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Palette

Girl graffiti artist, 10, is the 'female Banksy'

Lucy Cockcroft
The Telegraph
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:03 UTC
A 10-year-old schoolgirl has earned herself a reputation as the "female Banksy" after creating a series of impressive graffiti artworks.

Solveig
Solveig: So far she has created 20 large-works which are typified by their bold, clean and colourful style
Known as Solveig, the primary-school pupil spray-paints her creations onto walls left on a patch of wasteland near her home.

Graffiti artist experts have called her "the young Picasso of street art", while magazine Graphotism said she was "a major talent".

Solveig, the girl's tag name and real first name, started painting her creations on special legal graffiti sites around Brighton, Sussex, at the age of eight.

So far she has created 20 large-works which are typified by their bold, clean and colourful style.

Her subjects have included cartoon characters, sharks, a snorkeller, zombies, and a fried breakfast.
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Sun

Rainbow's End Found, But There is No Pot of Gold


Telegraph.co.uk
Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:27 UTC
Image
© JASON ERDKAMPRainbow after a storm in Orange County, California
The end of a rainbow has been captured by an amateur photographer on his iPod in southern California - but there was no pot of gold to help the state out of its deepening financial crisis.
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Snowman

Don't laugh - you'll be next

Emily Rotberg
The Guardian
Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:36 UTC
Snuggie model
© Sarah Lee The Snuggie.
It lacks the rock chick cool of a Balmain blazer and the sexiness of Charlotte Olympia heels, but this $14.99 blanket with armholes could be the surprise fashion hit of the recession.

The Snuggie looks like a combination of a fleece hospital gown (it's backless!) and Jedi robe, but since its debut in October more than 4m have been sold.

Sales surged after the first airings of a two-minute infomercial featuring a woman driven to despair by the difficulties of wearing a blanket. She couldn't answer the phone, play backgammon or eat popcorn without exposing her arms to cold air.
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Einstein

Washington burglary victim drives off in thieves' van


The Assoicated Press/The Seattle Times
Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:56 UTC
Bellevue - A man in Washington state made sure a pair of burglars didn't get away with his three flat-screen televisions - he moved their getaway car.

Patrick Rosario was in the basement of his Bellevue home on Tuesday when he heard the burglars upstairs.
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Smiley

Flying thief caught again at age 83


Reuters
Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:42 UTC
A notorious 83-year-old Hungarian thief with a criminal record dating back six decades, was caught by police Thursday at the scene of a break-in.

Kosztor Sandorne, dubbed "Flying Gizi" by Hungarian media, was arrested after she entered a house in Komarom, a town in the northwest.

Sandorne, who earned her nickname because she liked to flee her crime scenes by taking commercial flights, said she was in the house because she was trying to save money.
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Mr. Potato

Collaboration, Coincidence, Lack of Clothing Lead Police to Suspect

Zachary Franz
Great Falls Tribune
Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:00 UTC
The man suspected of robbing the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Great Falls on Wednesday was one door away from a clean getaway. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong door.

Johny James Laverdure, 33, was trying to walk out of the Oakland International Airport on Thursday, but set off an alarm when he opened a restricted door, Sgt. Bruce McVey of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said Friday afternoon.

After triggering the alarm, Lavendure entered an off-limits area of the airport. According to another sergeant with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, Lavendure, in an apparent effort to cover up his identity, took off all his clothes and everything he had on him and hid them in a closet. Airport security alerted Alameda County sheriff's deputies, who found the unclothed Lavendure hiding from authorities. The sergeant said he didn't know if Lavendure had other clothes he had planned to change into.
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Smiley

Teen files bill to make vocal surgery illegal

Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:24 UTC
Jordan Star_Debarking
© John WilcoxVOICE FOR DOGS: Jordan Star and Sen. Scott Brown, who is co-sponsoring the high school freshman’s bill to outlaw devocalization surgery for dogs, meet to discuss Logan’s Law, which is named after a debarked sheepdog adopted by Gayle and Tom
Needham High freshman Jordan Star doesn't claim he can talk to the animals, but as the surprise driving force behind a bill to outlaw the surgical silencing of dogs and cats, the teen is doing a fine job speaking on their behalf.

"To take a voice away from an animal is morally wrong," Star, 15, said of convenience devocalization, the removal of a pet's vocal cords so Fido and Fluffy are seen, not heard.

Star tackled the topic after encountering a dog who'd been debarked, then abandoned.

"It was just horrible," he said of the dog's struggle to get his attention. "It was just like a hoarse, wheezy cough. In a shelter, all they are is a mutilated animal, which makes them harder to adopt."
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Snowman

Is Canada's Gray Seal Hunt Cancelled Due to Lack of Demand?

Alex Felsinger
Planetsave
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:12 UTC
Gray Seal_01
© MGSpillerThousands of gray seals could be spared particularly brutal deaths this year because sealers have been unable to find a buyer for the pelts.
This news comes as the European Union considers a ban on all seal products, an action which some think drove typical pelt buyers to rethink their purchase this year. Multiple sources say the hunt will likely not happen, but Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans still officially say the hunt is on.
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Sherlock

The Strange History of Saint Valentine's Day

Dirk Vander Ploeg
UFO Digest
Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:50 UTC
Valentine
© UnknownSaint Valentine Icon.
At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February.

One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

In William of Malmesbury's time what was known to the ancients as the Flaminian Gate of Rome and is now the Porta del Popolo, was called the Gate of St. Valentine. The name seems to have been taken from a small church dedicated to the saint which was in the immediate neighborhood. Of both these St. Valentines some sort of Acta are preserved but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.
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Sheeple

Nigerian car thief turns into sheep

Lester Haines
The Register
Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:21 UTC
Swiftly cuffed in vigilante ovine suppression op

We're not quite sure what to make of this report in Nigeria's Vanguard, but it appears that police in Ilorin, Kwara State, are holding in custody a chap who tried to steal a Mazda, transformed himself into a sheep and was seized by vigilantes in a swift ovine suppression operation.

The paper sort of explains that the head of the anti-sheep thief mob, one Prince Omoniyi Nasirudeen, stated for the record there were in fact two ne'er-do-wells and that when he and his team "beamed torchlight on them with the intention of apprehending them they ran away and they were vigorously chased until one of them disappeared while the second turned to sheep".

The Vanguard elaborates: "The vigilante added that the suspect turned to human being almost immediately and was still running until he was pursued to a corner where he quickly put his back behind the wall with one of the legs and turn to the sheep which was quickly grabbed.
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