bitch, you smell so bad it should be illegal.

DETROIT -- A city of Detroit planner can proceed with her lawsuit alleging a co-worker's perfume made it difficult for her to breathe and impossible to do her job, a federal judge has ruled.

In an opinion released late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff rejected the city's attempt to have Susan McBride's lawsuit, filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act, dismissed.
McBride "has produced evidence that her breathing is significantly restricted" by a co-worker's perfume, and she has a potential claim, Zatkoff ruled.

Both McBride's Detroit attorney and the chairwoman of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation said Wednesday that Zatkoff's decision to allow the lawsuit to proceed is significant.

"He recognizes that this is the type of claim that's viable," said attorney Ann Curry Thompson, who represents McBride. "These are types of claims that in many jurisdictions ... are sort of pooh-poohed and are not taken seriously."

Alison Johnson, chairwoman of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation in Topsham, Maine, said she welcomes Zatkoff's decision to let the lawsuit proceed.
"These perfume sensitivities are very real, and I can't tell you how many lives they are ruining," Johnson said. "Maybe there's beginning to be recognition that these things are serious."

Thinking about committing a crime? Already.Busted.

CCTV cameras which can 'predict' if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain's streets.

The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer.

It will also fuel fears that Britain is becoming a surveillance society. There are already 4.2 million cameras trained on the public. The technology could be used alongside many of these to allow evermore advanced scrutiny of our movements.

Civil rights campaign group Liberty is sceptical over the plan. A spokesman said: 'Bringing expensive Hollywood sci-fi to our car parks will never be as effective as having police on the street leading the fight against crime.'

The cameras, trained on public places, such as car parks, are being tested by Portsmouth City Council.

Computers analyze the movements of people or vehicles in the camera frame. If someone is seen lurking in a particular area, the computer will send out an alarm to a CCTV operator. The operator will then check the image and – if concerned – ring the police. The aim is to stop crimes before they are committed.

Councillor Jason Fazackarley of Portsmouth Council said: 'It's the 21st century equivalent of a nightwatchman, but unlike a night-watchman it never blinks, it never takes a break and it never gets bored.'

Crimes are predicted by special CCTV operators in the blockbuster Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise

Mr Hewitson added: 'Although we are a long way off Minority Report, it is a step closer.

'But what it cannot do is say whether a guy is waiting for his girlfriend or about to commit a crime. That is for the operator to make a subjective human decision on.'

The system is already successfully in use in New York and other US cities.

Cubanissimo

chocolate jesus leaves a bit to be prayed for.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's churches criticized a businessman on Tuesday for selling thousands of Jesus chocolates.
Frank Oynhausen set up his "Sweet Lord" chocolate Jesus-making business saying he wanted to restore some traditional religious values to Christmas in Germany.

But the German Protestant Church criticized the idea as "tasteless" and the Roman Catholic Church was not amused.
(www.goldjesus.com).

"It is terrible that Jesus is being wrapped up in gold foil and sold along with chocolate bunnies, edible penguins and lollipops," said Aegidius Engel, a spokesman for the archbishopric of nearby Paderborn.
"This is ruining the symbol of Jesus himself," he added.

sleep with one eye open...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow has lost his gun license after a court ruled it to be irresponsible behavior.

The 56-year-old was stripped of his license for failing to store the weapon properly, Braunschweig administrative court judge Torsten Baumgarten told Reuters Tuesday. The gun was only discovered by chance during a police inspection.

"His home was being checked because he had threatened to throw a hand grenade if the city council approved plans to build a high-voltage power line in his neighborhood," Baumgarten said. "The decision to take his license was made independently."

Baumgarten said the ruling, which sets a legal precedent in Germany, in effect outlaws sleeping on top of a firearm -- because the owner of the gun is not in control of the weapon and is therefore putting himself and others at risk.

"Anyone could come along and take the gun away from him, his wife for example," Baumgarten said. The man, who also owned several other weapons, said he kept the gun under his pillow because he feared burglars.

I much prefer to imagine himself sleep-shooting his stupid face off.

yo! name your kid mussolini!

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian right-wing party is offering 1,500 euros ($1,930)[when did the euro fall so hard?] to parents who name their babies after wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele, saying their names are under threat.

The MSI-Fiamma Tricolore party, the descendant of Mussolini's fascist party, said the initiative in the poor, southern region of Basilicata was meant to keep alive names "at risk of extinction" and pay tribute to the movement's roots.

"Benito and Rachele are nice names and I hope our original initiative will get people going," party official Vincenzo Mancusi told Reuters.

The bonus -- intended to pay for baby clothes and food -- applies to babies born in 2009 in five villages where the birth rate is especially low, Mancusi said.

Mussolini ruled from 1922 to 1943 when he was ousted after leading Italy to ruin by entering World War Two as an ally of Germany. He was executed along with his mistress Claretta Petacci in 1945. His widow Rachele died in 1979.

potty quickie with hubbie watching?

A couple of University of Iowa fans took a break from Saturday's game at the Metrodome against the University of Minnesota to have some illicit sex in a Dome restroom, police said.

The duo — a 38-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man from Carroll and Linden, Iowa, respectively — turned a handicapped toilet stall into their love nest about 8:30 p.m., late in the Hawkeyes' 55-0 trouncing of the Gophers.

A crowd of intoxicated fans gathered in the restroom to laugh and cheer the off-the-field action, until an Avalon Security guard tipped off University of Minnesota police to the ruckus.

University of Minnesota Police Chief Greg Hestness assumed the woman was embarrassed about being caught: She initially gave a false name to officers and had to be identified by her husband before she was released.

The man was attending the game with his girlfriend, according to police.

"It's a long ride back to Iowa," Hestness said.

first mars, now saturn

WASHINGTON (AP) - Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.

Their research, appearing in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, adds to the growing push to explore further the moon Enceladus, as one of the solar system's most compelling places for potential life.

Using images from NASA's Cassini probe, astronomers had already figured that the mysterious plumes shooting from Enceladus' icy terrain contain water vapor. New calculations suggesting the gas and dustspew at speeds faster-than-sound make the case for liquid, said study lead author Candice Hansen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California. Her team calculated the plumes travel more than 1,360 mph.

Carolyn Porco, the head of the Cassini camera team and an astronomer who didn't take part in Hansen's research, said "the evidence in my mind is building on liquid water." That moon, one of 60 circling Saturn, "has become the go-to place" for exploration in the outer planets, she said.

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, may have a liquid ocean beneath its frozen surface. But Enceladus, thought responsible for producing one of Saturn's rings, is more accessible, Hansen said. "Enceladus is sort of helpfully spewing out its innards," she said.

Quotes I like from "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"

"Mind if I come with you?" Love said. He had recovered from his spasm of mirth, though his pocket handkerchief now contained the evidence of something evil and brown inside him.

He knew about homosexuality, of course, as an idea, without every having really connected it to human emotion; certainly never to any emotion of his own. It had never occured to him that two men, even homosexual men, might kiss in that way. He had assumed, to the degree he had ever permitted himself to give it any thought at all, that the whole thing must be a matter of blow jobs in dark alleyways or the foul practices of love-starved British sailors. But those men with the neckties and mustaches - they had been kissing the way people kissed in the movies, with care and vigor and just a hint of showiness. One fellow had caressed the others cheek.

and for you, Mimsy [And Casey now, too!] Poor little librarians of the world, those girls, secretly lovely, their looks marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big black eyeglasses!

Radio Station Sued In Rape Case

Following a guilty plea by the man accused of rape by a contestant in a "win a date" contest on Nextmedia WXLC/WAUKEGAN, IL, the victim has now filed suit against the man and the station for setting up the date. The Daily Herald reports that the woman's suit claims that the station failed to do a simple background check that would have disclosed that TRAVIS HARVEY JR. had a record that included felony and misdemeanor violations of domestic violence protective orders.

Harvey entered his plea last Monday, pleading guilty to a criminal sexual abuse charge resulting from the woman's accusations regarding the "Win a Date With Travis" contest in Jan 2007. Harvey, who will spend 24 months on felony probation and will register as a sex offender for 10 years under the plea bargain, represented himself in the contest as a marketing executive and divorced father of three.

Frisbee team told to drop nickname

A British university frisbee team has been told to change its nickname to avoid offending mental health patients.

Staffordshire University's Ultimate Frisbee Club uses the name Mental Discs on a logo, which is printed on its kit.

But the university's Students' Union, which sponsors the club, has told the team to re-brand to avoid complaints.

vid of the day

puppy cam

my sister, my hero.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/An_hero

12-yr-old arrested for farting.

NOVEMBER 21--A 12-year-old Florida student was arrested earlier this month after he "deliberately passed gas to disrupt the class," according to police. The child, who was also accused of shutting off the computers of classmates at Stuart's Spectrum Jr./Sr. High School, was busted November 4 for disruption of a school function. A Martin County Sheriff's Office report notes that the 4' 11" offender admitted that he "continually disrupted his classroom environment by breaking wind and shutting off several computers." The boy, whose name was redacted from the police report released today, was turned over to his mother following the arrest. The young perp turned 13 on November 15.

This is a Pan-DON'T

BEIJING (AP) - A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.

The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot (2-meter) -high fence around the panda's habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name.

He said the student was bitten in the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.

The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clear-headed, he said.

"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

fucked up suicide of the day

19-year-old Florida student Abraham Biggs took his life Wednesday, live on the web. While live streaming the event, he was egged-on by the approximately 1,300 people that watched.

"People were saying things like 'go ahead and do it, faggot,' said Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner's office.

Biggs used Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, to roll as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane.

Biggs posted a suicide note on a body-building forum, which has since been taken down, in which he wrote, "I hate myself and I hate living."

His family is rightfully outraged by the fact that viewers did not move to help the child. Police arrived 12 hours after Biggs' death. The camera was still rolling.

ny woman loses hands, feeet in hospital mistake

NEW YORK (CBS) ― A young mother went to a Brooklyn hospital for what she thought was a kidney stone. She wound up leaving without her hands and feet because of what her lawyers call a "medical mistake."
Now, Tabitha Mullings is suing for $100 million.

The 32-year-old suffered an infection and ended up a quadriplegic with impaired vision.

It was on Sept. 14 when Mullings came to the hospital suffering from abdominal pain, and had a kidney stone, and a condition with a known propensity for infection.

But Mullings' lawyers say there was no blood test. She was sent home, and when her fiancé brought her back the next day, an infection was raging. It choked off the blood flow to her extremities. After gangrene set in, her hands turned black, her feet turned black, all four limbs had to be amputated.

On Friday, Mullings was moved to a rehab center after two months at Brooklyn Hospital Center. She will be fitted with prosthetic hands and feet which she'll have to learn to use.

oh, hi, mr. narwhal!

At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say.

Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15.

The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans.
But department spokesman Keith Pelley said: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorisation to cull them."

The hunters have been on the ice slaughtering the whales since Thursday and are likely to accomplish their task over the coming days, he said.

Narwhal are found mostly in the Arctic circle, and are renowned for their extraordinarily long tusk, which is actually a twisted incisor tooth that projects from the left side of its upper jaw and can be up to three metres long.

"A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water," Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organisation, told public broadcaster CBC.
"About a week later, they're stuck."

Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Pelley explained.
There are about a dozen areas of open waters where they could come up for air, but it is a tight squeeze for them.

oh, i know! lets eat them instead!

W Virginia town gets poorest health ranking.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Obese mayor of America's fattest and unhealthiest city explains why health is not a big local issue: "It doesn't come up," said David Felinton, 5-foot-9 and 233 pounds. "We've got a lot of economic challenges here in Huntington. That's usually the focus."

Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese — an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.

Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).

Cougar mauls 16-year-old girl

Miami herald - A young man's irresponsible bravado nearly cost a young girl her life Saturday afternoon.

The 16-year-old girl was mauled by a cougar and rushed to the hospital after she and 21-year-old Anthony Zitnick illegally entered a wildlife collector's home about 1:30 p.m. Neighbors believe Zitnick was trying to impress the younger girl.

Alan Rigerman, who legally keeps two cougars and several snakes, tortoises and alligators at his North Miami-Dade home, was out for the weekend at a reptile show in Central Florida.

Wildlife officials said the retired Miami-Dade school science teacher had permits for the animals.

Dried blood covered Rigerman's concrete floor at the spot where the 4-year-old cougar pounced on the girl and clenched his jaws around her head.

Richard Miralles, a neighbor familiar with Rigerman's large cats, heard the girl's piercing scream from next door.

'I heard her scream, `I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,' '' he said, hours after paramedics had left.

Miralles said he immediately dropped what he was doing, jumped his six-foot fence, and barged into Rigerman's back room -- only to find the girl pinned beneath Chaos, her head in his mouth and his large declawed paw on her face. Zitnick was standing nearby in shock, Miralles said.

vid #2

vid of the day. how i feel all the time.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

According to recent Gallup polls, the president's average approval rating is below 30% -- down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, "Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.
...
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.
please read more.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, "Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.
...Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.


please read more

Here´s something to run about

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) - With a fox locked onto her arm, an Arizona jogger ran a mile to her car, where she was able to dislodge the animal, throw it into the trunk and drive to a Prescott hospital. The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office said the fox, which later attacked an animal control officer, tested positive for rabies.
The unidentified Chino Valley resident told deputies she was on a trail Monday at the base of Granite Mountain when the fox attacked, biting her foot. The woman said she grabbed it by the neck when it went for her leg and it latched onto her arm.

Thinking the fox was rabid, she wanted to make sure it didn't get away so she ran to her car, where she was able to pry open its jaws, wrap it in a sweat shirt and toss it into the trunk.

7,177 911 calls is 1,175 too many

Japanese police arrested a woman for making more than 7,000 emergency telephone calls because an officer did not take her initial complaint seriously, a police spokesman said Wednesday.
The 38-year-old was arrested on Tuesday on charges of obstructing police work, a police spokesman in western Osaka said.

She made 7,177 calls during the day or night between September 14 and October 13 this year, sometimes shouting "drop dead" at police, he said.

The woman first called in 2005 to say she had been hit by a man, but the officer who answered her call "did not take the allegation seriously, because what she said was hard to understand," he said.

"She apparently had a grudge against police officials," he said.

Quote of the Day

"Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant," he said.

Fuck.Yes.

vid of the day