Cops Vs. Python
By GrinningFool | April 21, 2008
Bad snake, bad snakes, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when the police are coming for you!!!!
EUGENE, Ore. - A pet store owner is calling a police sergeant a hero for saving her from the coils of a 12-foot Burmese python doing its best to turn her into a meal.
Teresa Rossiter had reached into a cage Thursday to show the huge snake to a customer when it bit her right hand and coiled around her left arm, throwing her to the floor.
A friend who happened to be at the store kept the snake off her neck and body while police were called. And when Sgt. Ryan Nelson rushed into the store, he was ready to kill the snake with his knife.
But Rossiter asked him to spare the expensive python, so Nelson put on gloves and pried open the snake’s mouth to free Rossiter’s hand.
Two responders from the Eugene Fire Department helped unwrap the snake, which was eventually returned to its cage.
Rossiter called Nelson a hero.
“He was the bravest guy ever. He went way above and beyond the call of duty,” she told The Oregonian newspaper.
Rossiter suffered dozens of puncture wounds, but she, the sergeant and the python were fine
from MSN.com
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Burning Down The Gazebo of Love!
By GrinningFool | April 15, 2008
Ouch! Not a great way to start out the engagement. I once got an article 15 once for supoosedely setting fire to a Gazebo. I didn’t do it but the results were pretty impressive.
CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. - Lawrence Waterhouse III pulled out all the stops — and all the candles — when he proposed marriage to his girlfriend in the gazebo outside his suburban home.
“He had set it up very, very nicely,” Chappaqua Fire Chief Andy Metz said Thursday. “He had candles in the trees, candles and dogwood petals along the path, a chandelier with votive candles.”
The girlfriend said yes to the romantic Wednesday night proposal, and the couple left town early Thursday for a trip West, Metz said. Unfortunately, at least one candle remained lighted.
“We got the call about 7:15 this morning, and when I got there five minutes later the gazebo was fully involved in flames,” the chief said. “Luckily, nothing else burned.”
Metz tracked down Waterhouse at a New York airport and told him about the fire, but advised him to continue with his trip.
“Nobody was hurt, so I told him to go ahead with his vacation,” the chief said. “He gave me his brother’s number, and the brother told me about the proposal.”
The chief said the fire was “a unique event.”
“We’ve had candle fires, of course, but I can’t remember one at this level of romance.”
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Bears Gone Wild! Dancing That is!
By GrinningFool | April 6, 2008
Grizzly bears are getting their groove on, and new hidden cameras are giving scientists a window into the secret lives of these dancing bears.
This is no circus act. Between 2005 and 2007, Kate Kendall of the U.S. Geological Survey and her colleagues took video footage of black and grizzly bears doing what looks like the go-go at their favorite “rub trees.” They also got film of bears lumbering beneath stretches of barbed wire used to snag hair samples.
The research is part of a larger study to estimate the population size and distribution of bears in northwestern Montana using genetic analyses of the bears’ hair samples.
Scientists think bears shimmy their backs against trees in a kind of bump-and-grind to scratch hard-to-reach spots and to communicate their presence to other Ursus kin.
“It’s probably primarily a form of chemical communication,” Kendall said. “Often bears will sniff the trees before and after they rub on them.”
Though Kendall has yet to pinpoint exactly what makes for a bear-loving rub tree, both grizzlies and black bears seem to agree on the specs.
“Multiple bears are using the same trees, including within the same day black bears and grizzly bears,” Kendall told LiveScience.
Evidence also suggested the bear cubs took part in tree-rubbing. But mama bears avoided rub trees during the mating season between May and June. By steering clear of rub trees during those months, Kendall says, the female bears who already have cubs can avoid interested males and protect their young.
“Adult males are most likely to attack the cubs of females that they’re interested in breeding with [during the mating season],” Kendall said.
Thanks to www.msnbc.com
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Diapered Monkey on the Loose
By GrinningFool | April 6, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A diaper-clad monkey who escaped from his Orlando home is in the custody of animal control. Orlando Police said the monkey escaped through a window Friday and was sitting on top of a wall near a condo building.
When passerby’s tried to catch the monkey, he charged at them, forcing them to retreat to the street into oncoming traffic.
Authorities used a banana to lure the monkey into a cage where he was then taken to Orange County Animal Control.
Authorities were not able to locate the animal’s owners.
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Texas Rancher arrested for selling snake vodka
By admin | April 1, 2008
You gotta love people from Texas! After living there for a few years, I totally can believe this story.
SANTO, Texas - A rattlesnake rancher who calls himself Bayou Bob found a new way to make money: Stick a rattler inside a bottle of vodka and market the concoction as an “ancient Asian elixir.” But Bayou Bob Popplewell’s bright idea appears to have landed him on the wrong side of the law, because he has no liquor license.
Popplewell, who has raised rattlesnakes and turtles at Bayou Bob’s Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch for more than two decades, surrendered to authorities Monday. He spent about 10 minutes in jail after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission obtained arrest warrants on misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and possessing alcohol with intent to sell.
If convicted, he faces up to a year in jail and $1,000 in fines.
Popplewell said he will fight the charges. His intent, he said, is not to sell an alcoholic beverage but a healing tonic. He said he has customers of Asian descent who believe the concoction has medicinal properties.
“It’s almost a spiritual thing,” said Popplewell, 63.
But alcohol commission agent Scott Jones pointed out that investigators confiscated 429 bottles of snake vodka and one bottle of snake tequila. At $23 a bottle, that’s almost $10,000 worth of reptilian booze.
Even if Popplewell intended his drink be used as a healing tonic — an assertion the alcohol commission disputes — his use of vodka requires a state permit, authorities said.
“It’s sold for beverage purposes, and he knows what he’s doing,” commission Sgt. Charlie Cloud said.
Popplewell said he uses the cheapest vodka he can find as a preservative for the snakes. The end result is a super sweet mixed drink that Popplewell compared to cough syrup.
“I’ve honestly never seen a person drink it,” he said.
An Asian studies lecturer at the University of Texas said there is some merit to Popplewell’s claim that snake vodka could be seen as a tonic.
There’s a street nicknamed “Snake Alley” in Taipei, Taiwan, where street vendors put the gall bladder of a freshly killed snake into a glass of strong liquor. The drink, sold to the highest bidder, is supposed to improve eyesight and sexual performance, said lecturer Camilla Hsieh.
“It’s like the ancient version of Viagra,” Hsieh said.
Santo is located 60 miles west of Fort Worth.
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Information from Fort Worth Star-Telegram, http://www.star-telegram.com
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Wanted: Someone to kill my boyfriend’s wife
By GrinningFool | January 30, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US woman was arrested this week after she allegedly tried to hire a hitman to murder her married lover’s wife by posting an ad on the popular website craigslist, law enforcement officials said Sunday.
Anne Marie, 48, from Grand Rapids, Michigan offered www.craigslist.org users the chance to kill Carol, a 56-year-old woman in California, in a vaguely worded free ad under the category of “Freelance,” according to court documents.
Two women and one man responded to the ad, with at least one applicant believing it to be an offer for freelance writing work. During subsequent emails, Anne Marie divulged that the task was actually a hit.
“Marie informed (one of the people who responded) that she was looking for ’silent assassins’ and she asked him to eradicate a targeted victim,” offered 5,000 dollars for the job and provided the address, name, age and occupation of the man’s wife.
“Asked what she meant by ‘eradicate,’ Anne Marie said ‘Duh. Well to have her killed,” the court documents said.
The woman, who also goes by the name Anne Marie Linscott, was charged with three counts relating to murder for hire and using interstate commerce to commit a felony.
“This complex investigation was initiated in November 2007 and we have been very concerned for the well being of the victim,” said Butte County Sheriff Perry Reniff, according to a statement released by the Sacramento FBI.
The potential victim’s husband “acknowledged meeting Linscott through an on-line college course in 2004 or 2005,” and said “he and Linscott developed a very deep and intimate online relationship,” the FBI statement said.
The pair met for sex on at least two separate occasions in 2005 and 2007, and “have continued to communicate via telephone and email.”
Asked by law enforcement officials how she would feel if her target were murdered by a respondee on craigslist, the suspect “stated she would be scared that law enforcement would track it back to her,” court documents said.
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Why Can’t I have a Friend Like This
By GrinningFool | January 25, 2008
I wish! With the price of gas lately! I could see getting away with it once but every Sunday? Come on, thats just begging to be caught!
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. - For people in a West Virginia community, Madeline Jordan may have been the right person to know.
She worked at a gas station — where, police say, she would re-set the price at the pumps every Sunday morning, and sell gasoline to family and friends for just a tenth of a penny per gallon.
The owner of the station says he noticed a significant drop in his income, and found receipts that listed the deeply discounted rate.
Jordan is accused of defrauding her boss out of nearly $50,000 over the course of several months.
Also under arrest: Her mother, her brother, a cousin and two others. They were arrested after police set up a sting operation at the station in South Charleston.
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Didn’t I Used to Have a House Here?
By GrinningFool | January 25, 2008
MOSCOW - Returning home after an absence can mean unpleasant surprises — a leaky roof, a pet’s mess, even a break-in. But a Russian woman got a nastier surprise when she returned from her country house: Her home was gone, torn down mistakenly by construction workers clearing a site, according to a report Thursday on NTV television.
“There was nothing left, not even a log,” Lyudmila Martemyanova said, bundled against the cold and standing on a snow-covered lot in the center of the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod.
A local prosecutor, Nikolai Govorkov, said a construction company tore down the wrong building — Martemyanova’s, instead of one nearby that was marked for demolition.
Many Russians have faced what they say are unfair and inadequately compensated evictions from older housing being torn down amid the country’s oil-revenue-fueled construction boom.
Martemyanova’s case is extreme, however, and she has taken it to court. She refused the builder’s offer of money, saying it wasn’t enough even to get a room on the outskirts of the city, and has sued.
Court hearings started Thursday. Meanwhile, she’s shuttling back and forth between her daughter’s and her sister’s, she told NTV.
Thanks MSNBC
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Aunt’s UnderWear Saves the day!
By GrinningFool | January 3, 2008
Those must have been some bug underwear. from AP.
LONDON - From baggy knickers to the ultimate hotpants: Jenny Marsey’s miraculous underwear saved the day by doubling as an emergency fire blanket when her kitchen caught alight.
Son John Marsey and his cousin Darren Lines were frying bread in her kitchen Sunday when fire broke out and Lines grabbed the nearest thing from a pile of washing to put it out — his aunt’s billowing, extra-large, powder blue underwear.
He doused it with water, tossed it over the fire and put out the flames, said a spokesman for the local Cleveland Fire Brigade, speaking anonymously in line with department policy.
Lines’ swift thinking saved the kitchen of the home at Hartlepool, northeast England, but left Marsey’s underwear slightly scorched.
“It could have been a lot worse,” said Marsey. “My family could have been in hospital but the knickers saved the day. I’m just grateful to the boys.”
The fire brigade spokesman said that the general principle — using a large, wet cloth to cover a grease fire — was a sound one. As for using underwear: “Clearly it depends on what size you are,” he said, “but I don’t want to go there.”
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Eats the All The Frog Legs and Then doesn’t want to Pay Extra
By GrinningFool | January 3, 2008
HOUMA, La. - A 6-foot-3, 265-pound man says a restaurant overcharged him for his trips to the buffet line, then banned him and a relative because they’re hearty eaters. A spokesman for the restaurant denies the claim.
Ricky Labit, a disabled offshore worker, said he had been a regular for eight months at the Manchuria Restaurant in Houma, eating there as often as three times a week.
On his most recent visit, he said, a waitress gave him and his wife’s cousin, 44-year-old Michael Borrelli, a bill for $46.40, roughly double the buffet price for two adults.
“She says, ‘Y’all fat, and y’all eat too much,’” Labit said.
Labit and Borrelli said they felt discriminated against because of their size. “I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain’t that fat, I only weigh 277,” Borrelli said, adding that a waitress told him he looked like he a had a “baby in the belly.”
Houma accountant Thomas Campo said the men were charged an extra $10 each on Dec. 21 because they made a habit of dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood dishes, including crab legs and frog legs.
“We have a lot of big people there,” said Campo, who spoke for owner Li Shang, whose English is limited. “We don’t discriminate.”
Labit denied ever being told he would be asked to pay more than the standard adult price.
The argument grew heated, and police were called.
The police report states, “The incident was settled when the management advised that the bill was a mistake and, to appease Ricky, the meal was complimentary.”
Labit said he insisted on paying but was told not to come back. He complained that when seafood on the buffet line runs out, the restaurant only grudgingly cooks more.
Campo said the proprietress tries to reduce waste of quality food, he said.
“Food is for eating, not toys for your child,” reads a sign posted on a wall in typewritten text. A handwritten addition reads “Or 20% added.”
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