►WHIRLED GNUS◄: Jun 2, 2011

Thursday, June 2, 2011

VIDEO: Tell Me This Dog Isn't Smart

JOKE: Three Jewish Mothers

Three Jewish mothers are sitting on a bench in a shopping center talking about (what else?) how much their sons love them.

Sadie says "You know the Chagall painting hanging in my living room? My son, Arnold, bought that for me for my 75th birthday. What a good boy he is and how much he loves his mother."

Minnie says,"You call that love? You know the Mercedes I just got for Mother's Day? That's from my son Bernie. What a doll."

Shirley says "That's nothing. You know my son Stanley? He's in analysis with a psychoanalyst and it costs him $95 an hour. Five sessions a week. And what does he talk about? Me."

Snakes in the House..Foreclosing on a Bunch of Snakes

They say there are snake pits on Wall Street.

Chase has learned there are snake pits on Main Street too.

Last year, the J.P. Morgan Chase banking unit foreclosed on a home near Rexburg, Idaho, that is infested with garter snakes.

They slide through the yard, the crawl space, the walls, the ceilings, even across the floors. Sure, they're harmless, but there are perhaps thousands of them. They give off malodorous secretions when alarmed, and can even leave the well water tasting a bit like the way they smell.

Two families have fled the house in scenes reminiscent of horror-film classics. One turned to a local TV station in 2006 to document the infestation, complaining of not being able to sleep at night.

The next family appeared on TV's "Animal Planet" earlier this year. They said they were told the previous owners came up with the snake story to explain why they stopped paying their mortgage. But, it turns out, the story was true.

Search "Idaho snake house" on the Internet and several intriguing posts emerge. Zillow.com offers a sales description that mentions "a large kitchen with center island," but nothing about snakes on the kitchen floor.

The house, built in 1920 and remodeled about five years ago, has somehow become a hibernaculum, where snakes gather en masse for winter. It's so famously infested that Chase has taken it off the market.

Earlier this year, the five-bedroom home at 675 W. 5000 North was listed for $109,200. That's about $66,000 below its market value. But somehow there were no takers, even in a region known for its Snake River.

Chase is now in the unenviable position of having to be delicate with snakes that continue to live in the home despite a defaulted mortgage. Once a house has been featured on "Animal Planet," you can't just burn it down or otherwise slaughter its reptilian residents. You have to be nice to snakes. It's just good business.

VIDEO: Hedge Climbing Dog

VIDEO: Squirrel Teasing Dog

farmer needs fishing license to remove carp swimming in his flooded fields

file photo

Canadian bureaucrats have added insult to injury for a corn farmer south of Montreal whose fields have been damaged by near-record flooding. Martin Reid of Sabrevois, Quebec, says he's been forced to buy a fishing licence to remove carp that are swimming in a metre of water on his flooded-out fields.

He says he bought the permit to avoid the problems he faced the last time he was forced to remove fish from his flooded farmland. In 1993, Reid was fined $1,000 for illegal fishing. "My father and I ... were charged by Fisheries and Oceans Canada," Reid recalled. "We were jointly responsible for having caused the death of fish for reasons other than sport fishing."

Reid says the fine will jump to $100,000 if he's cited a second time. He's under strict orders to safeguard the lives of the carp once he begins to expel them."We have to collect all of them, and we have to fish both sexes, that's what (the permit) says," Reid explained. "I have to transport them so as not to damage them, by containers with water inside. If some of them die, I have to bury them."

What's more, his permit expires in two weeks even though floodwaters have yet to recede. A spokesman for the provincial natural resources department defended Ottawa's decision. "The idea is to help farmers," said Jean-Philippe Detolle. "The licence was issued to reassure them they won't be fined."