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

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.”

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

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.

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