Terrorism is something that most of us don’t look at as entertainment. Blowing stuff up randomly just has never seemed like my idea of a good time, but then again, it’s the premise of any Die Hard, or Terminator movie. Personally I like those. Heck, Clint Eastwood made a career out of little cigars and sticks of dynamite. So, maybe a restaurant dedicated to terrorism could work? Well a business man in Beirut is giving it a shot. The place features sandwiches, fries and guns. The brilliantly titled Buns and Guns offers a range of dishes to the sound of recorded gunfire. In Beirut, that’s like traffic noise to us. The restaurant is decked with military camoflage netting, fake guns and ammunition. Items on the menu include 'rocket propelled grenade', otherwise known as chicken on a skewer, and 'terrorist bread'. Other meals include the Kalashnikov and the B52. I can hear the employees now: “Lock and load a Kalashnikov, hold the onion.” Owner Yousef Ibrahim told Hezbollah's al-Manar television station: “They accuse us of terrorism, so let's serve terrorist bread, why not? My goal was to make people laugh before they ask me, why weapons? The important thing is that they laugh.” Yea I bet it is. You don’t want to become a target of your own theme. Admittedly, giving an interview to the Hezbollah’s TV station was probably a smart move so that they actually know what you’re up to and hopefully they have a sense of humor. It might put a damper on the clientele to have a careening car of dynamite heading for the cash register. “It attracts customers in an unconventional way,” continues Yousef, “The moment I opened the restaurant, there was a lot of business.” The restaurant, which has the motto 'A sandwich can kill you', doctors have been telling us that for years, is located in an area where Hezbollah is popular. Well, it’s good to reach out with something familiar for your customers. I wonder if they give away plastic miniature AK 47s and Ouzis with their kids meals?  This gives a whole new meaning to the stomach bomb. “Hey waiter there’s a cartridge in my soup?”

The newest crop of crop circles seem to be sending a message. This one is apparently from a math major. I have to admit this one took some work. It is very intricate and beautiful. The photo can be found on this page. Many have said that if extraterrestrials are trying to contact us, they would use math because it is a universal language. The circle, found near Barbury Castle, Wiltshire, England, in a barley field is approximately 150 feet in diameter. This would have taken a lot of work to get this done in one night. The complex pattern represents the first ten digits of  Pi: 3.141592654. Astrophysicist Mike Reed has said: “I noticed a photo of the Barbury Castle pattern. It shows a coded image representing the first ten digits of Pi - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. The tenth digit has even been correctly rounded up. The little dot near the centre is the decimal point. The code is based on ten angular segments, with the radial jumps being the indicator of each segment,” OK, slow down. What does all that mean? I’ve had ex-wives that were less confusing. You turn a scientist loose and you can’t get them to make sense. Or maybe it’s too much sense for me to wrap my non-physics educated mind around. The point here, which has suddenly been lost in translation, is that someone has turned this mass of circles into a mathematical equation. The mathematical equation is Pi, which is the formula for finding the circumference of a circle which is being given to us by a series of circles even though we already know all this. What use is that? My head hurts. I need aspirin. This is worse than when my math teacher used to give me story problems. I hated those. They made my head hurt too. I’m going to go lie down now.

TO SEE THE PICTURE OF THIE CROP CIRCLE, CLICK THE LINK BELOW

Yes, this is your commentator and today we’re gathered to watch a grudge match between Austria and Germany. The players are coming onto the soccer field now. All the women players are wearing nothing but a thong. Yes, this should definitely be a match worth watching. The women are bouncing out on to the field and getting set. The referee blows his whistle and the game begins. How come we never get this kind of stuff on Fox Sports Net. In Vienna, Austria a game was held just as I described above. It was an added event before the big game between Germany and Austria. Austria drew first blood on Sunday when their topless women's soccer team beat Germany 10-5. The traditional swapping of shirts afterwards was not an option as the six-a-side teams wore nothing but thongs, with the national colors painted on to their bare skin. Body paint, I like it. We need these kinds of sports in America. B-Ball fans would love having a Hooters team play before the Lakers – Celtics playoff game. Keep in mind, these women are real athletes. They’re trying to be morale boosters for the main event. Hey, my morale is boosted. "I hope our men will take heart from that tomorrow. We played pretty hard, we even had some injuries, like I for example broke my toe nail," said 29-year-old bank employee Doris Fastenmeir. Now that’s dedication. "I was supposed to hold the balls but I really have no idea how to do that," said German keeper Jana Bach. Think about it Jana, it’ll come to you. "Maybe it is because I am not all that much into soccer. I am more into shoes to be honest." You see, real athletes. Go out there, give a good try and then go shopping.  Actually, they went to a party along the Danube afterwards. Rough way to go. What do spectators think of all this? “They might have to work on their technique a bit but it was definitely a rather pleasant game to watch and a very nice version of the 'beautiful game'," said Rolf Hansen from Berlin. I’ll bet it was Rolf. Wish I’d have been there. Heck, sign me up for season tickets and I don’t actually care about Soccer. There’s nothing like some balls, a big field, (OK, It’s actually a beach) nearly naked women and a few stiff cocktails to perk up an afternoon. Now that’s sports!

To see pics and video of this event go here:http://www.euro2008unleashed.com/topless-painted-girls-play-soccer-in-austria-vs-germany-prematch/ 

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN16224920080616?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

They say in America people take voting for granted. Well, in Pillsbury, North Dakota, they held an election and no on came. Not one single vote, including the candidates themselves! “Everybody has got a job and they're busy,” the current Mayor of Pillsbury, Darrel Brudevold said. “It just worked out that nobody seemed to go down there to the polls.”  Too busy to vote. Come on, have we fallen that far in America? OK, what do you do now? Do you win by default or do you lose by default?  Brudevold said he intended to vote, but that he had crops to tend. He said he assumed at least one person would show up to vote. See what assuming gets you, nada. But since no one did, Brudevold said he'll ask state election officials what to do next. Yea I bet you will. How do you explain that. “Uh we tried to have an election and no one voted, Do I win?” Dude you didn’t even vote for yourself. Brudevold, who has been mayor for a dozen years and was an alderman before that, said he doesn't think the current five-member body will change. You mean you’re hoping it doesn’t change. Brudevold's wife, Ruth, runs the beauty shop and is the town's postmaster. She said she was too busy with work to make it to the polls. Whatever happened to that middle America vote or die attitude. Do you folks sleep through the Fourth of July? Barnes County Auditor Ed McGough said those in office can stay there and appoint people, including themselves, to the jobs until the next election. There’s democracy in action. That’s so much easier when you’re not busy. “I presume things will stay the same,” Brudevold said. “We're just a little village, and when you're elected to one of those jobs, well, once you get it, you got it. The only time we really get people to show up is when we want to raise taxes - then everybody shows up.” Maybe they should have had a tax proposal on this one. They need to change the name of this town to Apathyville. The town where too busy is more important than the right to vote.

Judge Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seems to really enjoy his latest assignment, a beastiality porn trial. So much so he has some of those kinds of images on his own website. This is one judge I wouldn’t interrupt when he’s in his chambers. Kinky dude. He was overseeing an obscenity trial when a newspaper reported he had sexually explicit photos and videos on his own site. The Los Angeles Times reported that the site contained explicit material – including a picture of naked women on all fours, painted like cows, and a video of a half-naked man frolicking with a sexually aroused farm animal. Ok, we’ve moved from kinky to the realm of weird. I’m not sure who should be on trial here. The defendant in the case, shock video producer Ira Isaacs, 57, is accused of violating obscenity laws by selling movies depicting bestiality and fetishes involving feces and urination. The movies involved included films such as Gang Bang Horse, Pony Sex Game, Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7, and Laurie's Toilet Show. Such creative titles. This guy’s an artistic genius. That was sarcasm for those that don’t recognize it.  “I see myself as a shock artist that has sex in some of the films,” Isaacs said in an interview  “People don't buy my videos because they want to watch people having sex. Regular porn does that. I need to convince people that mine is serious art.” Good luck with that. It didn’t work with me. The trial had already drawn attention because of the shocking nature of the videos in question, which the jury were required to watch. They have my sympathy. Judge Kozinski said he had thought the images on his site were not viewable by the public, and that he'd stored them their for private use and to share with a few friends. What kind of friends does he have? There’s more like him out there? He knows them? Are they a cult we should know about? He didn't believe any of the images were obscene, the L.A. Times reported, but thought that a few of the pictures were 'funny'. Humor, OK thanks for defining that for me. Doesn’t that constitute a judgement on the case?  “Is it prurient? I don't know what to tell you,” he told the newspaper. "I think it's odd and interesting. It's part of life.” OK, I’ve been around. I even grew up on a farm. This was not a part of our life. Although there was a guy down the road… This judge needs to seek counseling and I don’t mean the legal kind. The trial was suspended due to overwhelming weirdness and the judge was obviously enjoying this way too much. We won’t even get into the conflict of interest issues here. The court reporter was probably bringing him cocktails and a goat during court recess. Creepy.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=173403&in_page_id=2

Airports are doing away with the old pat down method of searching airline passengers and are resorting a new technological advance that allows airport security to see through your clothes. No more reach around with my pat down. Bummer. The new scanners will be installed in all major cities starting with Washington, Los Angeles, and New York. The booths close around the passenger and emit 'millimetre waves' that go through cloth to identify metal, plastics, ceramics, chemical materials and explosives, according to the Transport Safety Authority. The image is so detailed security screeners sitting in another room will be able to ogle passengers’ clearly visible sexual organs. So if you hear some giggling when you’re in the booth, you know you don’t measure up. “People have no idea how graphic the images are,” Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said. The TSA says that to protect a passengers privacy that their face will be blurred during the scan. Hey, they still see you going  in and going out. They know who I am. Now they know I’m 40 pounds overweight, sagging in several places and am not a candidate for athlete of the year. A TSA spokesman said, “Once the transportation security officer has viewed the image and resolved anomalies, the image is erased from the screen permanently. The officer is unable to print, export, store or transmit the image.” Well, at least my scan might not show up on some kinky porn site or worse yet a comedy site. Watch some hacker will get in there, copy the scans while they happen and then upload them to a site called “weird airport scans.” Suppossedly for the time being, airports will allow passengers to choose between the traditional pat downs and the scan. I wonder if they give out health certificates with their scans. You can bet these guys are going to be talking in the breakroom about these scans. “Hey did you see that 350 pounder that came through here, we almost couldn’t fit them in the booth.” Or, “Did you check out that hot blonde, you could see where those were faked.” I don’t know. I’m thinking, I might want to consider other modes of transportation on my trips. I’m thinking cruise ship. I know if I do fly, I’m opting for the pat down. I like the touchy feely stuff. Cheap thrills, you know.

I think there is much more going on here than is on the surface. Simply put, dogs are smart and this one isn’t fooling me. A man, named locally as Harry Emslie, 67, did not survive the freak accident at a farm at Clola in Aberdeenshire, England. The Daily Record reported that the dog was in the cab of a telescopic loader machine while the engine was still running and the handbrake off. As you can see, they are calling the incident an accident. I’m not so sure. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was a perpetually empty dog dish. Has anybody looked into this. Reportedly the dog hit a button which caused the loader to jump forward and pin Emslie against the wall. It sounds premeditated to me. Maybe he’s been talking to other sheepdogs who don’t have to work so hard. This could be a plot to an easier life. You know all work, not enough dog food, and the water dish is empty. “I’ve had it.” Aberdeenshire councillor Albert Howie, a friend of Mr Emslie, said: "I've heard that the dog was in the telescopic loader and Harry had been out scraping up some rubbish with a hand shovel and putting it in the front of the loader. "The dog had put forward the lever and the machine moved forward and pinned Harry against the wall. It's just a tragedy.” You, see open and shut case. The dog did it, but because he’s a dog he’s going to get away with it. He could be the biggest canine criminal of the century. Sweeney Todd with four legs. Police said: "It would appear the 67-year-old man was fatally injured in the incident which involved a tractor unit. "At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained." You see he may get away with it. He’ll be trotting the streets. He’ll bring other dogs into it. He’ll sway them with his evil cult of personality. Wake up people, it’s not unexplained, the dog did it.” It doesn’t take Miss Marple to figure this out. I say 20 years in the pound for this one. We can’t have our pets getting away with this kind of behavior. There would be animal anarchy. It’s what we have leash laws for. 

Villagers grab your torches and pitchforks, fire up the pickups and grab the guns, there be monsters in them there woods and it’s up to us to stop them. If you get ‘em there’s a million dollars in it for ya. Chaos insues and it spells the end of the evil Sasquatch. Yes, this could be the case now that Field and Stream Magazine and Bushnell the binocular/optics corporation have teamed up to offer a bounty on Bigfoot. Yes if you can get unrefutable evidence that a Bigfoot, Yeti, Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, exists, they will reward you with a million dollars. That’s a bigger bounty than Jesse James or the Daltons had on them. The offer expires December, 15 and is void where prohibited by law. They also are covering their collective derrieres by saying they are not responsible for any injuries received while attempting such discovery including being attacked by Bigfoot. The contest states this: offers $1 million to anyone who can "provide an unaltered photograph/video, verified and substantiated by a panel of scientific experts including a zoologist and biologist, the evidence required to prove a Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Yeti exists." The companies have covered themselves pretty well in this as photography doesn’t constitute actual proof. The only thing that can do that is bone or hair or a Bigfoot itself. This way the companies never have to pay out. In other words, surprise, surprise, surprise, it’s a marketing campaign. Find Bigfoot and get a million dollars, in the meantine don’t forget to pick up your copy of Field and Stream and use Bushnell binoculars while you look. Personally, I think you might want to slip in a bottle of Bushmill’s whiskey inthere while you’re at it. Put that puppy away and you’ll be seeing Bigfoot alright. Maybe a couple of them. So pack up the babys and grab the old ladies, the hunt is on.  Lock and load boys monsters await.

When I was younger, ugh, I hate to go there, one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes was taken from a great Ray Bradbury story called “I Sing the Body Electric.” It’s about a group of children that lose their mother and the Father, who has to work all day goes and gets an android nanny to care for them. It was heartwarming, touching and fiction. Not any more. NEC has come up with a robot for child care called PaPeRo. Yes now you can drop your kids off with the cute cuddly little ‘droid. It is capable of recognising and talking to people. It can send images by mobile phone, as well as play games and sing along. OK now here comes the weird part and the one I don’t get. Adults can control the robot via the internet and see through it using cameras. They can even speak to children through the robot's voice. Now doesn’t this make the robot redundant and stupid. In other words if you have to monitor the children through the robot and the robot’s behavior, doesn’t it make as much sense or more to still just have a human day care worker? You haven’t eliminated the need. If it’s the parents that are monitoring the robot, how do they work? If it’s at a day care facility, you still have the day care worker monitoring the day care of the robot. You might as well have them in the room with them. All you’ve created is an expensive toy for the kids. You can do the same thing with a set of Transformers. OK, they get to interact with R2D2 but beyond that this is useless. Kids are smart. You wait, one of them will show up with a wrench and PaPeRo will be PartseRo spread all over the floor. The first time one of them shoots him with a squirt gun and short circuits him it’ll be the crap heap for PaPeRo. Trip him and see what happens, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” “Hey PaPeRo, would you like some of my pudding?” Nope. This just isn’t going to work.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=163013&in_page_id=34

On a trip to the Himalayas, English artist Pollyanna Pickering, yes that’s her real name, was shown evidence of what she’s claiming proves the existence of Yetis. You know the Abominable Snowman, the original Bigfoot. UK yeti expert Jonathan Downes, of the Centre of Fortean Zoology, which studies 'mystery' animals, said: "This is potentially explosive.” While she was traveling through the Bhutan region with her daughter and business manager she stopped at a village of the Brokpas people. There, at a monastery, she was shown what they claim is a 100 year old yeti scalp with the bone still attached. "I was told this was from a migoi,  their name for the yeti. All I know is, it was bigger than any human or ape scalp I'd ever seen. It had tufts of reddish-black fur coming out of it and was mounted on a pole and seen as a holy relic." That’s kind of creepy. "I was amazed when they told me of regular sightings, close encounters and even tales of people being carried off by the migoi. Their descriptions were so detailed, I ended up doing this sketch with them all sitting round telling me to alter this or how that should look. They describe it as a very shy ape-like creature, about eight feet tall, with black, sometimes reddish fur. But what struck me most was, it wasn't like they were trying to convince me it existed. They were surprised some people think it doesn't. It's no big deal to them. They see it as just another indigenous wild animal, roaming the mountains with their snow leopard. There's nothing mythical about it." This sounds so much like the opening to a movie. Jonathan Downes an his Centre of Fortean Zoology intend to mount an expedition to verify Pickering’s claims. "This is potentially explosive. If this scalp is authentic and has bone still attached, it will be probably the single most important zoological find since the discovery of the coelacanth in the late 1930s. Certainly their accounts of it being a shy, gentle animal fits with all other information we've gathered over the years. If it does exists, we now think it a likely descendent from a giant ape called Gigantopithecus blackii which lived in India and China around half a million years ago and was between eight to 10.5 feet tall. But we think that rather than a gorilla, the yeti is probably more closely related to the orang-utan."  Pollyanna Pickering wasn’t allowed  to photograph the indisputable evidence because photography is banned from all monasteries. The only real evidence she has is her word and this sketch she made from descriptions of the storytellers sitting around the campfire. The yeti sketches will be shown in the Land of the Thunder Dragon exhibition, which will tour the United States and Canada following its debut in Oaker, England. Nothing like a little pre-tour publicity. It sort of reminds me of the Peckman, Romanek alien, it’s there but you can’t see it, thing in Denver.

TO VIEW POLLYANNA'S SKETCH, CLICK LINK:
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=160866&in_page_id=2

I suspect that Dick Cheney’s joke/speech writers are being fired today. Cheney’s wife, Lynne has been doing some research into the background of her family. What did she find, but another Dick Cheney, yes there is a second Richard Cheney to whom her grandmother is descended. Yes the Vice President and his wife are related. OK, I’m hearing banjos and the theme from Deliverance. Apparently so did Dick Cheney. In an off- color attempt at humor yesterday in front of the National Press Club, he mentioned the fact that he had Cheney’s on both sides of his family “and we don’t even live in West Virginia.” He continued with “You can say those things when you’re not running for re-election.” Now granted , for Dick this only rates about a 6.5 on the stupid-o-meter, he got a 9.5 when he picked off his hunting partner with friendly fire. Don’t go hunting with the Dickster. Now everyone that has any kind of relationship with West Virginia is calling for him to apologize for his insult. Republicans and Democrats have both come to the rescue of those poor WVA residents. It’s good to finally see unity in government. Thank you Dick for a united cause. You’ve proven once again why those narrow genetic relationships should be illegal. In a question-and-answer session after giving the speech at the National Press Club, Cheney said also joked that he wouldn't object to a family reunion with Barack Obama, who is also apparently related to Cheney. Would someone explain to me the gnarled, tendriled root that reached out for that one. But Cheney said he didn't think the candidate would be up for one -- "at least not before November. He'd probably be fearful I might whisper in his ear and change his whole view of the Middle East," If he’s smart he won’t let you get that close. He’d probably be afraid you’d ask him to go hunting.

Paranormal societies and ghost hunter groups are popping up all over. Unlike the tortured little boy in the movie the Sixth Sense who sees apparitions of the dead unintentionally, these people are going out and daily trying to stir up haunts from the other side. Personally, I think flirting with the dead is only asking for an accelerated means to join them. Just so we understand each other, I believe in ghosts, I’ve seen them. This does not mean that I want to encourage their presence into my everyday life. Scaring myself on purpose just is not fun. Now to the crux of things. Due to the popularity of TV shows like Ghost Whisperer and Sci-fi’s Ghost Hunters, paranormal societies all around the country are seeing a boom in membership. Yes everybody seems to want to know what goes on in the mind of a dead person. “Ghost reality shows have really opened the door for people to get involved themselves,” said James Willis, founder of The Ghosts of Ohio. Yep, the more the merrier. Apparently ghosts love a party. Forty of the 60 people who attended a recent dinner in Erie, Pa., that featured the Paranormal Study and Research Group asked if they could join the group or tag along on ghost hunts. A year earlier, only two or three asked to be involved after a similar event. Do ghosts like crowds? “Just thought I’d stop by to let you know I’m real. Got a cocktail?” Yea right. “We’re actually grateful for Ghost Hunters because instead of being a bunch of freaks, we’re like the cool people on TV,” founder Pat Jones said. “People used to look at us like we were absolutely insane, and now they want to come along with us. It’s almost like every day is Halloween.” Is that what this is about, not being considered flakes anymore, the endless search for credibility of the intangible. I know you were the kid that got beat up in school and now someone is paying attention to you in a way that doesn’t cause physical pain. Let’s see, I can go to Wal-mart, grab a video camera, throw up a website for a couple of bucks, call myself “Seekers of the Unknown, (Ya like that? Has a ring to it doesn’t it?) then run around in old houses and graveyards video taping nothing and hoping for something. If paint falls off the wall, I have ghostly activity. Cool. YouTube here I come. I can start my own channel, Spirits 24/7. “If you want to be taken seriously in this field, you have to acknowledge that some of the stuff out there is not real,” says Willis. So even if I get a video with nothing, it’s cool, because you don’t actually have to have ghosts to be a ghost hunter. Wow, sounds like a win win to me. This is almost too easy. And you get money for this? Yep, guest appearances, conventions, TV shows, elite memberships, sort of like the league of extraordinary ghost guys. Ghosts R Us, here I come. Next thing you know we will have someone going to the Denver City Council trying to get a commission on dealing with all the ghosts in town like Jeff Peckman is for UFOs. See previous blog.

Well it appears that Andy Warhol was wrong on this one. Jeff Peckman is definately receiving more than his 15 minutes of fame. As a matter of fact, so much is being made of this space alien video that he is promising to show that he is receiving phone calls from all over the world. "I've got about four or five interviews already, and I'm in discussion with Inside Edition, Good Morning America, Fox national news and a Moscow TV station that wants to send a team," Peckman, 54, said Thursday. His phone kept ringing all day. "NBC national wanted me in five different time slots tomorrow on different programs. I took three of them," Peckman said Thursday afternoon. Yes, instant celebrity. Virtually every news service is contacting him. If nothing else, the subject has got the world talking. The video Peckman has promised was analysed by Colorado Film School instructor Jerry Hofmann. He describes it thus: "He kept the camera handy, and he saw this little gray (alien) running around his house. He saw it, so he got the camera out," Hofmann said. "The thing is about 4 feet tall. The only thing that shows up in the video is his head. It pops up from underneath a window. But his eyes blink. His cheeks move. He turns his head side-to-side. The “He” Hofman mentions is Stan Romanek the man that actually shot the footage. All this attention has not pleased everyone. Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown said people can believe what they want, but the attention "is not very favorable to our city. Suddenly we're getting more national and international attention on this issue than the DNC," he said, referring to the Democratic National Convention in August. Apparently aliens really are coming to Denver. "In some respects, it's a welcome relief amidst all the polarizing politics that we have," Brown said. "That's probably good, but it just doesn't bode well for our city." It seems, not everyone has fallen under Peckman’s spell. I can’t believe this guys name is really Charlie Brown. The interesting thing will be to see what Peckman and Romanek do with all of this new found fame. If Peckman’s making appearances, it means the money’s coming in. Has anybody thought that maybe Peckman and Romanek are actually aliens themselves and this is all a conspiracy to get themselves placed on a government commission so they can start taking over the planet? Hmmm? Has anybody run tests on these guys? It could be you know. More to come after they’ve shown the footage tonight.

Jeff Peckman, a Denver, Colorado citizen has been trying to get an initiative started through the city of Denver that would create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission to prepare the city to deal with aliens. Now he is claiming to have footage of an alien peeking inside of someone’s window. Great, a peeping Tom alien. He intends to premiere this Friday. It sounds awfully Hollywood to me. I wonder if this will be a red carpet affair. Apparently the video, is supposed to become part of an upcoming documentary about earth being invaded by aliens from outer space. He claims the video is authentic and is part of what convinced him of the current need for action in Denver. "As impressive as it is, it's still one tiny portion in the context of a vast amount of peripheral evidence," he said Wednesday. "It's really the final visual confirmation of what you already know to be true having seen all the other evidence." It sounds pretty vague and what other evidence? He says he will show the video to City officials and media on Friday. This blog will be checking in on that. "It shows an extraterrestrial's head popping up outside of a window at night, looking in the window, that's visible through an infrared camera. The alien is about 4 feet tall and can be seen blinking,” Peckman said. If they’re only four feet tall, they don’t sound like much of a threat. Why were they there with infrared? Were they expecting it? Had it given prior notice of its arrival? Was this an RSVP?  Here’s the thing that gets me. No one will be allowed to film the presentation Friday because there is some kind of deal in place for it regarding the documentary. What documentary? Who’s doing it? Even before I see it, this sounds staged to me as well as bought and paid for. This certainly is a way to get publicity for a small budget film. Maybe it’s trying to be another “Blair Witch Project.” How about “Voyeur Aliens From Space” or maybe it’s something like “Aliens Gone Wild.” Whatever it is we’re, going to be following this new illegal alien issue.

In Britain a $2 million dollar grant has been awarded to a company to develop a robot that can stir soup. Why does this seem stupid to me? It is funded by the European Commission and they feel it is a way to introduce robots into the service industry. I guess Americans aren’t the only ones that have to deal with government waste. Besides, aren’t these jobs supposed to be done by illegal immigrants? Bristol Robotics Lab in England is the lucky winner of the cash. "It will specifically look at the problems of a human and a robot working together in the same space, for example in a kitchen where the service robot is performing a task such as stirring soup, while you add cream." Let’s see, the economy is going into the toilet, unemployment is everywhere and you’re going to develop a robot that helps take away the few jobs that are out there. Am I missing something here? Why can’t we develop a robot that maybe runs into burning buildings or searches for earthquake victims? “Excuse me, call in Robby the Robot, soup’s on.” Lab director Professor Chris Melhuish explained: "When we interact with other humans we are interpreting facial expression, body position, gestures, tone of voice as well as sharing a goal and understanding and following verbal instructions. For example in the soup situation, not only does the robot need to know what the goal is but he also needs to know how hard to stir the soup, what it means when you hold up your hand to say enough, to interpret the look of pain on your face if you accidentally get splashed with hot soup, and to stop stirring when told. This project aims to develop the rules we need to introduce this level of sophistication into service robots who are working closely with people." Ok, I’m beginning to detect some issues here. Somebody doesn’t like working with people. Man, you need to get out more. Have you thought of dating. Is the soup bad in England? I mean, c’mon, you eat pickled eels and serve coffee (civit coffee) made from cat poop. How good can your cuisine be? The only thing palatable in England is the beer and that’s got alcohol to sterilize it. Just what I need is a robot bringing me my meal that whines like C3PO. “Oh my, I can speak 1000 languages and I’m stirring soup. R2, don’t touch that. R2 don’t go in there. Oh my no you’ve done it, the soup’s scorched.” What about the customers? “Oh waiter, there’s a microprocessor in my soup.” Robotic research fine. A robot to stir my soup? Get a real project.

Have you ever thought, hmm. I’ll only be a minute so I’ll just grab the handicapped spot? Sure, you have. You may not have done it, but you’ve thought it. In Missassauga, Ontario a police officer thought that and got caught. He decided to run into a Tim Horton’s coffee and donut shop, grab a cup of coffee and a sweet treat and run right back out. No problem right? Just as he ran in, a double amputee from Sault Sainte Marie, Canada pulls up. "I was shocked," said Gerard Taylor, "I said, 'Quick, we have got to get a picture.'" This was one cop that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all know that coffee and donuts is a high priority for these guys. Lesson for the day: I have to admit, I live on the Canadian border, Tim Horton’s coffee is awesome, but certainly a 20-foot walk probably would have done this cop some good. It’s called exercise. Yes, you too can get off you butt and actually get your blood moving for about 30 seconds in prelude to that cholesterol laden taste treat that you’re about to stuff in your head. According to Taylor the cop was only there for a couple of minutes, he thinks someone told him he’d been caught, but it’s the principle of the thing that has him irked. There’s nothing worse than caught in the act. "He was only parked there for 90 seconds because I think someone told him about us snickering and talking about taking a picture, so he left without even a coffee in hand," he said. "Still, that is 90 seconds of a handicapped person's life that is already hard enough. It's the principle."  Only time will tell if the police department will actually do something with this lazy cop, especially now that it’s made the news with a picture and they are publicly embarrassed. Taylor calls himself one of the unofficial “accessibility police.” He lurks about just waiting for those moments of “I’ll just be a minute.” Yes in this day and age of cellphones with cameras, compact video recorders and the like, you’d better watch yourself. Those handicapped spots are under surveillance. The Accessibility Police will get you. Even if you are the police. Beware the temptation of the handicapped spot.

A northern California biotech company has announced that it will hold five online auctions to have your dog cloned. Yes now you can get copies of your favorite fido. The only thing is that the minimum bid is $100,000. Well, that’s a bit steep to pay for a dog, even if it is genetically engineered. The place is BioArts International located in Mill Valley, CA. It is the brainchild of Lou Hawthorne, and the research is led by Hwang Woo Suk a South Korean scientist who suffered international disgrace for having faked his research. OK, let me get this straight, you want me to pay over 100 grand to clone my dog with a guy who’s a known fraud. They must be operating from the theory that there’s a sucker born every minute. People are up in arms about this because they think this is the first step to human cloning. I think this is the least of their worries. Hawthorne used to run a company called Genetic Savings and Clone, but it folded when they tried to get people to clone their cats for $50,000. They had few takers and went bankrupt. Now he’s back and has set his sights on dogs. "The average dog owner has a different relationship with his dog than the average cat owner," Hawthorne said. "The level of intensity on the dog side just dwarfed what we saw on the cat side." In other words, he thinks they’re easier to fleece. I haven’t found out yet where the online auctions are to be held, but I’m hoping Ebay will refuse this one. The guy just doesn’t have good feedback. Of course there always those out there that have too much money and no sense. It’s not the research I object, though god knows we have enough normal pets in the world that people don’t want already, but it’s the man’s reputation. I think maybe hwang ought to consider horticulture. BioArts said in a statement it has been granted the sole license for cloning dogs, cats and endangered species using patented processes developed for the cloning of Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned animal. Ok someone isn’t paying attention to the background here. We have a previously failed company and a fly-by night scientist. This thing screams plot for a bad “B” sci-fi movie, Attack of the Clone Dogs. Well, at least something is still being made in America. Step right up, get your preordered dog, use our handy drive-thru window. Would you like a happy meal with that?

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2008/05/20/5617976-ap.html

We’ve all heard about the pilot and stewardess tales, flitting from one destination to the other having affairs on their layovers and in general partying in all of those wonderful exotic locations. This story shatters that dreamy idyllic illusion. Yes there are a million stories with the naked pilots, this is one of them. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so much for the exotic location, Jeffery Paul Bradford and Adrianna Grace Connor, gotta love the names though, both employees of Pinnacle Airlines were having dinner at a diner. It had been a long night of drinking and partying. Their evening was not over. Pheromones were thick, as was the overwhelming urge of alcohol so they decided to take a walk in the woods. Somehow, it’s not really clear when, either during or after satisfying their carnal urges to two became separated from each other and their clothes. Oh horror, naked white people are running loose in the Pennsylvania woods. Yes, they were lost. People in the neighborhood summoned police at about 9:30 pm saying they had seen a naked man and an intoxicated woman wandering about. That’s when they called in the helicopter with the heat seeking equipment, the search was on. Bradford was discovered hiding behind a shed shortly before midnight. Connor was picked up after she had stolen someone’s car. “We just wanted to do it in the woods.” Was all they had to say for themselves. They did it alright. Bradford is being charged with indecent exposure, public drunkenness, and other unspecified charges. Connor is charged with theft of a motor vehicle, public drunkenness, and other minor offences including the theft of a flashlight from a neighbor’s car. Yes, our story ends with one bit of advice, if your’e going into the woods, take a compass stupid. Or better yet get a room. It’ll keep the dirt out of your butt. And your name off the internet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_fe_st/odd_naked_pilot

You’re driving along a country road at night and you see a little girl in the middle of the road. You swerve, and next thing you know you’re in the ditch. You get out to make sure the little girl is alright and she’s gone, just like she wasn’t there. Well that’s supposedly what’s happening on a stretch of road near Birmingham, England. People have reported seeing a girl, around five years of age and clothed in Victorian dress on the road. It has been blamed for several crashes and near misses over the years. So who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! Well, England’s version of it anyway, called Parasearch. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it? A West Midlands Police spokesman said the most recent incidents included a crash involving a motorbike and a car in November while last July a woman was taken to hospital after a collision on the same stretch. David Taylor, chairman of Parasearch has said he hasn’t found a rational explanation for the sightings so far. I bet not. Finding it would only mean the job was over and the paychecks wouldn’t come in any more.  I suggest checking to see how close the local pub is. The tale of the five-year old girls seems to be repeated and now that the news has gotten out, I expect that she will be blamed for most of them. “But officer, I wasn’t drinking, it was a strange little girl in the middle of the road. The twelve Guiness’ had nothing to do with it.” Of course this could all be an optical illusion of some sorts, like marsh gas, or pink elephants.  Taylor says that “The area around there is an accident blackspot and there have been some serious incidents, so maybe they had all seen the same thing.” He has been investigating paranormal claims for over 22 years. We don’t know if he’s actually been successful at it. Of course all of these sightings have happened in the dead of night, after the pubs have closed. I think there may be a correlation here. Wow, I’ve explained it. Maybe I should start my own Ghostbusters. Haunted house? How much liquor, ya got? Explained it. I’ll cash their check in the morning.