Man divorces over wife's 550 house cats... -

Man divorces over wife's 550 house cats... - 




A man from southern Israel divorced his wife this week because she had brought 550 cats into their home.


The husband, apparently not a cat lover, told the Rabbinical Court in Beersheba that he was unable to sleep in his bedroom because the surface of the marital bed was constantly covered with cats who refused to lie on the floor.


The man, in his divorce request, complained that the cats also blocked his access to the bathroom and did not allow him to prepare meals in the kitchen, the Hebrew daily Maariv reported Wednesday. When he sat to eat, cats jumped onto the table and stole his food.


The couple attempted reconciliation at the behest of the rabbinical court. The wife, however, was unable to part from her cats… and preferred to part from her husband.


Read more - 
http://www.timesofisrael.com/couple-divorces-over-550-house-cats/

Fore! Errant golf ball knocks out Motorcyclist's teeth -

Fore! Errant golf ball knocks out Motorcyclist's teeth - 


An errant golf ball from the 14th hole on Murfreesboro’s Indian Hills Golf Course knocked a motorcyclist’s teeth out as she and her husband rode blissfully along South Church Street.-


A man teeing off at the 14th over the weekend hooked his shot, watched the ball disappear and then heard screams, according to a Murfreesboro Police Department incident report. He followed the scream to find a woman clutching her bloody mouth.


Her husband told police that they were riding their motorcycles when he saw the ball bounce across the road and near her motorcycle. There, it careened into her face. She was able to avoid wrecking her bike, but the ball knocked out “several” teeth, the report said. She was taken to Middle Tennessee Medical Center for treatment.


An officer scoured the area for the offending golf ball and found multiple potential culprits, but, alas, he wrote, “none of which had blood on them.”


Read more - 
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120523/NEWS03/305230113/2275/RSS05

Flashing headlights to warn of speedtrap protected under US Constitution... -

Flashing headlights to warn of speedtrap protected under US Constitution... - 


A judge in Sanford ruled Tuesday that a Lake Mary man was lawfully exercising his First Amendment rights when he flashed his headlights to warn neighbors that a deputy had set up a speed trap nearby.


That decision is another victory for Ryan Kintner, 25, who sued theSeminole County Sheriff's Officelast year, accusing it of misconstruing a state law and violating his civil rights, principally his right to free speech.



He was ticketed Aug. 10 by a Seminole County deputy, but Kintner alleges the officer misapplied a state law designed to ban motorists from flashing after-market emergency lights.


Circuit Judge Alan Dickey earlier ruled that that state law does not apply to people who did what Kintner did, use his headlights to communicate.


On Tuesday the judge went a step further, saying people who flash their headlights to communicate are engaging in behavior protected by the U.S. Constitution.


"He felt the police specificially went out of their way to silence Mr. Kintner and that it was clearly a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights," said his attorney, J. Marcus Jones of Oviedo.


Jones has filed a similar but much broader suit in Tallahassee against the Florida Highway Patrol.


A hearing in that case is scheduled next month.


"This stuff is fun," Jones said after Tuesday's hearing.


Each suit asked that police agencies be ordered to halt writing those tickets. The highway patrol stopped voluntarily, awaiting the outcome of the suit. So have theSeminole County Sheriff's Officeand other agencies.


In addition to Kintner's civil suit against the sheriff's office, he also is fighting the ticket. It is still pending in county court in Sanford.


The officer also ticketed him for running a stop sign, saying Kintner had pulled beyond a stop bar before coming to a complete halt.


In an interview in August, shortly after filing suit, Kintner said, "I felt an injustice was being done. … I have nothing against officers … keeping speeding down, but when you cross a line and get into free speech, I feel it's gone too far."


According to his suit, Kintner was home Aug. 10 when he saw a deputy park along a street and pull out his radar gun. Kintner then got in his car, drove a couple of blocks away, parked and pointed his vehicle at oncoming traffic and began flashing his lights.


He was ticketed a short time later.


Read more - 
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-22/news/os-flashing-headlights-ruling-20120522_1_ryan-kintner-free-speech-headlights

Dallas Texas Pizza Chain Giving Away Free Pizza For Ordering In Spanish... -

Dallas Texas Pizza Chain Giving Away Free Pizza For Ordering In Spanish... - 






A local pizza chain that made waves in 2007 for accepting Mexican Pesos for payment has come up with a new way to generate some buzz for itself, offering free pizza to anyone who orders in Spanish.


Dallas-based Pizza Patron will be offering free pizza on June 5 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. to anyone who places their order in Spanish.


The promotion was announced in a company press release as a way to honor the “positive force of change immigrants have made in communities throughout America.”


The company is calling the promotion Pizza Por Favor.


Pizza Patron has over 100 locations nationwide.


Read more - 
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/05/22/dallas-pizza-chain-giving-free-pizza-for-ordering-in-spanish/

32,000-Year-Old Plant Reborn From Ancient Fruit Found In Siberian Ice - oldest viable multicellular living organism -

32,000-Year-Old Plant Reborn From Ancient Fruit Found In Siberian Ice - oldest viable multicellular living organism - 




Researchers in Russia have revived a fertile plant from the remains of 32,000-year-old fruit that was found buried within the fossilized burrows of ancient squirrels deep in the Siberian ice.
The resurrected plant, from an era of woolly mammoths and saber-tooth cats, is the oldest viable multicellular living organism, according to the study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is also the first plant returned to life from permafrost conditions, researchers said.
Enlarge image 
A narrow-leaf campion, revived from the remains of 32,000-year-old fruit that was found buried within the fossilized burrows of ancient squirrels deep in the Siberian ice. Photographer: Svetlana Yashina via Bloomberg
The discovery raises the possibility of reviving other frozen organisms with prehistoric gene pools, researchers said. Using a horticulture technique called micropropagation, researchers grew the plant from fruit tissue in a test tube of nutrients. The ones that grew roots were transferred into pots with soil and light, where they developed flowers and seeds.
“There is abundant permafrost in northern Alaska and Canada,” said Buford Price, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who edited the paper, in an e-mail. Finding an organism that could produce a plant with dark green leaves and small white flowers shows the benefit of pursuing goals that seem impossible, he said.
Price said he expects the researchers to “get increased funding levels to expand this work, going deeper and looking at other likely locations of animal burrows where plants were stashed.”
The fruit was found preserved 124 feet (38 meters) deep in permafrost, ice at below-freezing temperatures that hadn’t melted or been disturbed since the late Pleistocene epoch. The ancient burrows can store as many as 800,000 seeds, the report said.


Read more -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/32-000-year-old-plant-reborn-from-ancient-fruit-found-in-siberian-ice.html?cmpid=otbrn.sustain.story

Google Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer last week as the world’s most used Web browser -

Google Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer last week as the world’s most used Web browser - 




Google Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer last week as the world’s most used Web browser, according to a statistic released Monday.


The Google Web browser received more usage than Microsoft’s browser during the week of May 14 to May 20, marking the first time Chrome has received the highest traffic for a full seven days.


Chrome is now ahead of Internet Explorer, with Firefox in third place and Apple’s Safari a distant fourth, according to the website StatCounter.


Google would not address the statistic from StatCounter directly, but the company did put out a statement.


“It’s great to see more and more people around the world experiencing the speed, simplicity and security of Chrome,” a spokesperson for the company said in an email. “We continue to remain focused on building a better browsing experience so that people can enjoy a better web.”


But while Chrome is finally No. 1 worldwide, there are still certain regions on the planet where Internet Explorer holds the title.


In the United States, Chrome was still in second place, and that held true to a dramatic degree in some countries like Japan and China, as noted by The Verge.


However, the opposite held true in other countries and regions. In India, Chrome is the most used while Internet Explorer falls to third place, and in South America, Chrome brings in almost half of all Web traffic.


All in all, this is good news for Google because while browsers themselves do not make money, ad clicks from their search queries do. With more people using Chrome now, Google can rest assured its search engine is the default for most Web surfers.


Read more -
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1182385--google-chrome-becomes-most-used-web-browser

Does Facebook Wreck Marriages? - 1 in 3 divorce filings contain word 'FACEBOOK'... -

Does Facebook Wreck Marriages? - 1 in 3 divorce filings contain word 'FACEBOOK'... - 




Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his status to “married” Saturday and received over one million “likes” from his followers. But the site he founded isn’t always so marriage-friendly.  In fact, lawyers say the social network contributes to an increasing number of marriage breakups.




More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word Facebook, according to a U.K. survey by Divorce Online, a  legal services firm. And over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the time,” says Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Conn. Of the 15 cases he handles per year where computer history, texts and emails are admitted as evidence, 60% exclusively involve Facebook.


“Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook,” says K. Jason Krafsky, who authored the book “Facebook and Your Marriage” with his wife Kelli. In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take months or even years to develop. “On Facebook,” he says, “they happen in just a few clicks.” The social network is different from most social networks or dating sites in that it both re-connects old flames and allows people to “friend” someone they may only met once in passing. “It puts temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk having an affair,” he says. Facebook declined to comment.



Even when extra-marital affairs develop with no help from Facebook, experts say the site provides a deceptively comfortable forum for people to let off steam about their lives and inadvertently arouse the suspicions of spouses. “The difference with Facebook is it feels safe, innocent and private,” says Randy Kessler, an Atlanta, Ga.-based lawyer and current chair of the family law section of the American Bar Association. (See Facebook and Divorce Discussed in WSJ.) “People put an enormous amount of incriminating stuff out there voluntarily.” It could be something as innocuous as a check-in at a restaurant, he says, or a photograph posted online.


When couples do end up in divorce court, lawyers say Facebook posts are used to determine alimony and child custody. Last year, a superior district court judge in Connecticut ordered a divorcing couple to hand over the passwords of their respective Facebook to the other’s lawyers. Kessler says it’s an extremely useful vehicle to gather evidence. “It helps me cross-examine a witness,” he says. Any pattern of behavior that’s recorded on Facebook relating to parenting skills, excessive partying or even disparaging remarks about a spouse that violates a court order could be admissible in court. Of course, it’s not Facebook’s fault it’s being dragged through divorce court, he says, “It’s the people who use it.”


Read more - 
http://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2012/05/21/does-facebook-wreck-marriages/

Graphic film on female sex tourists cheered in Cannes - European women sex tourists and African gigolos -

Graphic film on female sex tourists cheered in Cannes - European women sex tourists and African gigolos - 




A graphic, unflinching look at the delicate interplay of desire, money and power among European women sex tourists and African gigolos hit the screen yesterday in the Cannes contender "Paradise: Love".
Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, who scandalised cinema's top international showcase five years ago with another take on rich and poor and the sex trade, "Import/Export", this time turns his camera on women as the consumers.
"Paradise: Love" stars Margarethe Tiesel as Teresa, a 50-year-old Viennese single mother of an insolent teenage daughter who needs a break from it all, in a breakout performance cheered by audiences here.
She sets off alone to the white sandy coast of eastern Kenya where she falls in with a group of "sugar mamas", fellow middle-aged women who feel neglected at home and seek the attention of much younger local men in exchange for cash.
"It is about female loneliness that takes hold when you reach a certain age and no longer look like someone from an advert," Tiesel told reporters.
"The exploited begin to exploit in a place where they have power. I don't judge these women, I understand them and I understand completely what they struggle with."
Tiesel, an accomplished stage actress in her first major film role, appears nude through much of the picture and has various on-screen couplings with Kenyan "beach boys" that leave little to the imagination.
She said her faith in Seidl as a director gave her the confidence to expose herself to such an extent.
"Ulrich told me from the beginning, 'Nothing will happen that you don't want to happen, Frau Tiesel'," she said.
Teresa begins tentatively at first, breaking off a tryst with an insistent lover when he goes too fast for her.
But she soon meets Munga (Peter Kuzungu), a dreadlocked charmer and a willing student in the ways of Western seduction.
However as their affair continues, his demands for money become more frequent as he describes the plight of his poor "sister" and her baby.
When Teresa finds out the woman is actually his wife, she flies into a jealous rage and beats him in front of the other guests on the hotel's palm-lined beach.
Duped and disappointed, she steels herself to ferociously pursue beach boys with little regard for their dignity, or her own.
Seidl, one of 22 directors competing for the top prize at Cannes this year -- all of them men, said many Western women were looking for more than a holiday fling, a key difference to male sex tourism in developing countries.




Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/graphic-film-on-female-sex-tourists-cheered-in-cannes/story-e6frfkui-1226360720257

Crooks target Supreme Court Justice Breyer for second time in three months -

Crooks target Supreme Court Justice Breyer for second time in three months - 


Less than three months after he was robbed at his vacation home in the Caribbean, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been targeted again -- this time by burglars at his Washington, D.C., house.
Breyer's property was raided May 4, The Washington Post reported Thursday, with cutlery and candlesticks worth about $3,500 taken.
Unlike the February robbery in Nevis -- where Breyer and his house guests were threatened with a machete by a gardener who took $1,000 -- no one was home during the Washington robbery. A housekeeper discovered the crime scene.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman said no court documents were taken.
The robbery comes a month after Congress allocated nearly $1 million to hire 12 new Supreme Court police officers, according to The Hill.
Breyer had been among the group pushing for that greater protection after U.S. District Judge John Roll was among six people killed in a gunman's rampage at a Tucson shopping mall last year, which seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 12 others.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/17/crooks-target-supreme-court-justice-breyer-for-second-time-in-three-months/?test=latestnews

Man buys entire Kmart store, donates everything to charity -

Man buys entire Kmart store, donates everything to charity - 








Running a gold and silver buying business has given Rankin Paynter a front-row seat to the desperation in his Kentucky town.


So after he bought the entire contents of a Kmart that was closing, he decided the best place for the $200,000 worth of mostly winter clothes, shoes and boots was in the homes of needy families.


“I purchased it to make a little bit of money, but then I told my wife, ‘We don’t really need the money.’ There are so many needy families in our area, it’s bad out there,” Paynter told the Star on Friday.


Clark County Community Services is sorting and stacking Paynter’s surprise gift with an eye on its Christmas “Operation Happiness” when it distributes food and clothing to 1,400 families in one day.


“This will be the first time we have enough coats and gloves for everybody,” said charity director Judy Crowe . “We’ll give it out until it’s gone.”


Paynter not only donated the entire store liquidation, he rented a building for two months’ storage while the charity sorts through its bounty.


“What’s remarkable is that it’s a donation without any string. He didn’t say, ‘but,’ or ‘if,’” said Crowe.


Paynter had gone into the going-out-of-business Kmart in his Winchester hometown to buy shelves and a safe for his own company when he got the idea to buy the whole store. He registered as a power buyer first.


“It took six and a half hours to run it all through the cash registers” after the store shut for the final time at 6 p.m. on May 6, he said.


“Then it took six hours to load it onto truck and another day to load it in the warehouse.”


He’s originally figured he could clear $40,000 reselling the inventory to a flea market before he had second thoughts.


“I grew up poor and I know what poor means,” Paynter said. “I see the women with the little kids who come in to me. They’re selling off their little gold chains, their silver chains, their little diamond rings, whatever they have left.”


Read more - 
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1180437--man-buys-entire-kmart-store-donates-everything-to-charity