Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Dangerous to Breathe In These Cities

If you live in Riverside, California, the air you breathe is the worst in the entire country. Riverside has on average 148 "unhealthy air" days a year. And if you live anywhere else in California, beware. Fully half of the top 10 U.S. cities with the worst air quality are in the Golden State, according to a national air pollution study released this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Surface Transportation Policy Project, reports The Associated Press.




The top 10 U.S. cities with the worst air are:

1. Riverside, California

2. Fresno, California

3. Bakersfield, California

4. Los-Angeles-Long Beach, California

5. Sacramento, California

6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

7. Knoxville, Tennessee

8. Birmingham, Alabama

9. Houston, Texas

10. Baltimore, Maryland




Why is the air not fit to breathe?

Driving is the main cause of declining air quality. Even though vehicle emissions are 90 percent cleaner today than they were 30 years ago, we drive 162 percent more miles each year than we did in 1969.

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[Jolie Rouge]

Sperm Smuggler Sentenced


http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/21/sm....ap/index.html

Mobster's smuggled sperm counts for extra 16 months in prison
Thursday, August 21, 2003 Posted: 10:28 AM EDT



WILLIAMSPORT, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A New York gangster who smuggled his semen out of federal prison to impregnate his wife was sentenced to an additional 16 months in prison.

Kevin Granato, a convicted hit man for the Colombo crime family, and his wife, Regina, pleaded guilty in May to charges they used a cryogenic sperm kit to sneak his sperm from Allenwood Federal Prison to a New York fertility clinic.

The couple's daughter is now 3.

Regina Granato, 40, said the smuggled sperm plot was "made out of pure love." "We love our daughter and it is her that gives us the only joy and pleasure we have," she wrote in a plea for leniency.

Granato, 43, whose current prison sentence for racketeering and murder runs until 2012, could have been sentenced to another 35 years. The gangster came under suspicion after he was seen in the visitation room showing off a toddler he called his child, even though he had been in jail since 1988 and did not have conjugal visits.

Mob associate Antonio Parlavecchio and his wife, Maria, were indicted on similar charges in December 2000. He had an extra six months added to his sentence. But in that case, a federal appeals court ordered the vials of sperm destroyed, saying Maria Parlavecchio wasn't entitled to the "fruits of her criminal activity."

There have been as many as five other cases of sperm smuggling at Allenwood, prosecutors said. Guards were also bribed to ignore smuggling of bodybuilding pills, toiletries, Genoa salami and Romano cheese, authorities said. More than a dozen people were charged in the schemes, including four guards.

[Jolie Rouge]

The Worst TV Program For Families

How can something be the best and worst at the same time? When it's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." The TV show that has the best ratings has been deemed the worst family program, according to the Parents Television Council, a watchdog organization. "CSI" was criticized for its stories about cannibalism, S&M sex clubs, and snuff films, reports The Associated Press.

What really angers the Parents Television Council is that CBS sometimes shows "CSI" reruns at 8 p.m., a time when more children might be watching. The organization's research director, Melissa Caldwell, acknowledges that the basis of the show--crime scene investigation--must involve some pretty seedy storylines. But she insisted to AP, "There are ways you can deal with these issues without having to be as graphic." CBS had no immediate comment.

The top 10 worst shows, according to PTC:

1. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation"

2. "Kingpin"

3. "Fastlane"

4. "NYPD Blue"

5. "Fear Factor"

6. "Angel"

7. "Girlfriends"

8. "Will & Grace"

9. "Friends"

10. "Big Brother 3"


So what does PTC like on TV?

The just-canceled "Touched By an Angel" topped its list. "Every episode emphasized the power of goodness over evil, the need to strengthen familial relationships, the importance of individual responsibility and an encouragement to maintain faith in God," the PTC said in a statement.

The top 10 best shows, according to PTC:

1. "Touched By an Angel"

2. "Doc"

3. "Sue Thomas F. B. Eye"

4. "7th Heaven"

5. "Life with Bonnie"

6. "Smallville"

7. "Reba"

8. "Star Search"

9. "George Lopez"

10. "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter"

[Jolie Rouge]

Rocket explodes on pad, killing at least 21
Friday, August 22, 2003 Posted: 9:36 PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- A rocket exploded on its launch pad Friday during tests just days before liftoff, killing 21 people and injuring 20 others, the defense ministry said.

The blast in northeastern Brazil killed mostly civilian technicians, destroyed two research satellites and delivered a serious blow to Brazil's nascent space program. Brazil is trying to be the first Latin American nation to put a satellite in orbit.

"We have recovered more bodies and now know of 21 dead. We don't expect number of dead will increase further," said Brazilian air force spokesman Lt. Ricardo Olanda, adding the investigation into what caused the accident was expected to take 90 days.

The explosion occurred after one of the four main motors of the VLS-3 rocket accidentally ignited for reasons still unknown, Defense Minster Jose Veigas Filho said.

An explosion followed that decimated the launch pad, a box-like structure that surrounded the 100-foot high white rocket on three sides.

"The launching pad collapsed and the technicians were working there," Veigas said. There was no damage outside the launch area, officials said.

Globo television showed footage of a plume of smoke rising into the sky over the seaside Alcantara Launch Center near Sao Luis, about 900 miles north of Brasilia.

Most of the injured were taken to a hospital in neighboring Sao Luis de Maranhao, about 20 minutes by flight from the launching base.

"We had just done two days of tests and everything went well -- 100 percent. Everybody is devastated," said air force Col. Romeo Brasileiro.

The $2.2 million rocket, scheduled to launch on Monday, became Brazil's third failed attempt to send a rocket into space with a research satellite.


Presidential spokesman Andre Singer said Brazil was committed to continuing with its space program.

"The government wants to reaffirm its willingness to continue its effort to provide Brazil with a space technology of its own," Singer said. "Brazil's space program is an important scientific and technological project of our country, today is a day of mourning."

Veigas met with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Friday night to provide details of the accident.


A rocket launched in November 1997 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean after suffering engine problems shortly after blast off. In December 1999, another Brazilian rocket developed problems and failed three minutes after takeoff. Officials remotely destroyed the rocket.


The Alcantra base is considered a near-ideal launch because of its location, just 2.3 degrees south of the equator. The Earth's rotation is faster at the equator, which helps propel rockets into space with up to 13 percent less fuel, which allows heavier payloads.

Brazil is currently negotiating with the United States and the Ukraine to allow use of the base to launch their rockets.

[Jolie Rouge]

Next space station crew unsure of return
Thursday, August 21, 2003 Posted: 10:53 AM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html


CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- The next crew of the international space station blasts off in a Russian Soyuz vehicle in just over two months, but they don't know how they will be returning to Earth.

"Some people might say you're unwise taking a one-way trip into space, but we always do have the Soyuz vehicle that we launch on to return in," Michael Foale, commander of the Expedition 8 mission, said at a news conference last week in Houston, monitored at Cape Canaveral.

Foale and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri will spend more than six months in space after their October 18 launch in Kazakhstan. By the time of their late April return, NASA may be ready to resume flights of its space shuttles, which have been grounded since the February 1 disintegration of Columbia. All seven crew members died.

NASA, which has depended on Russian vehicles to deliver food and supplies to the space station since the Columbia accident, hopes to resume shuttle flights sometime between March 11 and April 6.

European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque of Spain will blast off with the Expedition 8 crew members and spend eight days at the space station before returning with the current two-man crew, astronaut Ed Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.

The space station crew was reduced from three to two after the Columbia accident because a Soyuz can't deliver as much food and supplies as a shuttle. Foale said he and Kaleri planned to carry out 15 science experiments, and have been training to make a two-man spacewalk.


Spacewalks on the space station in the past have only been done with three people -- two outside and one inside, providing guidance.

"I was very concerned that without the shuttle ... we wouldn't have much to do," Foale said. "As it turns out, there is an enormous amount of equipment and we can use that equipment to do a number of experiments."

Duque, who is returning to Earth in a Russian Soyuz, said he wasn't worried about a repeat of the last Soyuz landing in May when the capsule landed nearly 300 miles off target in Kazakhstan. All future Soyuz crafts will be equipped with satellite communications technology.

The three men said the Columbia accident didn't deter them.

"It brings a little more to your mind that space flight is risky," Duque said. "But we are still going, and we still have our faith put in the engineers and the ground teams."

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I'm back, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back....serious weird news withdrawls...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - An elderly Vietnamese man who spent seven hours in a drawer at a hospital morgue in Ho Chi Minh City was found alive by relatives who had come to bury him, an official said Friday.

Nguyen Van Quan, 73, was admitted to the Nguyen Tri Phuong hospital last week after complaining of a tight chest, said Thu Ba of Ho Chi Minh City's Health Department.

By the time Quan arrived at the hospital, his whole body was dark purple. He had experienced heart failure, his blood pressure was zero and no pulse was felt, she said.

Hospital staff tried unsuccessfully for 30 minutes to resuscitate him, Ba said.

Quan was sent to the hospital morgue at 11 p.m. on Aug. 15 and was discovered seven hours later by his daughter and son-in-law, who had come to take him home for his funeral, the English daily Vietnam News reported.

"I was shocked and frightened when I saw the blanket that covered my father moving as my husband and I stood in front of the drawer he was in," Nguyen Thi Gai was quoted as telling the paper. "When the morgue's officials pulled back the blanket, my father's eyes moved, brightening with joy."

Quan was sent back to the intensive care unit where he had fallen into a coma and was breathing through a respirator on Friday, Ba said.

Quan suffers from asthma and had been admitted to the hospital many times before with breathing difficulties, she said.

The newspaper quoted a morgue official as saying that only one of the two air conditioners was running at the time Quan was there, which likely kept him from freezing to death.

The incident is being investigated, Ba said. Hospital officials declined comment.

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BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - An ice-cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes on Wednesday and then stopped breathing, The Nation said, quoting officials.

The newspaper said Damnoen's wife tried to wake him up but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack, The Nation quoted a doctor as saying.

"I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep," said Dr. Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department, according to The Nation.

The incident occurred in Phrae province, 300 miles north of Bangkok.

[Jolie Rouge]

SoBig Isn't Done: Worst Yet to Come


As if the SoBig.F computer virus weren't bad enough as it turns millions of innocent computers into vicious spam machines, experts warned today that you ain't seen nothin' yet, baby. The worst is yet to come, warns CNN/Money. And that would be on Monday when everyone who was on vacation this week comes back to work to find an e-mail box that could contain the virus. As those messages are opened, it will set it off all over again.


Facts to know:

--The e-mail carrying the virus contains any one of these subject lines: "Your details," "Thank you!," "Your application" and "Wicked screensaver."

--The e-mail contains an attachment with a .pir or .scr file name.


What you should do if you see it in your e-mail box:

--Delete it. Do not click on the message. Do not download or open the attachment.


Why you could still get hit:

--When the attachment is downloaded and opened, it infects the computer and then sends itself to others using an e-mail address randomly chosen from the address book. So if your friend Joe gets hit with the SoBig.F virus. It then chooses a name randomly from Joe's address book--possibly yours--and replicates itself in a mass e-mail using that name. If your name is the one it chooses, you could receive a message from a friend or even your company saying you transmitted a virus even if you didn't.


SoBig has the distinction of not only spreading faster and further than any other virus to date, but also it's not abating. Viruses typically peak on the first day they hit and then subside as computer users download patches. That's not happening this time. SoBig is getting, well, so big. "We expect these to drop-off on the second day, but we're not seeing that this time," Mark Sunner, chief technology officer of MessageLabs told CNN/Money. "The e-mail component built into SoBig is so efficient that it has just reached that critical mass where it's got fertile ground to continue to grow." Sumner's best guess is that SoBig will be a problem until the middle or end of next week. "I would actually predict we'll see real spike on Monday," he said. "With so many people on vacation this week, this has sat in [e-mail] in trays waiting to strike, and these are the same users who won't have an up-to-date patch to address it," he warned CNN/Money.

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A 33-year-old Dutch woman sustained slight face and neck burns after her mobile phone burst into flames, the Amsterdam police said Thursday.
The incident, which occurred Tuesday, happened after the woman dropped her phone in a music store in central Amsterdam. It caught fire when she picked it up and switched it back on, a police spokesman said.

She was treated for superficial burns by an ambulance team that rushed to the scene.

"The battery got hot and then the phone burst into flames. It was a Nokia. We later heard she had used a replacement battery," said Jan Willem van Hofwegen of Fame Music store.

A Nokia spokesman in Helsinki said similar incidents have happened in the past and were always related to faulty batteries from independent electronics manufacturers.

"We've heard about phones that overheated, melted and, in the worst case, exploded," he said.

"In all cases it was caused by a replacement battery which was not a Nokia accessory. The manufacturers violated security requirements which should prevent it from heating up after short circuiting, for instance, after it was dropped."

He could not name any of the battery manufacturers.

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LONDON (Reuters) - "Bada bing" -- the catchphrase made famous by hit television show "The Sopranos" -- has earned a place alongside 3,000 other new entries in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, published on Thursday.
"Reality TV," "SARS" and "Muggle," someone lacking magic powers from the "Harry Potter" series of novels by author J.K. Rowling, have also been added to the tome, the largest one-volume dictionary of English, the book's publishers said.

The Oxford dictionary describes "bada bing" (also "bada bing bada boom") as an exclamation to emphasize that something will happen effortlessly and predictably. The word is also the name of a strip club in the mob drama.

[Jolie Rouge]

Job Hunting? These Questions Are Illegal

No matter how educated and experienced you are, job interviews can be unnerving. And what will really make you squirm is being asked personal questions--especially if they're illegal. It's against the law for a prospective employer to ask you anything personal that is not job-related.

Why?

It could be discriminatory. Here are some examples of illegal questions or statements courtesy of www.CollegeGrad.com and www.Job.Interview.net :

Your Age

--How old are you?

--When did you graduate from high school or college?

Sexual Preference and Marital Status

--Are you gay?

--Is that your maiden name?

--Are you divorced?

--Are you referred to as Ms., Mrs., or Miss?


Your Family

--Are you considering having children?

--Do you have after-school care?

National Origin

--How long has your family been in this country?

--Is that a Spanish surname?

--Do you speak English at home?

--Where were you born?

--Can you provide us with a copy of your birth certificate or naturalization records?

Health

--Do you have any pre-existing health conditions?

--Please complete the following medical history sheet.

Religion

--Does your religion prevent you from working weekends or holidays?

--Can you provide us with a copy of your baptism records?


What do you do when faced with an illegal question?

CollegeGrad.com advises one of two responses: Either answer the question as briefly as possible and move on to a new topic area or ignore it completely and switch the subject. If you think the question was asked in a blatant attempt at discrimination, you have the right to terminate the interview and walk out. If you have been asked an illegal question, talk to the company's human resources department or contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.