Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Smiley

Ghost stole $5,000 resume, says Winder woman


Online Athens
Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:28 UTC
A Barrow County sheriff's deputy encountered a burglary case on Saturday possibly more suited to a ghost hunter.

Though she perhaps should have called the Ghostbusters, the theft victim instead told local deputies that a ghost stole from her.

The 40-year-old Winder woman reported stolen her resume, criminal history and a blouse sometime during the past two weeks, according to a Barrow County sheriff's report.

When the deputy asked the woman if she knew anyone who might take the items, she said a ghost or spirt because the ghost of her mother often visits. However, she told the deputy she also occasionally sees a black spirit roaming near her home.

According to the report, the woman valued her resume at $5,000 and the criminal history at $10.
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Arrow Up

Wisconsin couple says pet chicken alerted them to blaze


Associated Press
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:35 UTC
Cluck Cluck and Owner
© AP Photo/Courtesy of Barb MurrayBrad Krueger of Alma Center, Wis., holds his neighbors’ chicken, Cluck Cluck, on Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. The chicken, which the neighbors kept as a pet, is being credited for saving that family from an early-morning fire Thursday by waking the couple with its vocal clucking.
Milwaukee - A Wisconsin couple says clucks, not fire trucks, helped them escape a blaze at their home.

Dennis Murawska, 59, said a pet chicken named Cluck Cluck woke his wife Susan Cotey, 52, with loud clucking from its cage in the basement two floors below about 6:15 a.m. Thursday.

The couple's two cats also were running around the main floor.

Murawska said he had been half awake but didn't know about the fire because the smoke alarms hadn't gone off. He said he realized something was wrong when his wife got up.

"The chicken gets quite vocal when she gets excited," he said.

Cluck Cluck came from a nearby farm in Alma Center, about 135 miles east of Minneapolis, Murawska said. When the chicken began wandering over to his house, his neighbor said he could kill it because it wasn't producing any eggs.

But Murawska felt sorry for Cluck Cluck because she had a mutated foot and decided to keep her.

He fed the bird and built a coop, and then his wife let Cluck Cluck into the basement on cold nights.
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Magic Hat

Dog can cross eyes on command


Huffington Post
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:20 UTC
Image
When they close the history books on awesome dog tricks, Olive's should be right at the top of the list. Sure, it's not the showiest, but it's the simplicity and grace of this move that makes it absolutely sublime.
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Gift

Dying Kentucky boy comes closer to world record for most christmas cards

Russell Goldman
ABC News
Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:51 UTC
Under the Christmas tree was everything 9-year-old Dalton Dingus had hoped for -- an iPad and an iPhone, a big red toolbox filled with real tools just like his grandpa's, and a stack of Christmas cards nearly as tall he, each with the same wish: that he live to break a Guinness record, and for a long, long time after that.

For a month now, cards by the hundreds of thousands have come from all over the world -- well wishes and Christmas greetings from cities and countries the Kentucky boy had never before even heard of.

Image
© US Postal Service; KY State PoliceTwelve U.S. Mail all-purpose containers were filled for delivery to Dalton Dingus on Christmas Eve. Dalton, 9, is a Kentucky boy dying of cystic fibrosis. His wish is to set a Guinness record for most Christmas cards.
The cards have come from Germany and Ukraine, from South Carolina and South Korea. They're written in languages Dalton cannot speak, but they all deliver the same message, a wish that the little boy set a Guinness record for receiving most Christmas cards before he succumbs to a disease that has already made it virtually impossible for him to breathe.

As far as his mother, Jessica Dingus, is concerned, "It's a Christmas miracle."

At first, the cards came in slowly. A family friend had posted an appeal for well-wishes on Facebook. Dalton's mother would display them on the mantel and in his room beside his bed. Most came from neighbors and friends, a few from friends of friends.

That first post on Facebook went viral, spreading across the Internet, getting picked up by a local newspaper and other media.
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Gold Seal

Right royal rumpus over 'RTÉ Guide' and Christmas Day Queen

John Hedges & Mark Moloney
An Phoblacht
Thu, 20 Dec 2012 04:58 UTC
Image
Like Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth may not be amused but the RTÉ Guide made us republicans at An Phoblacht smile by describing her regular Christmas Day TV message in the BBC1 listing as: "The British monarch lectures her subjects."

In the UTV listing alongside the Beeb's for the same time, same day, the tone is a less harsh: "The British Queen delivers her message."

RTÉ blamed the editors. The managing director of Presse Media 81, an Irish-owned firm based in France and which provides the listings for the RTÉ Guide, said it was an unfortunate error and interpretation of the word 'deliver'.

"It was very straightforward and an innocuous but unfortunate use of the word 'lectures'," said Julian Kindness. (He diplomatically eschewed the defence that 'lecture' might be appropriate for a ritual TV address by an unelected head of state.)

"There was no political slight, no malice intended, no smart-arsed sub-context or attempt to sneak in a Christmas howler," he told the Irish Independent.

Maybe not but thank you kindly, Julian.

Ho, ho, ho.
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Wreath

Blind dog finds her way home in depths of Alaskan winter

Tim Walker
The Independent
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
The Grapengeter children with Abby the dog
When their blind eight-year-old dog went missing from their remote Alaskan home in a heavy snowstorm, the Grapengeter family felt sure they'd never see her again. But after more than a week of searching in temperatures as low as minus 40C, Abby, a brown-and-white mixed-breed whom the Grapengeters rescued from an animal shelter as a puppy, turned up safe and sound at the home of a local vet.

Abby first disappeared from the family's five-acre property near Fairbanks on 13 December. Given she'd gone blind a year ago, McKenzie Grapengeter and her three children held out little hope for her return. But on 23 December they received a call saying Abby had been found more than 10 miles away - and without even a trace of frostbite.

Neighbours had planned to set live traps to find her, but in the end the dog found her own way along a winter trail to the house of Mark May, a local dog musher and vet. "Everybody just assumed it was some kind of scaredy cat, but... it was blind," May told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "I guess [she found her way] by just sniffing." May found Abby's owners by disseminating her photograph and description on Facebook. She was recognised by one of the Grapengeters' neighbours, and returned home in time for Christmas Eve. McKenzie Grapengeter called it a Christmas miracle. "There's no other word to describe it," she told the News-Miner. "She's blind. It's amazing."
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Smiley

German father calls police over bawling babies


RT.com
Sun, 16 Dec 2012 15:38 UTC
Crying Baby
© Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili
How desperate can a man can get when left alone with his children? Just ask one father in Bavaria, who called the police for help when he couldn't hush his three crying babies.

­The 31-year-old father from Weiden became overwhelmed when the tearful tykes let lose the waterworks in concert on Sunday night.

Unluckily for the Bavarian man, the babies' mother wasn't there and he couldn't reach her by phone as his two five-month old twins and their two-year old sister let lose with a torrent of tears.

Having failed to reach his wife by phone and unable to calm his babies down, the father desperately started looking for a helping hand, or in this case the long arm of the law.

The "Friends and helpers", as the German police motto reads, heard out the father's sob story and offered some helpful babysitting tips, leaving the pitiable papa to his parent trap.
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Candle

An interview with Jesus Christ

Charles Rayner Kelly
Brave New World
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Jesus
Interviewer: Thanks for coming on the St. Matthew the Evangelist Show, Jesus. I know you're a busy man so let's get right to it. You probably know of the great income disparity in the world today. What would you tell those who call themselves 'Christians' to do about it?

Jesus: Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. 19:21

Interviewer: Gee, I don't hear any televangelist saying that. That's a pretty hard thing to do, give all your money to the poor. No wonder there aren't that many true Christians.

Jesus: Many are called but few are chosen. 22: 14 The harvest is rich, but laborers are few. 9:37

Interviewer: But you're saying the opposite of what our consumer culture is telling us, that we should be as rich as we possibly can.

Jesus: You can't serve both God and money. 6:24 You must worship God and serve him alone. 4:10

Interviewer: So you're saying we shouldn't want to be rich, huh?

Jesus: I tell you truly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. 19:23 It is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 7: 14 Many who are first will be last, and the last, first. 19:30

Interviewer: Yikes, it sounds like there are a lot of rich and famous people we won't be seeing in the hereafter. What would you tell the Occupy Wall St. folks, who are protesting the inequalities of our economic and political system?

Jesus: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. 5:6
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Arrow Up

Dog honks horn for help

Kate Dubinski
QMI Agency
Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:11 UTC
London, Ontario - Muzzled and unable to bark for help, police say Kiki the husky found another way to alert helpful humans to its desperate plight.

The dog honked a car horn.

Police say the 13-year-old dog was left in deplorable conditions in a moving van, along with two other dogs and two cats.

When police discovered the van Monday in a downtown parking lot, Kiki was honking the horn.

"I think he figured out how to use the horn. Dogs are very smart, they watch us all the time," said Judy Foster, the executive director of the London Humane Society.

Along with Kiki, the humane society seized two husky-Rottweiler crosses, Buddy and Six-toes, each about four or five years old.

Six-toes got his name because he has six toes.
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Question

Doctors take aim at ... The tooth fairy

Helen Fields
ScienceNow
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:30 UTC
Tooth Fairy
© Clark Dunbar/Corbis
In a new article, four London doctors warn of a professional who is committing malpractice and getting away with it: the tooth fairy. They report on an 8-year-old boy who was sent to an allergist because of his epic runny nose. Regular old medical treatment didn't work, so the next step was a CT scan. The scan showed signs of inflammation in the sinuses.

But it also revealed something more surprising: a tooth in his left ear canal. It turned out that 3 years before, the boy had woken up "extremely distressed" because the tooth fairy had taken the tooth from under his pillow and jammed it in his ear. His parents thought that was pretty unlikely, although the tooth had indeed gone missing. Two doctors that looked in his ear over the years failed to see anything - but the boy was right, it turned out.

An ear, nose, and throat surgeon removed the tooth, the authors report in the often goofy Christmas issue of BMJ. "The patient decided to keep the tooth for posterity rather than taking the risk of attempting a further pecuniary reward," they write. They also point out that there are no standard operating procedures for the tooth fairy, and doctors should be on the lookout for his or her shoddy work.
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