Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Smiley

'Peace' the Panda bites his keeper

A giant panda whose name means 'peace' bit a keeper on the leg at Hong Kong's Ocean Park, officials said today.

The panda attacked as the keeper was laying bamboo leaves in its enclosure.

Spokeswoman Christie Lau said the park keeper was recovering well in hospital after the attack.

She also said park officials were investigating the 30 November incident involving the male panda, whose name "An An" translates as "peace."

Book

9-year-old publishes a book, reveals dating secrets

He's only 9, but this pint-sized pickup artist already knows plenty about pleasing the ladies.

So much, in fact, that Alec Greven's dating primer, "How to Talk to Girls" - which began as a handwritten, $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair - hit the shelves nationwide last week.

Butterfly

Missionary went to change tribe, but they changed him

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© Sun-Times News GroupDaniel Everett (right) first joined up with the tribe in 1977.
The mission assigned to Daniel Everett after he graduated from Chicago's Moody Bible Institute was to change the lives of members of a tiny tribe in the Amazonian rain forest.

It was, however, Everett who was changed.

Everett, along with his wife and three children, were met in the rain forest by the Piraha people of central Brazil -- a primitive culture which has no words for numbers or colors and no concept of war or personal property. They live in the present.

For a missionary like Everett, then 26, that last part proved a stumbling block as he tried to find the language to talk about Jesus and an afterlife to people who never talk about the past nor the future.

In the end, Everett, now a linguistics professor at Illinois State University, abandoned his own religious faith, a tale he tells in his new book, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes.

Toys

UK: Teddy bears blast off into space

Teddies in Space
Teddy bears in space

Four teddies have taken a giant leap for bear-kind after being blasted to the edge of space by university boffins. The cuddly toys were attached to a helium balloon and launched 30,000-metres into the atmosphere from Churchill College in Cambridge. They were fitted out with space suits designed by schoolchildren from the city as the toys braved freezing temperatures.

Wolf

US: State police find $410,900 in traffic stop

State police with dogs patrolling returning Thanksgiving traffic over the weekend discovered stuffing of a different sort after they stopped a sport utility vehicle on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

The troopers and their canine partners sniffed out a suspicious bounty in the rear cargo area of a 2005 Honda Pilot with Louisiana plates - $410,900 in a hidden compartment under the vehicle's third row of seats, according to state police.

Police are investigating the driver, a 31-year-old Manchester, New Hampshire, man, and the source of the money.

Wine

Politicians may have to take breath test

Canberra - Politicians in Australia's most populous state could be breath-tested for alcohol before voting on laws after a series of late-night incidents that have embarrassed the center-left government.

New South Wales state lawmaker Andrew Fraser resigned from his conservative opposition frontbench role after shoving a female colleague in the wake of Christmas party celebrations.

"Breath test this mob," said a front page headline in Sydney's mass-selling Daily Telegraph newspaper. State police minister Matt Brown was dumped from his portfolio in September after allegedly "dirty" dancing in his underwear over the chest of a female colleague after a drunken post-budget office party.

Smiley

Tortoise still a Lothario at age 176

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© Daily MailImage of Jonothan taken over 100 years ago.
Amestown, Saint Helena -- Jonathan, a 176-year-old tortoise living on the British territory of St. Helena, routinely mates with three young female tortoises, officials say.

A St. Helena tourist board spokesman said Jonathan is an active animal senior, The Sun said Thursday.

"He lives in the grounds of Plantation House -- the governor's residence -- with five much younger tortoises, including three females," the spokesman said, referring to the Jamestown site where Jonathan resides.

Smiley

Man throws Christmas tree at his father

Police in Parrish, Florida arrested a 37-year-old man for allegedly throwing a christmas tree at his father.

Authorities say Thomas Edward Lackie has been charged with felony assault for using a 3-foot-tall Christmas tree as a weapon, the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune reports.

The arrest record alleges that Lackie tried to strike his father with the steel tree base after he missed hitting him with the tree.

Mr. Potato

Sara the Saxophone-Playing Walrus

Sara Walrus playing Saxaphone
© ReutersSara, perhaps the most talented walrus ever to grace a Turkish zoo, performs a saxophone recital at the Dophinarium in Istanbul on Dec. 4, 2008.

Toys

Santa gets the heave-ho-ho-ho

Oberlin - Conceptual artist Keith McGuckin kills off Santa Claus in his latest holiday display at the Oberlin Public Library. McGuckin, of Wellington, is known for his controversial holiday displays, which have included a drug-smuggling elf, a crystal meth Christmas and Nazi gingerbread men.