I thought Giraffe don't attack people... it's amazing how few drinks can do to your life...

Live budgie found during cell sweep at Portlaoise Prison 09/05/2007 - 08:04:32 A live budgie has reportedly been recovered by prison officers during a massive search for smuggled goods in maximum-security Portlaoise Prison. Reports this morning say inmates were locked up in their cells yesterday while a huge sweep was carried out in two particular areas of the jail. The search targeted the landing that houses gangland figures from Dublin and Limerick, as well as dissident republicans. Eight mobile phones were found, as were three SIM cards, 150 tablets (including ecstasy), a quantity of powdered drugs, a large amount of home-made alcohol and 30 syringes. This morning's reports say the budgie is believed to have been smuggled into the prison by a female visitor who concealed the bird internally in her body.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=218723036&p=zy87z374z

The new bicycle would have a cabin to cover half of a rider's body, the daily quoted project manager Elaheh Sofali as saying.

Women's sports in general, and cycling in particular, have been a constant controversial issue in Islamic Iran. Several efforts to promote athletics by reformist circles and women's activists have failed because of opposition by the conservative clergy.

Women in Iran are obliged to wear scarves and long gowns to hide their hair and body contours. Female athletes must also follow this rule and participate in sports wearing scarves and gowns.

The clergy considers women's body movements made while riding a bicycle to be provoking to men and not compatible with social rules.

The truly happy meal

OTTAWA, Ill. � An Illinois 8-year-old got more than a hamburger and french fries when she opened her Happy Meal this week.

A 17-year-old employee of an Ottawa, Ill., McDonald's is out of work and facing drug charges after allegedly hiding marijuana and a lighter in the Happy Meal.

Keith Irelan and his three children went through a McDonald's drive-thru Monday night to order Happy Meals. They were on their way to meet their mother at a nearby school for a picnic, police said.

But one of the children � an 8-year-old girl � got a lighter, pipe, and bag of marijuana in her Happy Meal, according to Ottawa Police Chief Brian Zeilmann. Her father went to the police.

"To be honest, you don't expect that," Irelan told FOX Chicago affiliate WFLD-TV.

"She said 'Mom, I have a lighter in my Happy Meal,'" the girl's mother said.

The girl showed the lighter to her dad, then told him later that she got two other "toys" in her Happy Meal. One of those toys was a bag of marijuana.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272774,00.html

may be old news now, but it should be kept for the record.

Gay flamingos' adoption joy

 

A PAIR of gay flamingos have finally become proud foster parents after taking an abandoned chick under their wings.

Carlos and Fernando had been so desperate to have chicks that they had resorted to stealing eggs to fulfil their unlikely dream of a starting a family at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. But their egg-sitting and hatching skills impressed staff so much that when one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned last week, they were considered the number one choice to "adopt" the chick.

The unhatched egg was whisked off to an incubator where it was warmed up and monitored. Hours later a healthy chick hatched, but staff were concerned the flamboyant duo would not bond with the newborn because the process normally begins when the chicks are "calling" them from inside the egg. So the chick was carefully placed in an old eggshell, which was taped up and returned to the unsuspecting couple's empty nest.

The pair were soon seen 'talking' to the chick inside the egg and a little while later it hatched for a second time - to be greeted by its loving new foster parents.

WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said: "Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other Flamingos' eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves.

"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."

The pair, who have been together for about six years, can feed their chick without any female help - by producing milk in their throat.

The chick, who is being brought up in a "creche" with 15 other newborns, has been welcomed into the flock, under the watchful eye of its new parents.

Gay flamingos are not particularly rare and enjoy an elevated status with their choice of partner.

"If there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males," Ms Waghorn said.

The pair are Greater Flamingos, the most widely dispersed of the six flamingo species, being found in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. The average lifespan is about 30 years.

 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007230399,00.html

Girl calls for police help over messy room

BERLIN (Reuters) - A nine-year-old German girl was so upset about having to tidy her room she put up a sign in her window urging passers-by to call police for help.

Pedestrians in the central city of Braunschweig saw the girl crying in the window, holding up a sign up saying "Help! Please call the police!" Next to her sat a small boy.

Quickly alerted, officers rushed to the scene to discover the girl had rowed with her mother about tidying her room and enlisted her two-year-old brother's aid to attract attention.

"The room looked like a battlefield," said a spokesman for local police on Monday. "Officers told the girl to tidy her room. When they came back two hours later to check, it was all cleaned up. And the mother and daughter had made up too."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKL2169052820070521

lol, this thread is gold. Keep it up!

Yet the 70-year-old Irish tramp is the unlikeliest of property millionaires.

He has become the proud owner of a prime plot of land on the edge of Hampstead Heath in North London - by claiming squatter's rights.

Because he has lived there longer than the 12 years required by law, he has been declared the legal owner by the Land Registry.

The plot near Highgate, which consists of a 90ft-square woodland area around the 12ft x 8ft shack, has been Mr Hallowes's home since 1986.

If it were sold with permission for housing, estate agents say it would fetch more than �2million. But Mr Hallowes says he has no intention of cashing in. Yesterday, after a visit to the shops with his plastic bag hanging from an umbrella slung across his shoulder, he asked: "Do I look like the type that would sell up and go jetting all over the world?

"I'm not into package holidays and all that other modern stuff where they bundle everyone up like a package and send them all over the place. It all sounds quite nauseating. I'm quite happy here with all my friends and all the nature.

"I'm pretty lazy if I'm honest. I do a bit of weightlifting and I chop wood for the fire. I don't much care what happens to the land after I'm gone as long as they keep the wildlife - I'm all for wildlife.

"If I write a will I will leave the land to the Royal Family. They are the last bastion of refinement and sophistication so they'd know what to do with it.

"But there are a lot of greedy people behind the scenes who would love to get their hands on this."

His grey hair stained yellow by smoke from his open fire, Mr Hallowes said the only changes he wanted to make were to have running water and electricity installed in his shack. "Water is a problem because I have to use my friends' taps in Highgate."

Over the years he has become a well-known figure in the community, surviving on food handouts and doing odd jobs, and his friends in the area include Monty Python star and film director Terry Gilliam.

A spokesman for Gilliam said: "We are delighted by this. Harry is an amazing man, very intelligent, and Terry and his wife have done a lot to help him out over the years."

By a bizarre twist, it was an attempt to evict Mr Hallowes which led to him owning the land.

The squat is in the grounds of Athlone House nursing home which was sold to the property developers Dwyer International by Kensington and Chelsea Hospital NHS Trust.

To gain planning permission for a block of 22 flats, worth �1million each, Dwyer agreed to donate a strip of woodland - which includes the tramp's half-acre - to the Corporation of London, which manages the adjoining heath.

Dwyer began proceedings to evict Mr Hallowes in March 2005 but dropped the case after his solicitors presented evidence that he had lived there for more than 12 years and could therefore not be removed.

Mr Hallowes is free to sell the land, but without planning permission to build housing it is unlikely that it would attract much attention. The Corporation of London said that the land had covenants attached preventing it from being developed.

A spokesman said the woodland, which is not open to the public, acts as a "buffer" between the heath and the development and that Mr Hallowes had always been welcome to stay there for the rest of his life.

But she added: "We are looking at the legal consequences of this. We hope that the land would pass over to us when Mr Hallowes is no longer there."

Mr Hallowes's case comes two years after George 'Rainbow' Weiss claimed squatters' rights on a flat in Hampstead which he later sold for �710,000.

Mr Weiss said: "I think it's quite magical that Harry has got his land, but I hope he uses it wiser than I did. I've squandered all my money."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=457222&in_page_id=1770&ICO=NEWS&ICL=TOPART

"If I write a will I will leave the land to the Royal Family. They are the last bastion of refinement and sophistication so they'd know what to do with it. "

Man catches leopard in bedroom with bare hands

Leopard chases cat into sleeping couple's bedroom, husband awakes, catches leopard with bare hands, saving his beloved cat

A Negev resident woke up early Monday morning to find a leopard in his bedroom.

The wild animal had been chasing Arthur Damush's beloved cat around the house, and when the two animals entered his bedroom, Damush did not hesitate, and knew exactly what he had to do.

The Midreshest Ben-Gurion resident instinctively jumped out of his bed and caught the wild creature with his bare hands.

In the past two weeks residents of the area noticed that cats were slowly disappearing, and occasionally spotted the leopard sneaking between houses. This time, however, the leopard decided to pay the Damush household a visit.

Raviv Shapira, head of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority's southern district, told Ynet, "Around 3 am, a cat ran into the house, with the leopard chasing after him. The two animals lunged into the bedroom.

"The homeowner who was sleeping with his wife woke up and yelled: 'Leopard!', and at first thought he was seeing things. When the leopard used its teeth to grab the cat by its neck, the homeowner pounced on it and caught it with his hands."

Shapira added that this was the first time he had ever encountered a leopard entering a home.

The leopard. Photo: Amram Tsabri, Israel Nature and Parks Authority

After catching the animal, Damush told his wife to call their neighbor, Yossi Sinai, a Nature and Parks Authority inspector.

"The wife called me and she was very nervous and asked me to come over," Sinai said. "We arrived at the house, and saw Damush holding the leopard with his hands. We took over from that point. The fact that Damush was able to overpower the leopard is outstanding."

The leopard was taken for medical examination in order to determine if it had any diseases and to find out what caused it to get so close to the houses. A transmitter was fixed to the leopard in order to provide information on its whereabouts at all times.

The cat was lightly wounded and Damush, who was slightly scratched, was also taken for testing.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3405509,00.html

Edited by Aelfgifu - 30-May-2007 at 05:19