I like to post videos,crazy news items and jokes..if I make you laugh,I am rewarded in knowing that I made your day better...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
JOKE: A married couple was in the hospital delivery room
A married couple was in the hospital delivery room awaiting the arrival of their first baby. The doctor asked if they would like to try his new invention: a machine that transfers a percentage of the mother's labor pains to the father. The wife was very much in favor and, well, no husband would ever admit that he couldn't handle as much pain as his wife. To start, the doctor set the pain transfer to 20%, after explaining that even that small amount was more pain than the father had ever experienced. But the husband took it in stride and even told the doctor to kick it up a notch. The doctor set the machine to 40% pain transfer. The husband felt fine. The doctor checked the husband's vital signs; he was amazed at how well he was doing, so he upped it to 60%. Still no problem. Since the pain transfer was obviously helping the wife considerably, the husband suggested the doctor transfer all the pain to him. The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain. She, her husband, and the doctor were all ecstatic. But when they got home, there was the mailman, dead on their front porch! 
Joke: A naked woman jumped into a taxi.
"What's wrong, luv? Haven't you ever seen a naked woman before?"
"I'm not staring at you, lady. That would not be proper."
"Well, if you're not staring at me, what are you doing?"
"Honestly, I am thinking to myself: where does this lady keep the money to pay me?"
Worst Job? Fishing for bodies on China's Yellow River
Wei Xinpeng's child died in the river but he says he never found the body
On the banks of the Yellow River, Wei Xinpeng draws on a cigarette as he casts his eye over the murky waters.
The 55-year-old is a boatman here. But he plies a gruesome trade.
For Mr Wei does not look for fish in these waters. Instead, he pulls human bodies out the river, which he then sells back to grieving families.
"I bring dignity to the dead," says Mr Wei.
For the families of the missing, the boatman has become the call of last resort.
Every day, Mr Wei rows out to a temporary footbridge on the river.
It is at this point the bodies can go no further.
Since starting his business seven years ago, Mr Wei says he has collected about 500 bodies.
Some of them have been murdered, while others have drowned or committed suicide.
Mr Wei says he charges relatives up to $500 if they want to take the body home He says that his last grim catch was just six days ago.
"I feel that these people have passed away in a very cruel way," he says.
After the boatman collects the bodies he puts them in a small cove where they are sheltered from the currents.
When I visit, there are four clay-like bodies lying face down in the water.
Mr Wei then places advertisements in local newspapers describing the bodies.
Families of the missing phone him and some travel to his village in order to inspect the bodies.
Mr Wei takes them out on his boat to the cove and flips over the corpses.
He charges them a small fee to look at their faces.
And then up to $500 if they want to take the body home.
Mr Wei lives in a hut close to the Yellow River He says that he has sold about 40 corpses. Generally, he says, the families are not angry when he asks for money.
But when he found the body of a Communist official the authorities wanted it returned for free. That caused an argument, he says.
Sometime people's emotions are strained when they see the corpses.
"One time parents came looking for their son," he says. "They saw his body and then walked away without saying a word. They didn't take his corpse."
Mr Wei defends what he does. He says the authorities would let the bodies rot in the river.
Sometimes he fishes corpses out of the river and gives them a proper burial.
But it is not just about the money. The boatman says it is also personal.
"My own child died in this river and I could not find the body," he says.
"It was very painful. That's why I started doing this job."
Swept away
Eighty kilometres upstream, the city of Lanzhou is the main source of Mr Wei's trade.
Peng Shujia's wife went missing this summer but so far he has been unable to trace her Once a poverty-stricken provincial capital, it is now a major industrial city.
Peng Shujia, 52, visited Mr Wei after his wife, Han Yuxia, went missing this summer.
He says that she went to get a bus to visit a relative but never arrived.
Mr Peng spends his days putting up missing posters around the city, desperate for any news on his wife.
The factory worker has contacted the police and put advertisements in local newspapers.
But there has been no word and Mr Wei did not have his wife's body.
"It was a form of help," he says, referring to Mr Wei's service.
"But it's hard to find anyone missing here. It is just so chaotic. It is almost impossible to track anyone down."
Back at Mr Wei's hut, he is packing up for the day.
The boatman has lived through a time of remarkable change in China.
But every day out on the waters on the Yellow River he sees the dark side to development here - where in the clamour for economic growth some are simply swept away.
VIDEO: Indian baby elephant rescue drama
Locals residents have rescued a baby elephant after it accidentally fell into a ditch on a tea plantation near Bokakhat in India's north eastern state of Assam.
The male calf, aged four or five years old, fell in the ditch when crossing a tea estate with with the rest of its herd.
The mother of the calf and other elephants are reported to have made several failed attempts to rescue the calf. Local people, forest rangers and an animal welfare volunteer then stepped it to rescue it with the help of an excavator.
Anil Deka, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said that the elephant had suffered only minor injuries. Once on its feet, the calf was reunited with its mother.
Monday, November 29, 2010
VIDEO: Woman Rescued From Pickup Stuck In Tree Top
EVANS CITY, Pa. -- Rescue crews had to use ropes and ladders to retrieve a western Pennsylvania woman from her pickup truck after it ran off a road and landed in tree tops about 30 feet above ground in a ravine.
Police say they'll be citing 33-year-old Erin Dawn Bowser for driving too fast for conditions on Route 68 near Evans City.
State police say Bowser lost control near a culvert that carries the highway over Connoquenessing Creek. Police say Bowser told them the road was icy at the time.
Rescue workers say Bowser was conscious and able to communicate with workers. Most importantly, they say she didn't panic as they worked to reach her in the precarious position.
She was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital with minor injuries.
JOKE: Old Man Sitting on Park Bench
When I went to lunch today, I noticed this elderly man about 75-80 years old sitting on a park bench near J.C. Penney and he was sobbing his eyes out.
I stopped and asked him what was wrong.
He said, "I have a 22 year old wife at home. She makes love to me every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshly ground brewed coffee."
I asked, "Well, then why are you crying?"
He said, "She makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favorite brownies and then makes love to me half the afternoon."
I asked again, "Well so why are you crying?"
He said, "For dinner she makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favorite dessert and then makes love to me until 2:00am."
I asked yet again, "Well, why in the world would you be crying?"
He sobbed, "I can't remember where I live!"
Sunday, November 28, 2010
British family lives with 80 exotic creatures
Animal mad Alan and Heather Hewitt share their home with an amazing menagerie of 80 exotic creatures. Rooms in the detached house are packed with 20 snakes, 15 reptiles, 25 mammals - plus assorted birds and invertebrates.
The couple run a sanctuary for rescued weird pets and now have a collection comprising 35 different species. They include two monitor lizards, six bearded dragons, four boa constrictors, two pythons, two giant tortoises, a cane toad, four tarantula spiders, various rodents, an African grey parrot, two meerkats, two racoons and a skunk.
They also find room for children, Abigail, 17, Grace, 15, and Edward, ten, in Morley, near Leeds. Alan, 44, said: "Living with 80 animals is a tremendous experience. "Many end up here due to neglect and people not knowing how to look after them. Or they've outgrown the owner, who becomes frightened.
"We get animals from the police, RSPCA and the public. We have to separate prey and predator. And I'm always on my guard. I'm forever being bitten by tarantulas and snakes or stung by scorpions." The �20,000-a-year cost of the Morley Exotic Animal Rescue is met by fundraising and they are applying for charitable status.
Dog bowl sells at auction for $27,450
A California auction house said a sale featuring designer dog bowls was topped by a $27,450 doggie dish created by Los Angeles artist Ed Ruscha.
Bonhams auction house said the sale, on Tuesday, in Los Angeles and San Francisco, featured Ruscha's "Untitled (Fido) 2010" as the top bid-getter.
David Hockney's bowl sold for $6,710, a bowl by artist Kenny Scharf sold for $4,575, a dish made by Ross Bleckner sold for $2,074 and a Chuck Arnoldi work sold for $1,220.
The dog bowls were sold to benefit PAWS/LA, a non-profit aimed at benefiting low-income and elderly pet owners.
You can see the other dog bowls here. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/27450-for-a-dog-dish-well-maybe-if-its-designed-by-artist-ed-ruscha.html
Saturday, November 27, 2010
JOKE: A man walked up to the woman sitting alone at the bar
A man walked up to the woman sitting alone at the bar. "I came over here to ask you to dance, but I'm concerned; I mean, we might hit it off, end up having some drinks, and the next thing you know you give me your number because I'm too shy to ask for it. I finally get up the nerve to call, we go to a movie, have dinner. I relax, you relax. We go out a few more times, meet each other's friends, spend time together, get past our sexual tension, and develop an intense, incredible sex life. We decide our relationship is solid, move in together, later get married, I get a promotion, you get a promotion, we buy a bigger house. You want kids, but I want freedom, but we have a kid anyway, only to find that I'm resentful. The sparks start to fade and, to rekindle them, we have two more kids. Then I have to work too much to pay the bills and have no time for you. You get stressed and stop taking care of yourself. Your low sex drive and my declining self-confidence cause me have an affair, merely for sexual gratification. You find out because I'm careless and a lousy liar and you throw me out, justifiably so. Then we have to explain to the kids that mommy and daddy are splitting up and it's not their fault. That's so sad. Think about the kids. So... if you dance with me and we hit it off, let's just keep it sexual, because we both know where it's going!"
Spanish woman claims ownership of the sun
A Spanish woman says she now owns the sun after she filed papers with lawyers at her home at Vigo Galicia in Spain. Angela Duran, 41, said: "International law forbids anyone to claim a planet, but nobody ever said anything about stars and the sun is a star.
"I checked and found that despite all the people buying stars no-one had purchesed the Sun in our solar system and, as it was free, I decided to take it. My lawyer laughed when I filed my claim but he checked with the officials that register such things and discovered it was possible.
"I now have a certificate that says I am the owner of the sun, described as a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from earth of about 149,600,000 miles ...'."
"I am trying to have it recognised internationally. Then I plan to make a tax for solar power users." She added: "I will use 50 per cent for a sun state budget, 20 per cent for solar pensioners, another 20 per cent for research and health and 10 per cent to end hunger on earth."
Girl, 7, runs up �250 bill on Facebook game while parents watch
A seven-year-old girl racked up a �250 bill in under an hour after playing a game on Facebook. Megan Fox, from Birmingham, spent the money while sitting next to her parents on 'Petville' which allows users to purchase virtual clothes and furniture for a make-believe pet. On returning from school, Megan had asked her parents if she could play the game. As her parents don't allow her to have her own Facebook account, her father Mathew, 35, let her log in to his account so he could supervise her.
He said: 'She was sat next to me playing the game, asking me and her mum which dresses we preferred. We played along, suggesting which ones to buy, not realising that she was actually spending money.' Mathew had forgotten to log off his stored Paypal payment details on the computer before she started playing - which meant that she ran up a bill without even realising. It was only an hour after Megan had finished playing when Mathew checked his e-mails that he realised what had happened. He found four receipts on his iPad, one for almost U.S. $170.
'I got all these receipts from Paypal. I opened the e-mails and added them all up. I found that she'd spent $400 dollars,' he said. Staff at the social networking site and Paypal, who process the online transactions, have so far refused to refund the money. In e-mails to the couple, they said that, because the payment was made by someone within the Fox household, the rules for unauthorized transactions do not apply. Dawn, 33, and Mathew said that they were 'shocked' when the receipts came through. Mathew said: 'We couldn't believe that she'd spent all that money in such a short time, but we thought that something could be done about it.
'But both Facebook and Paypal have replied basically saying tough, she's in your household so its authorized.' Under the site's rules, if someone in the account holder's household, or somebody known to them makes an unauthorized online purchase, they are not eligible for a refund. Megan's mother Dawn said: 'I think it's outrageous that, not once in four transactions, were we asked to confirm any details. If something had come up she'd have asked her dad and he would've clocked on. It was only because of the e-mails that we realized. If we hadn't got the e-mails my bank account would be completely empty.' The pair called for more security measures to ensure that children can't accidentally spend their parents' money.
Joke: Piano Player
Friday, November 26, 2010
the latest crazy Floriduh news
Dad, 12-year-old son beat up 84-year-old man
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Police arrested a 53-year-old Delray Beach man and his 12-year-old son on felony charges Thursday after an 84-year-old man was punched, thrown to the ground and kicked in the groin in a Target parking lot confrontation caught on surveillance video.
Delray Beach police say the victim, Lawrence Blank, of Delray Beach, was loading items into the rear of his car Sunday when a silver Corvette with the tag QUIK SL started backing out on the opposite side of the parking aisle. The Corvette nearly struck Blank and his car, prompting a bystander to yell "Watch out."
Police say Blank asked the man why he almost hit him, after which the driver later identified as Barry Arthur Hochstadt, replied with "---- you!" Blank asked Hochstadt to move his car so he could leave, and Hochstadt reportedly replied with "Make me!"
Blank told police he walked toward the Corvette and pointed at Hochstadt saying "Move your damn vehicle!" and got the same response from Hochstadt. At this point police say the passenger, later identified as Hochstadt's 12-year-old, 92-pound, 5'2" son exited the Corvette wearing a Ravens jersey and threatened to "beat the ----" out of Blank if he said anything more to his father.
Blank told the boy to get back in the car, and Blank says the boy responded by shoving him into his car and onto the ground, standing over him and punching him repeatedly in the jaw. Hochstadt exited the Corvette and kicked Blank in the groin, Blank told police. At that point, the store's loss prevention officer arrived and helped Blank get up while Hochstadt and his son returned to the Corvette and left the scene.
Police said Blank had injuries to his shoulder, arm and hand and complained of back pain. He also had a large bruise on his inner thigh. In a later interview with police he said he was having difficulty moving his hands, which were black and blue.
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country club worker killed when golfer's tee shot hits him in the head
SANFORD, Fla. -- A worker at a central Florida country club is dead after being struck by a golf ball.
Police say Maurice Hayden was doing maintenance work on the par 5 second hole at the Mayfair Country Club when he was hit by the golfer's tee shot Wednesday. The Mayfair Country Club is in Sanford on Wednesday when he was struck in the temple by a golfer's tee shot.
The 42-year-old man was taken to Central Florida Regional Hospital. Police say he died Thursday after being removed from life support.
Police are calling the incident an accident and say the golfer will not face charges.
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Police wake sleeping driver, who then drives into apartment pool
NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Police say a man they awoke in an idling parked car suddenly put it in drive, right into a swimming pool.
At 5:40 a.m. Thursday, Broward sheriff's deputies responded to a call of a suspicious vehicle parked in front of an apartment building at the Park Plaza Apartments, 8200 SW 23rd St.
Deputies found a man sleeping behind the wheel of the car with the engine running. The deputies tapped on the window. The man woke up, put the car on drive and slowly began to move forward. The deputies walked with the moving car, asking the driver to stop, when he suddenly stepped on the gas. The car drove through a small playground inside the apartment complex, through the fence of an adjacent apartment complex (Bay Tree Apartments, 8210 SW 22 St.), finally plunging into a pool.
Two deputies jumped into the pool and smashed the car window, helping the now fully alert driver to safety. The driver was identified as Charles Marckenson, 28. Traffic charges are pending as well as toxicology results. Deputies said Marckenson lives at the apartment building where he was initially found.
Argentinian accused of fathering 10 children with own daughter
A 62-year-old man was arrested and charged with raping his daughter for more than 30 years and fathering 10 children with her, in a case "even worse" than that of Austria's Josef Fritzl in 2008, a judge said on Wednesday. "The accused denied the allegations but DNA tests have confirmed paternity," Judge Virgilio Palud told local radio.
The man has been charged with repeated sexual abuse and incest, crimes which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, he added. The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested in June for alleged cattle rustling, prompting his daughter, now aged 43, to report him to the police despite his threats of harm if she talked. The case was first reported on Wednesday.
The daughter, whose identity was also not released, claims to have been beaten and raped since the age of 13 at the family's home in the village of Nicanor Molinas, 600 kilometres (375 miles) north of Buenos Aires. She said the incestuous rapes resulted in 10 children, now ages seven to 27, and that only the eldest knows their father and grandfather are one and the same, Judge Palud said.
"It's even worse than what happened in Austria," he added, referring to the horrific crimes of Josef Fritzl, sentenced to life in 2009 for having kept his daughter imprisoned for 24 years, fathering seven children with her and killing one of them. In the Argentine case, one of the 10 children born of the rapes has already died. Judge Palud said another daughter of the suspect also claims to have been raped repeatedly by her father and to have had an abortion before she fled her home in the farming community of Santa Fe province.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Joke: 'Will you marry me?'
Two elderly people living in Ft. Myers, he a widower and she a widow, had known each other for a number of years. One evening there was a community supper in the big arena in the Clubhouse.
The two were at the same table, across from one another. As the meal went on, he took a few admiring glances at her and finally gathered the courage to ask her, 'Will you marry me?'
After about six seconds of 'careful consideration,' she answered 'Yes. Yes, I will!'
The meal ended and, with a few more pleasant exchanges, they went to their respective places. Next morning, he was troubled. 'Did she say 'yes' or did she say 'no'?' He couldn't remember. Try as he might, he just could not recall. Not even a faint memory. With trepidation, he went to the telephone and called her.
First, he explained that he didn't remember as well as he used to. Then he reviewed the lovely evening past.. As he gained a little more courage, he inquired, 'When I asked if you would marry me, did you say' Yes' or did you say 'No'?'
He was delighted to hear her say, 'Why, I said, 'Yes, yes I will' and I meant it with all my heart.' Then she continued, 'And I am so glad that you called, because I couldn't remember who had asked me.'
Attorney: Man Dealing With Poison Ivy, Not Masturbating
A sex offender treatment supervisor for a Kentucky prison has been charged with indecent exposure.
Charles Lickteig II, 48, is now on administrative leave from the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange.
According to court records, Lickteig had stopped his vehicle at Lime Kiln Lane and U.S. 42 when a woman pulled up beside him. She claimed Lickteig's genitals were exposed and he was masturbating. She also said Lickteig looked at her and he knew she saw him.
Court records also said the woman later saw Lickteig at the same intersection and was able to get the license plate number to Lickteig's car and called police.
Licktieg was arrested on Oct. 14 and pleaded not guilty to second-degree indecent exposure.
Lickteig's attorney, Alex Dathorne, said Lickteig was also a police officer for eight years.
"So he's quite in tune with the seriousness of these allegations and also the embarrassment that goes with simply making the allegations," Dathorne said.
Dathorne said there may be a reasonable explanation for what is now a very serious charge.
"Sometimes, people who view things have a different perception as to perhaps what was actually occurring," said Dathorne.
Dathorne said his client was not sexually gratifying himself, but instead, Lickteig was trying to deal with a severe case of poison ivy.
"He's taking the charge, albeit a misdemeanor, extremely serious," Dathorne said.
JOKE: Never hire a man to do a woman's job
A few months ago, there was an opening with the CIA for an assassin. These highly classified positions are hard to fill, and there's a lot of testing and background checks involved before you can even be considered for the position.
After sending some applicants through the background checks, training and testing, they narrowed the possible choices down to two men and a woman, but only one position was available.
The day came for the final test to see which person would get the extremely secretive job. The CIA men administering the test took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances," they explained. "Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her."
The man got a shocked look on his face and said, "You can't be serious! I could never shoot my own wife!" Well," said the CIA man, "you're definitely not the right man for this job then."
So they bring the second man to the same door and hand him a gun. "We must know that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances," they explained to the second man. "Inside you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her."
The second man looked a bit shocked, but nevertheless took the gun and went in the room. All was quiet for about five minutes, then the door opened. The man came out of the room with tears in his eyes. "I tried to shoot her. I just couldn't pull the trigger and shoot my wife. I guess I'm not the right man for the job."
"No," the CIA man replied. "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go the hell home."
Now they're down to the woman left to test. Again they lead her to the same door and hand her the same gun. "We must be sure that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances. This is your final test. Inside you will find your husband sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill him."
The woman took the gun and opened the door. Before the door even closed all the way, the CIA heard the gun start firing, one shot after another, for 13 shots. Then they heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. This went on for several minutes, then all went quiet. The door opened slowly, and there stood the woman....... She wiped the sweat from her brow and said, "You guys didn't tell me the gun was loaded with blanks! I had to beat the son of a bitch to death with the chair!"
A British pensioner loses $120,000 life savings after leaving cash on roof of his car
A distraught pensioner lost his entire life savings of $120,000 - after he accidentally left the money on the roof of his car. The 68-year-old man, who wants to remain anonymous, said he didn't trust banks and so kept the money in his car because he thought it was safer than leaving it at home when he went out. But his retirement dreams were dashed when he accidentally set off for his part-time decorating job with the money, placed in a drawstring bag, still on his car roof.
The man from Southend, Essex, was in tears as he told how he'd saved $3,000 a year all his working life to ensure he could support himself in his retirement. For many years he stashed the money under his bed, but when his guard dog died, aged 12, he decided it would be safer to keep the money in his car. He had bundled $15,000 wads of notes into eight small plastic bags, placed inside another plastic bag and then a blue drawstring bag.
He said: 'My car is never more than 10ft away from me when I am work so I can keep an eye on it. That morning I went to work at about 6.20am and didn't realise I had lost it until noon. I went home and checked my bedroom in case I had left it there. Then I realised I must have put it on the roof of my car. If not, I may put it down as I got in the car, but either way it was gone.' I'm gutted. I have worked all my life and have never been on benefits or asked anyone else for a penny.
'I don't have a (company) pension so this was all I had. I don't know what I am going to do now. My grandson helped me look for the bag. We found some of the small bags empty in the street so it's pretty certain someone found it. I don't hold out much hope of getting it back but if I do I will give a reward to whoever brings it back.' The bag was lost in an area between Dulverton Avenue and Mendip Crescent. As no crime has been committed, police say they can only treat the incident as lost property.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
JOKE: A construction worker walks into a bar
A construction worker walks into a bar. He's a rather large, menacing guy. He orders a beer, chugs it back, and then bellows, "All you guys on this side of the bar are pussies! "
A sudden silence descends. After a moment, he asks, "Anyone got a problem with that?" The silence lengthens.
He then chugs back another beer and growls, "And all you guys on this side of the bar are assholes! "
Once again, the bar is silent. He looks around belligerently and roars, "Anyone got a problem with that?"
A lone man gets up from his stool unsteadily and starts walking towards the man. The construction worker looks the man square in the eye and says, "You got a problem with that, buddy?"
"Oh no," insists the man, in a limp wristed-sounding voice. "I'm just on the wrong side of the bar!"
Cat mourns loss of bear friend
It was a bizarre friendship from the start when zoo cat Muschi wandered into the bear enclosure 10 years ago and cuddled up to brown bear Mauschen.
Now keepers say the cat is in mourning after her 42-year-old pal died of old age at Berlin Zoo in Germany.
Keeper Andre Schule explained: "She had been ill for some time and in a lot of pain. She was one of the oldest bears alive in the world and had lived far longer than she would have done in the wild."
"But poor Muschi is inconsolable. They shared a bed together but it'd be too dangerous to let her back into the bear enclosure without her friend there to protect her," he added.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Nuclear Contaminated Animals in Washington
Just because a mouse has been doused with radiation at a nuclear weapons site doesn't mean that it has acquired superpowers, can shoot laser beams from its eyes and will soon come to subjugate humanity.
But at the same time, it's more than a bit unsettling.
Workers at a former plutonium-production facility in Hanford, Wash., are hunting for a radioactive mouse after finding polluted droppings.
Earlier this month workers also trapped a radioactive rabbit in what is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, according to The Washington Post.
Washington State Department of Health officials told the Tri-City Herald that the atomic-age animals are probably harmless and noted that the suspicious droppings appeared in areas closed to the public.
Anti-nuclear activists at Greenpeace agree that the critters don't pose a direct threat to humans -- even though they're loaded with hazardous waste. However, the organization says the tainted wildlife is evidence that there are long-lasting environmental hazards in the area that must be taken seriously.
"The radioactive bunny is a lead indicator that these site are contaminated," Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio told AOL News. "I don't know how you put the genie back in the bottle after you contaminated these sites so terribly."
The federal government created the Hanford site in the 1940s as a leading nuclear facility that produced weapons-grade plutonium throughout the Cold War.
In 2008, the federal government launched a $639 million decontamination plan that is expected to take decades to carry out. Workers are demolishing some of the most polluted buildings in the 586-square-mile zone.
About 60 mousetraps are in place, but the two mice snared so far haven't shown traces of contamination.
Last year, 33 contaminated animals popped up in the off-limits area, the Tri-City Herald report said.
she is 98 and still driving
She's almost as old as the automobile itself, but Elza Ronis has no plans to give up driving any time soon.
While the stress of battling Sydney traffic can take years off a normal driver's life, Mrs Ronis - aged 98-and-a-half - says it invigorates her.
'I feel more at home behind the wheel than I do walking down the street. I feel elated when I start my car. I really feel that I'm in control of everything," the Baulkham Hills grandmother said.
Mrs Ronis has been driving since 1949 and is proud she's still on the road, so when another newspaper crowned a 96-year-old Griffith man as NSW's oldest driver, she wrote to The Sunday Telegraph to set the record straight.
She zips around town in her Mazda 121, regularly driving to the Blue Mountains and Nowra to visit family and to the Latvian Club in Strathfield for a night out with friends.
"Distances don't worry me," Mrs Ronis said.
"My car is automatic, air-conditioned with the seating arranged for best possible comfort.
"I have a cushion on my seat and I have a back rest.
It all helps."
She looks forward to her next driving test in March - her 99th birthday - and thinks she will pass with flying colors.
"I believe older drivers should go for driving tests and keep unrestricted licences - that would maintain their independence and well-being," she said.
"To pass the tests all you need is your own determination to succeed and then just concentrate on the driving itself."
Man conned out of $20 million after taking laptop for repair
A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop.
The hard-to-believe story started in 2004 when moneyed pianist Roger Davidson asked Mount Kisco computer store owners Vickram Bedi, 36, and his Icelandic girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, to rid his computer of a virus.
On learning of Davidson's wealth, the pair are alleged to have concocted an elaborate social engineering scam that defrauded him of somewhere between the $6 million the police have been able to confirm with an upper figure of as much as $20 million.
Exactly how they executed the fraud reads like something out of an implausible movie plot.
According to police, the pair were able to convince Davidson that the virus was in fact a symptom of a much larger plot in which he was being menaced by government intelligence agencies, foreign nationals and even priests associated with Catholic organisation, Opus Dei.
So convinced was the victim he is said to have agreed to pay the pair $160,000 per month for 24-hour protection against the fictitious threats, payments which continued until recently.
As book readers will recall, Opus Dei were central to the fanciful plot of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, later made into a high-profile film.
"The suspects were isolating the victim and were basically trying to control every dollar that he had," said Police Chief Anthony Marraccini. "They did it very systematically and infiltrated every aspect of his life. It was almost a brainwashing technique."
Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore concurred.
"These two defendants preyed upon, duped and exploited the fears of this victim with cold calculation and callousness. The systematic method with which they continued the larceny over a period of more than six years is nothing short of heartless," she said.
If convicted, the couple could spend between 8 and 25 years in prison.
Unlikely frauds of this kind are not unheard of. Two years ago, a reverend in Oregon was warned to stop transferring money to Nigerian 419 scammers after giving them $400,000 in compulsively gullible acts.
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