Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Life Preserver

Pitt's niece 'found a cure for the plague'

An eccentric aristocrat who deserted English society to travel the world believed she had found a cure for the plague, letters show.

Lady Hester Stanhope, the niece of the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, claimed to have cured a 12-year-old boy with a mysterious remedy called "serpent stone".

The ingredients are not described, but it is thought to have been a homemade concoction.

Black Cat

Observation of Animal Behavior in the Prediction of UnNatural Disasters

Author's warning: The following article is a satire. Even though all the information mentioned in it is true and verifiable, take it with a grain of salt.

Consequently, I am proposing the creation of a special hotline or Web site where people could call or e-mail to report any strange behavior by senior members of our government, Congress, Supreme Court judges, CIA, FBI, FEMA, Office of Homeland Security senior officials, Pentagon generals and senior CFR members.

The information would be checked to make sure the observations were not caused by other circumstances commonly known to affect the behavior of these particular type of two-legged animals, such as lying, stealing, disinforming or prevaricating.

Grey Alien

Robbie Williams: I'm loving aliens instead

Robbie Williams disappeared from view at the end of 2006. Since then, he has become obsessed with UFOs and extraterrestrials. To gather evidence, he and Jon Ronson headed deep into the Nevada desert

robbie bushy
©Guardian
Robbie Williams and Jon Ronson in Nevada. Look, doesn't he have a big, bushy beard?

Vader

Cheney playing human: Cheney goes for laughs at media dinner

Vice President Dick Cheney has shown off his lighter side, filling in for his boss Wednesday night at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington.

By tradition, the guest of honor pokes a little fun at himself before the audience of media members and guests.

The vice president worked in a reference to Democrat Barack Obama's controversial comments about "bitter" voters and his own hunting mishap. He thanked the attendees for the kind welcome, saying, "You're not the kind to look down on a bitter man who clings to his guns."

Bizarro Earth

Israel: Man strips in protest of bread sales during Passover

Young man dressed as yeshiva student undresses at non-kosher supermarket chain, remaining only with sock covering his private parts.

A 27-year-old man, claiming to be a yeshiva student, decided to launch an unusual protest against a court ruling allowing stores and restaurants to sell leavened food during the holiday of Passover.

The man, dressed as a haredi, arrived Monday afternoon at a store belonging to the non-kosher Tiv Taam supermarket chain in the city of Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. Upon his arrival, he undressed and remained with only a sock covering his private parts.

Ambulance

Why the great British breakfast is a killer

The news that Heston "Bacon and Egg Ice-Cream" Blumenthal is to have a hand in revamping the Little Chef chain of service station restaurants has thrown Britain's gastronomic reactionaries - and believe me, they are legion - into a ferment.

"Eggs and bacon were made for the breakfast table, not some poncy ice-cream," roared The Daily Telegraph, no doubt suppressing a florid belch as its morning kippers turned in its stomach.

Crusader

Police break up unholy brawl in revered Jerusalem church

Israeli police rushed into Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre to break up fist fights between dozens of Greek and Armenian worshippers on Orthodox Palm Sunday, witnesses said.

Some 20 officers intervened after Armenian worshippers threw a Greek Orthodox priest out of the church, sparking a free-for-all, they said.

Life Preserver

US: New York police on Pope watch snatch river beaver

New York police guarding the United Nations during Pope Benedict's visit on Friday made a rare discovery and rescue -- of a beaver struggling to swim past the world body's headquarters.

Soon after the pope left the United Nations, police harbour and scuba units patrolling the East River spotted the four-foot (1.20 metre) long, 40-pound (18-kg) animal. Beavers have only recently returned to the city with the first sighting of one in more than 200 years made in February 2007.

Magic Wand

Psychics see big trouble over new laws

Fortune-tellers, mediums and spiritual healers marched on the home of the British prime minister at Downing Street on Friday to protest against new laws they fear will lead to them being "persecuted and prosecuted".

priesthnd
©Reuters/Brian Snyder
Priests hold hands at an altar in Salem, Massachusetts

Wolf

Nevada dog finds its way home after a week, 77 miles

Ely, Nevada - A dog that ran off during a road-trip rest stop in north-central Nevada apparently made its way nearly 80 miles across Nevada's high desert and two mountain ranges to return home to Ely a week later.