Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Pumpkin

Prisoner escapes jail to finish argument with girlfriend


The Telegraph
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:58 UTC
Ross Underwood, a prisoner serving a 32-month sentence, escaped from jail so he could finish an argument with his girlfriend, a court heard.

Underwood, 24, was jailed for his part in a £500,000 car 'ringing' scam but walked out of a category D open prison just five months into his sentence.

He got into a waiting car and went to his girlfriend's home before handing himself in at a police station 48 hours later.

Underwood, of Northampton, pleaded guilty to escaping from custody and was sentenced to an extra six months at Northampton Crown Court.

Russell Eaton, defending, said Underwood - an inmate at HMP Spring Hill, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, - had gone to see his girlfriend.

He said: "He says he wanted to finish a domestic argument and wanted to go home to resolve it."
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Cult

Game show looks to convert atheists

Daren Butler
Reuters
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:55 UTC
What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?

Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert a group of non-believers.

The prize for converts will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion -- Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.
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Magic Wand

"Mathemagician" excited by odd date


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:27 UTC
odd number date
© AFP/Nick MorrisonNotice anything exceptional about today's date? It's July 5, 2009 (05/07/09) -- and three consecutive odd numbers make up the date only five times in a century.
Notice anything exceptional about today's date? It's July 5, 2009 (05/07/09) -- and three consecutive odd numbers make up the date only five times in a century.

This nugget is pointed out by Californian high school maths teacher Ron Gordon, a self-confessed "mathemagician".

"That's what my kids call me, because I make something out of nothing from maths," the 64-year-old told AFP in a phone interview from his home in Redwood City.

"This really is a day to celebrate. OK, it's true there will be another one in two years' time on September 7, 2011 (07/09/11), and one on November 9, 2013 (09/11/13) but then it won't happen again for 92 years. And I sure won't be around to see it."
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Smiley

Abe Lincoln, the Big Cheese!

Robert Basler
Reuters Blogs
Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:10 UTC
Lincoln Cheese Statue
Happy July 4th, Blog Guy. I just saw an Abe Lincoln statue made of cheese. Isn't that disrespectful?

No. If you know your history, you know Lincoln was a passionate cheese enthusiast.

It was Abe who pushed the bounds of home entertaining by rolling up cheese and pecans together, creating the popular cheese log.
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Mr. Potato

Columnists name Palin 'Sitting Duck'


United Press International
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:45 UTC
Palin-Sitting-Duck
© unknownLadies and gentlemen, we present to you this year's Sitting Duck... Sarah Palin!
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been selected as winner of the 2009 Sitting Duck Award, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists announced Friday.

The award is given annually to the person who provides the best material for columnists facing deadlines. Palin, who became a national political figure overnight last year when Sen. John McCain selected her as his running mate, beat out former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"Being a prominent jerk or cretin is often a thankless job," said the society's current president, Samantha Bennett of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "This is our way of saying thanks for the low-hanging fruit."
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Smiley

Obama To Hold Performance Review With All American Workers


The Onion/Youtube
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:18 UTC
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Mr. Potato

Staff strip naked to improve morale

Ben Leach
The Telegraph
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:45 UTC
Staff at a design and marketing company in Newcastle spent a day working together naked after being told it would improve their morale.

David Taylor, a business psychologist, told workers at design and marketing onebestway, in Newcastle upon Tyne, that a Naked Friday idea would boost their team spirit.

He was called in to help the firm after six staff members were forced into taking redundancies at the start of the credit crunch.

Mr Taylor told them that, by stripping off their clothes, staff could also strip away inhibitions and talk to each other more openly and honestly.
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Better Earth

Flashback George Carlin's Last Interview

Jay Dixit
Psychology Today
Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:08 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Ten days ago, on Friday, June 13th, 2008, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71. Originally it was slated to run as a 350-word Q&A on the back page of Psychology Today. But I was so excited to talk to him - and he was so generous with his time - that I just kept on going. By the end I had over 14,000 words.

On stage, George Carlin came across as a grouch, often vulgar and sometimes misanthropic. But with me he was patient and warm, happy to talk through the minutiae of his creative process and eager to share stories about his childhood, his evolution as a comic, and his influence. What struck me most was the joy in his voice as he talked about the wonderful feeling he got in his gut while writing. I was also moved by the gratitude he expressed for his mother, who he said "saved" him and his brother - leaving her bullying, alcoholic husband when George was just two months old, getting a job during the worst years of the Depression, and raising two boys on her own.
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Magnify

Mexico vows to keep looking for 'lost' island

Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:44 UTC
Mexico City - Mexico vowed to keep looking for a mysterious island that could extend its offshore oil claims after university researchers said they couldn't find it.

"The island doesn't exist" in the area where it was shown on maps, a National Autonomous University of Mexico study concluded after conducting studies with underwater sensing devices and aerial reconnaissance in the area.

"Isla Bermeja" appeared on maps from the 1700s as a speck of land off the northwest coast of the Yucatan peninsula. A group of Mexican legislators hoped the island would help their decade-long effort to fend off what they describe as U.S. encroachment on their nation's oil claims in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Popcorn

Stoned Wallabys Make Crop Circles


BBC News
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:55 UTC
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
Image
Wallabies have been observed acting strangely in poppy fields.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
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