Rally

Posted on January 07, 2010. Tags: activists, Animal Activists, blood, fur, motorcycle gangs, motorcycle rally, peta, protesters
Posted by Fuzzy Duffy
http://glossynews.com/wp-content/the...=300&zc=1&q=90

Johnstown, PA (GlossyNews) – Local and state police scoured the hills outside rural Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after reports of three animal rights activists going missing after attempting to protest the wearing of leather at a large motorcycle gang rally this weekend. Two others, previously reported missing, were discovered by fast food workers “duct taped inside several fast food restaurant dumpsters,” according to police officials. “Something just went wrong,” said a still visibly shaken organizer of the protest. “Something just went horribly, horribly wrong.”

The organizer said a group of concerned animal rights activist groups, “growing tired of throwing fake blood and shouting profanities at older women wearing leather or fur coats,” decided to protest the annual motorcycle club event “in a hope to show them our outrage at their wanton use of leather in their clothing and motor bike seats.” “In fact,” said the organizer, “motorcycle gangs are one of the biggest abusers of wearing leather, and we decided it was high time that we let them know that we disagree with them using it…ergo, they should stop.”
According to witnesses, protesters arrived at the event in a vintage 1960′s era Volkswagen van and began to pelt the gang members with balloons filled with red colored water, simulating blood, and shouting “you’re murderers” to passers by. This, evidently, is when the brouhaha began.

“They peed on me!!!” charged one activist. “They grabbed me, said I looked like I was French, started calling me ‘La Trene’, and duct taped me to a tree so they could pee on me all day!”

“I…I was trying to show my outrage at a man with a heavy leather jacket, and he…he didn’t even care. I called him a murderer, and all he said was, ‘You can’t prove that.’ Next thing I know he forced me to ride on the back of his motorcycle all day, and would not let me off, because his girl friend was out of town and I was almost a woman.”
Still others claimed they were forced to eat hamburgers and hot dogs under duress. Those who resisted were allegedly held down while several bikers “farted on their heads.”
Police officials declined comments on any leads or arrests due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, however, organizers for the motorcycle club rally expressed “surprise” at the allegations.

“That’s preposterous,” said one high-ranking member of the biker organizing committee. “We were having a party, and these people showed up and were very rude to us. They threw things at us, called us names, and tried to ruin the entire event. So, what did we do? We invited them to the party! What could be more friendly than that? You know, just because we are all members of motorcycle clubs does not mean we do not care about inclusiveness. Personally, I think it shows a lack of character for them to be saying such nasty things about us after we bent over backwards to make them feel welcome.”

When confronted with the allegations of force-feeding the activists meat, using them as ad hoc latrines, leaving them incapacitated in fast food restaurant dumpsters, and ‘farting on their heads,’ the organizer declined to comment in detail. “That’s just our secret handshake,” assured the organizer.

[Zeb]

It's also fake. http://www.snopes.com/politics/satir...herprotest.asp

[Melena]

Figures. I despise PETA and yea could see something like that happen to them. Oh well doesn't remove the smile from my face reading it.

[Guitarman]

I shouldn't laugh, but I did.

Death from the sky: ‘Falling man’ from Africa shocks London neighbourhood

The suburban stillness of the comfortable, two-story homes in west London’s Mortlake neighbourhood is broken only by the roar of jets thundering overhead on the final approach to Heathrow Airport. It’s a pleasant place, with easy connections into central London, generally free of crime and congestion.
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That changed early on a sunny Sunday morning in September when a man from Africa literally fell from the sky and landed with a loud thud onto the sidewalk of Portman Avenue, half a block from a convenience store, an upscale lingerie boutique, and a shop selling Chinese herbal remedies.
In the hours after the crumpled body was found, as early risers were getting up to walk their dogs, get the papers, or go to church, police thought the man was a murder victim. But it was soon determined that he had been a stowaway who fell from a passenger plane when it lowered its landing gear directly above Portman Avenue.
“It was scary, there was a body on the street, and nobody knew at first that he had fallen from a plane,” neighbour Stephanie Prudhomme said. “There were police everywhere.”
The identity of the man remains a mystery three months later. He carried no identification, but police believe he may have been from Angola. They are asking the public to help identify the man, whose death has traumatized the neighbourhood.
Some heard the noise on impact; others were alarmed when they opened their doors and saw a crumpled badly disfigured body lying on the street. Some didn’t know anything was amiss until the police and an ambulance arrived, followed by homicide detectives.
Police came to believe the man stowed away on a passenger jet bound from the African nation of Angola to London, only to die en route and then fall when the landing gear opened — an occurrence that is rare but not unheard of.
“There is great sadness,” said Catherine Lambert, who lives a few doors down from the spot where the man landed. “To think that the end of the line for him is a suburban street, miles away from his world.”
The event shattered the neighbourhood’s sense of being immune from the world’s troubles, she said, a feeling compounded by the inability of police to identify the man.
“I felt, what was he running away from? What made him think he could survive? And how will his family ever know? He’s a lost soul now; his father and mother are probably waiting for him to make contact,” said Ms. Lambert, 41.
Frustrated police have released a composite electronic image of what they believe the man’s face looked like before his fall, as well as a photo of a tattoo on his left arm, in hopes that he may be identified.
Based on circumstantial evidence, including some currency found in his jeans pocket, they believe he may have been from Angola, but discussions with Angolan authorities have not provided useful clues.
In the days after the macabre discovery, some residents moved by the man’s death placed flowers at the spot where his body landed.
Unofficial representatives of London’s Angolan community trekked to Mortlake to pay their respects to the man, even though no one knew who he was.
They prayed and also left flowers — but the bouquet was quickly removed by residents after the delegation departed, for fears that it would become an unwanted, permanent shrine to the unknown passenger.
Some are still unwilling to discuss the falling man.
“Is this about the man from the sky?” asked one woman when approached by a reporter as she parked her car on Portman Avenue. “I don’t want to talk about it. That was my house.”
Aviation safety specialist Chris Yates said Sunday that poor perimetre security at a number of airports in Africa — including the main Angola airport at Luanda — and in other parts of the world has made it easier for people to stow away on planes.
But it’s dangerous, and often fatal, not least because areas such as the cargo hold or the wheel base, where stowaways often climb into, aren’t necessarily pressurized. Mr. Yates said the man who crashed to the pavement in Mortlake had probably lost consciousness and died within the first hour of his flight.
“When you start moving beyond 10,000 feet, oxygen starvation becomes a reality,” he said. “As you climb up to altitude, the issue becomes cold as well, the temperature drops to minus 40 or minus 50 degrees centigrade, so survival rates drop.”
The sidewalk has been cleaned and the flowers are long gone, but residents and local workers are still talking about the man, said Jay Sivapalan, 29, an employee at the Variety Box convenience store near where the body landed.
“It was just a strange thing,” he said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle6155277/

[Melena]

Is it bad that the first thing that popped into my head was The Gods Must Be Crazy?

[Indalecia]

Is it bad that the first thing that popped into my head was The Gods Must Be Crazy?

[Anoat]

http://www.gainesville.com/article/2...stitutionality

Lawyers for donkey-sex suspect challenge law's constitutionality
By Vishal Persaud
Ocala Star-Banner
Published: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 7:56 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 7:56 p.m.

OCALA - Lawyers representing a Marion County man accused of sexual activity with a miniature donkey have filed a motion asking a judge to declare the Florida statute banning sexual activities with animals unconstitutional.

Carlos R. Romero, 32, declared last week that he wanted to take his case to trial. He is accused of sexual activities involving animals, a first-degree misdemeanor, after he allegedly was found in a compromising position in August with a female miniature donkey named Doodle.

In the motion filed in Marion County court on Dec. 6, the assistant public defenders handling Romero's case — Joshua Wyatt, Scott Schmidt and Joshua Lukman — wrote that the statute infringes upon Romero's due process rights and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.

The statute's designated punishment for a first-degree misdemeanor conviction, a year in county jail, also constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and is excessive, the attorneys wrote.

Romero previously rejected the State Attorney's Office plea offer of a year of probation, a $200 fine, a psychosexual evaluation and possible treatment, STD testing, no contact with children in a school setting, no ownership or possession of any mammals, and revocation of his license to work in horse racing.

Last week at a brief status conference, Romero confirmed that he wanted to take his case to trial. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.

The attorneys claim that the statute deprives Romero of his "personal liberty and autonomy when it comes to private intimate activities."

"By making sexual conduct with an animal a crime, the statute demeans individuals like Defendant (Romero) by making his private sexual conduct a crime," the attorneys wrote.

As another possible reason for unconstitutionality, the attorneys add that the statute doesn't require that the state prove any harm or injury to the animal "or any proof of the sexual activity being non-consensual."

"Therefore, the only possible rational basis for the statute is a moral objection to sexual acts considered deviant or downright ‘disgusting,'?" they wrote.

Using religion or the overall consensus of the public that sexual activity with an animal is wrong as the basis of a law is unjustified and bars Romero's personal liberties, the attorneys argued.

"The personal morals of the majority, whether based on religion or traditions, cannot be used as a reason to deprive a person of their personal liberties," the attorneys wrote. "If the statute were to require sexual conduct with animals to be nonconsensual or to cause injury in order to be a crime, then perhaps the State would have a rational basis and legitimate state interest in enforcement."

For the same reasons, the statute also violates the equal protection clause and singles out zoophiles. The attorneys cite that the statute does not ban specific zoophilic acts that "are non-consensual or inflict pain or injury on the animal."

Instead, the statute bans all zoophilic acts and the punishment for such behavior is excessive, the attorneys argue.

"The classification of zoophilic acts as first-degree misdemeanors is grossly out of proportion to the severity of zoophilic acts," they wrote.

Peter M. Brigham, an assistant state attorney and head of the prosecutor's office misdemeanor division, said Romero's attorneys are misinterpreting precedents from a U.S. Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas, which addressed homosexuality and sodomy.

"They're applying the wrong constitutional test in their motion," Brigham said. "I don't think it (the statute) is going to be overturned."

A hearing on the motion is set for today.

In previous interviews, Romero said he would become destitute if he had accepted the state's plea offer because he wouldn't be allowed to work as an exercise rider and groomer in the horse racing industry.

He reportedly bought the animal from a man in Lake City for $500.

Romero admitted that he gets sexually aroused around animals more so than humans and allegedly masturbated with Doodle in his room. He claimed that he would have had sex with the miniature donkey eventually, but that she wasn't ready and was "blooming into maturity."

Romero said in previous interviews after one hearing that he never harmed the animal and all he wants is to have Doodle back in his care.

Oh man. I laughed so much.

[Brill Weave]

I find the fact that the donkey's name is Doodle, strangely appropriate.

[Howie Roary]

Donald diddled Doodle.

[Kerberoz]

[Correction]

Woman calls 911, wants $300K to pull over for officer

(CNN) - A woman, who was being chased by police, called 911 and told dispatchers to pay her $300,000 or she would not pull over.

North Carolina police released the call, where Jennifer Herring claims the officers were declaring a false sense of emergency. She said that comes with a $300,000 fine and she wanted it paid immediately.

Dispatcher: "Can you just pull over for the officer?"

Herring: "No! I'm not pulling over, because pulling over is voluntary. Why am I going to pull over for you? I'm not doing nothing wrong. You told me there is no emergency. If there is not an emergency, it's $300,000. Are you ready to pay the $300,000?"

Dispatcher: "Ma'am, I am not the officer."

Herring: "Are you ready to pay the $300,000? That's all I want to know. If you guys want to pay the 300 grand, then I'll pull over for you. I will pull over for 300 grand. That is my offer, and I'm asking you to accept it."

Dispatcher: "Ma'am, this is 911. I'm not the officer, okay?"

Herring: "I'm not giving you the opportunity to make (inaudible). I'm asking you if you want to incur a $300 debt. Do you want to incur it or not?"

Herring did eventually stop, when the road reached a dead end. She told the 911 dispatcher she "approved this message" before hanging up.

She's facing a handful of charges, including DWI, fleeing to elude arrest and driving with a revoked license.

The audio of the 911 call is at the link.