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Police: Man Coughs Up Ring He Tried To Steal

25 Jan

Monday, January 25, 2010

AP

Police: Man Coughs Up Ring He Tried To Steal

  (01-25) 12:22 PST Joplin, Mo. (AP) –
  Police in Missouri say a man accused of stealing a ring coughed up the
evidence while officers were questioning him. Pictures of the two-carat
diamond ring worth about $20,000 were sent to jewelers in the Joplin area
after it was reported stolen when someone took the owner’s purse from her
car on Thursday.
  The Joplin Globe reported that the owner of Newton’s Jewelry recognized
the ring when a man and woman came to his store a few hours after the
theft and said they wanted to sell it. L.T. Newton and his staff stalled
them and called police.
  Police said the man swallowed the ring when officers arrived. While being
questioned, he began to cough uncontrollably and eventually coughed up the
ring.
  The man and woman are charged with receiving stolen property.
  ___
Information from: The Joplin Globe

Copyright 2010 AP

Will The Earth End in 2012?

13 Nov

Will The Earth End in 2012?

Is The Planet Nibiru For Real?

John Millis

There has been a lot of interest lately in the theory that the world is going to end in the year 2012. The
hollywood version
of events is scheduled to be in theaters in November 2009 and has a lot of people talking. So, is this something that we need to be taking seriously? Is
Earth in danger of being annihilated? Is the government hiding the facts from us?

Nibiru

Though there are many variations of the doomsday theory, the threat most often quoted is a collision with a planet (or possibly a brown dwarf) known as
Nibiru in 2012. The result would be the virtual destruction of Earth and mankind.

According to the theory, the planet Nibiru orbits our Sun once every 3600 years, making it difficult to observe. Some claim its existence is supported by
ancient Sumerian writings, some more than 2500 years old. The Sumerians wrote a great deal about astronomy and had a relatively advanced understanding
of the heavens. However, scholars have revealed that no such references to this mysterious object exist.

Then, in the early 1980s the theory was given new life when an infrared experiment cataloged over 350,000 objects in the nights sky, many of which were
“unidentified”. A rash of conspiracy theories evolved to claim that one of these unidentified objects was Nibiru and that the government is tracking it.
However, subsequent studies carried out by other telescopes around the world quickly identified these objects, and none of them were planets at all. But
could the government be lying to us about their results? Not a chance, considering they would need to conspire with tens of thousands of astronomers, both
professional and amateur, around the globe to keep the secret.

Why 2012?

The ancient Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. Many have taken this to mean that the Mayans believed that this date would bring the end of existence.
However, this is not so. Like modern calendars, the Mayan calender is a way of keeping track of time. The Mayan calendar was never meant to be a predictor
of the future any more than the calendar in my office is meant to.

The ending date of the Mayan calendar is not meant to represent the end of time, but rather the end of their calendar cycle. Just as our calender begins
again on January 1, their calendar will begin a new cycle on December 22, 2012. Their calendar cycle is just much longer than our 365 day cycle.

Other 2012 Conspiracies

There are other events that are supposedly going to happen in 2012 that could spell disaster for planet Earth.

• Planetary Alignment: Some theories contend that a coming planetary alignment in 2012 will start a chain reaction that will cause strange weather and
events on the Earth. The first problem with this is that there is not going to be any major alignments of planets, or other objects, in our solar system
in the next several decades — never mind in 2012. Secondly, even if there were a major alignment, there is no scientific reason to believe that this would
have any impact on Earth.
• Alignment with the Galactic Center: There is also some worry about an alignment that will happen with the Sun and the center of our Galaxy. First, let
me point out that this is very different than saying that our solar system will somehow be moved to the violent center of the Milky Way. That is impossible.
We are nearly 30,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy, making it impossible for us to somehow be “taken” there as some believe. However, it is
possible for the Earth, Sun and Galactic Center to be temporarily aligned (where essentially the Sun would be blocking our “view” of the Galactic Center).
Which brings me to the second point; this is nothing to fear. It actually happens every
December with no consequence.
• Solar Magnetic Shift: Are the magnetic poles of the Sun are going to flip in the next few years? Yes, actually, but there is nothing to fear. It is a
natural process known as the solar cycle. Roughly every 11 years the magnetic poles of the Sun flip. This coincides with what is referred to as the solar
maximum, the time when there is the greatest appearance of Sun spots, solar flares, prominences and other solar activity. The next solar maximum, was roughly
predicted for 2012, but may not happen until 2013 or later. On a related note, some believe that the next solar maximum will bring the largest “solar storm”
in history, and that it will knock out our telecommunication systems, cause blackouts and other problems on Earth. This theory is fueled by a report released
by the National Research Council on Heliophysics, which was predicting what would happen in the case of another such storm (a massive solar storm was recorded
in 1859). It is true that communications and power could be disrupted, but certainly not like the doomsday events portrayed in fiction. Furthermore, there
is no reason to even believe that such a storm will happen during the next solar maximum or any other time in the future.
• Earth’s Polar Shift: Just as the Sun undergoes regular magnetic pole shifts, so does the Earth, but on a longer time scale. The Earth’s magnetic cycle
is roughly 400,000 years, though it has actually been longer since the Earth’s last flip. In spite of this, there is no evidence that one is coming in
the next several thousand years, much less by 2012. Even if a shift did occur, it certainly would not cause the Earth to start spinning in the opposite
direction or flip the whole Earth upside down — which are both outcomes believed by some conspiracy theorists.
• An Asteroid Will Collide With Earth: This is a fear popularized by several disaster movies in the last couple decades. The fact is that, yes, a large
asteroid or comet could someday collide with Earth. In truth, meteorites fall to Earth everyday, they are just too small to do any damage. The good news
is that an object large enough to do any real damage would be easy to see. And NASA does a great job of cataloging and monitoring the large objects in
our solar system. The likelihood that one of these objects would sneak up on us is slim to none. We would likely know it was coming years before it actually
arrived, so we would have time to hopefully prevent the collision.

Woman Says: “My Vagina Fell Out”

9 Nov

Woman Says: “My Vagina Fell Out”

By Buck Wolf

Sunday November 8, 2009

There are few people I’ve spoken to in my lifetime who are as brave and candid as Allison Henry, who told me about a serious medical condition she suffered
from this week.

It’s a condition that has affected other women, but she had a particularly bad case.

As she puts it, “My vagina fell out. ”

Henry, a 39-year-old school psychologist from Kenmore, Wash., suffered from a vaginal prolapse — a condition in which the vagina, uterus, rectum, bladder,
urethra and small intestine shift and — in severe cases — innards may protrude from the body.

“I know it sounds like a science fiction movie,” she said. “Every time I retell this story, I still tell myself, “I can’t believe this happened to me”.”

It took nearly three years and several rounds of surgery to put her organs back in place.

Sadly, many other women suffer from this problem. Unfortunately, they suffer in silence. And that means they will never get help.

South Korean Woman Passes Driver’s Exam On 950th Try

6 Nov

Friday, November 6, 2009 (AP)
SKorean woman passes driver’s exam on 950th try

  (11-06) 13:36 PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) –
  A woman in South Korea who tried to pass the written exam for a driver’s
license with near-daily attempts since April 2005 has finally succeeded on
her 950th time. The aspiring driver spent more than 5 million won ($4,200)
in application fees, but until now had failed to score the minimum 60 out
of a possible 100 points needed to get behind the wheel for a driving
test.
  Cha Sa-soon, 68, finally passed the written exam with a score of 60 on
Wednesday, said Choi Young-chul, a police official at the drivers’ license
agency in Jeonju, 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of Seoul.
  Police said Cha took the test hundreds of times, but had no specific
total. Local media said she took the test 950 times.
  Now she must pass a driving test before getting her license, Choi said.
  Repeated calls to Cha seeking comment went unanswered. She told the Korea
Times newspaper she needed the license for her vegetable-selling business. ———————————————————————-
Copyright 2009 AP

Mexicans Curse 20 Times A Day

16 Oct

%$@%!! Survey says Mexicans curse 20 times a day

  (10-14) 17:56 PDT MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) –
  Caramba! A new survey says Mexican adults curse an average of 20 times a
day, serving up about 1.3 billion swear words daily.
  The survey of 1,000 adults by the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm says one
in 10 Mexicans say they don’t curse at all. Upper class citizens report
swearing more than the poor, while people in the heavily Indian southern
part of the country curse less than northerners.
  The poll published Wednesday has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage
points.
  Poll respondents used their own judgment as to what constituted swear
words, but almost all were harsher than “caramba,” roughly the equivalent
of “gosh!”
  Mexico has 65 million adults over 18 out of a population of 107 million. ———————————————————————-
Copyright 2009 AP

 

Tenn. Church Burns After Members Throw Punches

8 Oct

Thursday, October 8, 2009 (AP)
Tenn. church burns after members throw punches

  (10-08) 12:33 PDT Tazewell, Tenn. (AP) –
  There was a fist fight at a Claiborne County church and now the building
has burned to the ground. Detective Capt. David Honeycutt with the
Claiborne County Sheriff’s Office said the fire was being investigated and
a look at the fight is a strong element of it. The cause of the fire late
Friday or early Saturday hasn’t been determined. Honeycutt said there was
no indication of an electrical malfunction.
  Edwards Community Missionary Baptist Church was in rural part of the
county, near the Union County line.
  “That’s God’s house. It’s no place to throw fists, or shoot people, or
talk about shooting people, it’s for blessing the Lord,” the church’s
pastor, Rev. Clayborn Gibbons, told WBIR-TV in Knoxville.
  The station reported the building had stood for nearly 70 years, but a
recent division over who should lead the congregation erupted into
fisticuffs on Sept. 30.
  Church member David Lovin told the station “it just all broke loose.”
  Honeycutt said Thursday morning there had been no arrests in the fire. He
said investigators were still taking statements from church members.
  Honeycutt said the church has 30-50 members and “there has been a division
of the church.”
  “When I heard that the church burned, it just broke my heart, cause you
know that’s where my heart was,” Lovin said.
  On Wednesday night, the congregation met in a church member’s garage.
  ___
  Information from: WBIR-TV,
www.wbir.com ——————————
—————————————-
Copyright 2009 AP

 

Giant Baby In Indonesia Draws Spectators

25 Sep

Giant baby in Indonesia draws spectators

Friday, September 25, 2009

KISARAN, Indonesia — Indonesia’s heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to a hospital where the boy named Akbar – or the Great in Arabic – came
into the world at a record 19.2 pounds (8.7 kilograms).

Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute cesarean delivery that was complicated because of his unusual weight and size, Dr. Binsar Sitanggang
said.

“I’m very happy that my baby and his mother are in good health,” father Muhammad Hasanuddin said Friday. “I hope I can afford to feed the baby enough, because
he needs more milk than other babies.”

Crowds pushed to get a peek of the extraordinary boy, who measured nearly 24 inches (62 centimeters) when he was born Monday, at the Abdul Manan hospital
in the northern town of Kisaran on the island of Sumatra.

“This is fantastic,” Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village, said as she peered through a window with about a hundred other people. “He looks very
well and is cute.”

The baby’s extreme weight was the result of excessive glucose from his mother during pregnancy, Dr. Sitanggang said.

“He is greedy and has a strong appetite, nursing almost nonstop,” the doctor said.

The boy was the third child of Hasanuddin, 50, and mother Ani, 41, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name. His two “little” brothers weighed 11.6
pounds (5.3 kilograms) and 9.9 pounds (4.5 kilograms) at birth.

The former Indonesian record holder was a 14.7-pound (6.7-kilogram) baby boy born on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, in 2007.

Guinness World Records cites the heaviest baby as being born in the U.S. in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds (10.4 kilograms). However, it died 11 hours after
birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound (10.2-kilogram) babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.

Ohio Couple Giving Up Baby After Clinic Mix-up

23 Sep

Ohio couple giving up baby after clinic mix-up
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer

  (09-23) 14:00 PDT Toledo, Ohio (AP) –
  Carolyn Savage didn’t know what to think, what to say, where to look as
the ultrasound wand glided over her belly. It was supposed to be her baby
inside. Not someone else’s.
  Yet here she was in her doctor’s office with the baby’s biological mother,
both brought together by a terrible error at a fertility clinic. A doctor,
they said, had given Savage the wrong embryo, and now she was carrying the
other woman’s child.
  “The wand is on my abdomen and the technician’s talking to someone else:
‘There’s your baby’s nose. There’s your baby’s head,’” she said. “It was
surreal.”
  Embryo mix-ups at fertility clinics are extremely rare. In those few
instances, they’ve degenerated into custody battles, ugly lawsuits and at
least one abortion. But not this time. Savage and her husband decided that
the right thing — the only thing — to do was to give the baby
to the biological parents.
  “This was someone else’s child,” she told The Associated Press on
Wednesday. “We didn’t know who it was. We didn’t know if they didn’t have
children or if this was their last chance for a child.”
  “We knew if our child was out there, we’d go to the ends of the earth to
get our child back,” she said.
  Savage, 40, is due to give birth to a boy within the next two weeks via
cesarean section. When it happens, biological parents Paul and Shannon
Morell, of Michigan, will be nearby, waiting to meet their son.
  “How do you thank somebody for what they’ve done?” Shannon Morell said. “I
could say thank you a million different ways.”
  The Savages say the fertility clinic transferred the wrong frozen embryo
to Carolyn’s womb in early February. Ten days later, Sean Savage got a
call from a doctor saying his wife was pregnant with someone else’s child.
  “By God’s grace, there was never a moment where we thought we were going
to have another baby of our own,” Carolyn Savage said.
  The doctor told them they could abort, but the couple didn’t consider that
a viable option.
  “It wasn’t even something we had to discuss,” said Sean Savage, 39.
  The Savages won’t reveal the name of the fertility clinic, saying only
that it’s not in Ohio. They have hired attorneys who say they are working
to make sure the clinic will accept full responsibility.
  A message was left Wednesday for the Savages’ Detroit attorney, Brian
McKeen.
  The Morells, who live north of Detroit, learned of the mistake a day after
the Savages. They were just about to start the process of having another
baby with their last embryos when the clinic called.
  The two couples knew nothing about each other. Shannon Morell feared that
the pregnant woman would choose abortion, ending their chance to give
their 2-year-old twin girls a sibling.
  “I didn’t think she’d want to carry the baby to term,” Shannon said. “I
felt helpless.”
  A few days passed before they learned that the Savages were not only
willing to continue with the pregnancy, but also to hand over the baby
without hesitation.
  In the first few weeks, the Savages sent e-mail updates after every
doctor’s visit. The couples finally met about three months into the
pregnancy.
  They shook hands, held back tears and began to form a bond. Phone calls
followed.
  Then in August, Carolyn Savage asked Shannon Morell whether she wanted to
be with her for the ultrasound.
  Shannon felt funny, too, being in the same room with Carolyn and her
husband. She didn’t want to show too much excitement, knowing how
conflicted they must be feeling.
  “I felt like the third wheel,” she said. “Although I knew that child
inside her was mine, it wasn’t the same feeling I had with the twins.”
  The American Society for Reproductive Medicine doesn’t track how many
women have been given the wrong embryos, said Eleanor Nicoll, a
spokeswoman. Only a few cases have popped up the past decade or so.
  A California woman was awarded $1 million in 2004 to settle a lawsuit
against a fertility specialist who accidentally gave her the wrong embryos
and hid the mistake until her baby was 10 months old.
  A white New York woman gave birth to a black couple’s baby in 1998 after
an embryo mix-up that set off a two-year court fight between the couples
over visitation rights. And just this year, a Japanese woman aborted her
pregnancy after she was told there had been a mistake at a government-run
hospital.
  Each fertility clinic has its own system for identifying and tracking
embryos. Most patients get an identification number that also is kept with
the embryos while they are stored. Names are double-checked. So are the
numbers.
  The Savages and the Morells say they have not been told what exactly went
wrong at their clinic.
  Neither family is sure what will happen after the baby is handed over to
the Morells. They plan on approaching it like they have so far —
with caution and care — making sure not to cause any more pain.
  Carolyn Savage won’t have another chance to carry her own baby because of
her age and difficulties during her earlier pregnancies. She and her
husband plan to hire a surrogate and try again for a fourth child.
  The Morells don’t have a name picked out for their son and aren’t likely
to make it public.
  His mom doesn’t want him to be known as the baby who got switched at the
clinic. She wants to tell him about that herself. And she wonders if
someday he’ll want to meet the woman who gave birth to him.
  Carolyn Savage said she knows she’ll always think about him, and Shannon
Morell plans to send the Savages updates as the baby grows.
  “We’ll always have a bond,” she said. ———————————————————————-
Copyright 2009 AP

iPhone Accessibility

23 Sep

Check this out! As you may know, the iPhone 3GS is accessible to those with disabilities. Click Click here to see a basic description and to watch a video covering the basics of the iPhone. Hope it helps!

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