Saddam’s ghost in Baghdad public areas?

IndiaDaily
In a most bizarre stories ever heard, some people in Baghdad are claiming that they are seeing Saddam’s ghost in Baghdad public areas. Sources say, this may be a plot by the Baathists to keep Saddam ‘alive’ among the Sunni communities.

Some claim he is seen in restaurants, markets and so on. It is possible many Saddam look-alikes are now more prominent and people are mistaking these look-alikes as possible Saddam. It is also possible that Saddam was such a threat that people just cannot believe he is dead and not coming back.

None of these possible ghost sightings are confirmed by any reliable sources or Iraqi authorities.

(Sniff!) Stick ‘em up! (Sniff!)

Link
A man is in police custody in Sacramento, Calif., after his attempt to rob a bank was foiled by his own runny nose.

Sudan Provost, 40, entered a bank in downtown Sacramento Friday afternoon and announced in a low voice that he was there to rob it — but apparently, nobody heard him, the Sacramento Bee reported. Provost then walked up to a teller’s window, indicated he was armed and asked for a tissue. After his tissue request was denied, Provost reportedly walked to a nearby pharmacy, the newspaper said.

When he returned to the bank a few minutes later, police were there reviewing the security camera footage of his earlier visit. He was arrested immediately on suspicion of attempted robbery, the Bee reported.

Don’t do it

Link
“Happy New Year”

Thats the subject line on a new malicious e-mail making the rounds. The sender wants you to click on the attached postcard. The file name is postcard.exe or postcard.zip.

Don’t do it. Don’t open that attachment, even if you recognize the e-mail address. It contains harmful software that will worm its way on to your computer without your knowledge or permission.

Once your computer is infected, it will start cranking out mass mailings to everyone on your address list. In other words, youll become a spammer, sending out Happy New Year postcards designed to infect other peoples computers.

This Happy New Year worm is really making the rounds. By one count, 18,000 of these malicious e-mails are being sent out every hour.

Recent snow is not Denver’s first

More old pictures at this link

Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists

Lots More at BBC NEWS
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope – just as a human child would do.

N’kisi’s remarkable abilities feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine [and he} is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.

About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N’kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

Helpful [but not bright] drunk

Reuters via Yahoo News
German police arrested a man for drunk driving after he mistook a police spot check for a breakdown and stopped to help. Officers inspecting a car by the roadside suspected the 37-year-old passing motorist was under the influence of alcohol when he lurched from his vehicle to offer assistance, police in the northwestern town of Bremen said on Friday.

“Obviously his optical assessment of the situation as he drove past was that this was a vehicle breakdown,” the police said in a statement.

The man was arrested and banned from driving.

……………….

Wonder if their bans work as well as ours.

Spy Numbers Stations Shortwave Radio

Mor
“59372 98324 19043 78903 95320…”. The mechanized female voice drones on and on… What have you stumbled on to? Instructions to spies? Messages exchanged between drug dealers? Deliberate attempts at deception and mis-information?

Chances are, all of the above! What you’ve tuned in to is called a “Spy Numbers Station”. They’ve been on the air for several decades, and only recently have the mysteries started to unfold. But there’s still much we don’t know about these mysterious stations. With the information on these pages, you’ll discover the little that we do know about these stations, what we’re still trying to learn, and how you too can tune in to the spies.

France: UFO sightings are no X-Files

More at CNET News.com
The French space agency plans to publish its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online but keep the names of those who reported them off the site to protect them from the pestering of space fanatics.

Jacques Arnould, an official at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales CNES, said the French database of about 1,600 incidents would go live in late January or mid-February.

Not a good day for a bike ride in Denver

Just shufflin’ along

Link 

IT’S a brilliant feat of design – vacuum shoes which suck up the dust as you walk. The Shoover – which makers Electrolux call the Dustmate – is perfect for anyone who hates housework.

It has a tiny rechargeable vacuum inside the base. And there is a laser movement sensor which switches the suction on and off automatically to save energy. It’s all made of green nylon with a flexible rubber sole and elastic sock to fit any foot making it comfortable to wear.

Electrolux said: “We all have to vacuum our home – this product is designed for busy people who want to keep the housework down to a minimum. Dustmate provides a cleaning solution that doesn’t take up any precious free time. As you walk, the base of the shoes collect dust on the floor without requiring any effort. It is a simple yet creative cleaning concept.”

………………….

Where does the stuff they suck up go? Inside your shoe? In a tiny little bag attached to the back of the shoe? The mind boggles at the possibilities. 

Who? Me? Obssesive?

Ananova

A Lego fan has built a giant model of a US aircraft carrier using 300,000 bricks…When Malle Hawking finished his challenge he ended up with a 4.7m replica of the Harry S Truman reports the Sun.

Malle, 36, of Munich, said: “It was a challenge.”

The real ship is 1,096ft long, weighs 97,000 tons and carries 6,000 crew

What do you do with $50,000 worth of broccoli?

Yahoo News
Someone got way more than the recommended daily serving of vegetables when a refrigerated trailer loaded with $50,000 worth of broccoli was stolen.

The 48-foot trailer disappeared from its rented parking space in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park sometime between Sunday and Tuesday morning, police said.

Detective Ed Zorich said the thief was probably after the trailer, not the vegetables.

Pardon?

Up, up and away!— not

 International Herald Tribune
Brazilian holiday travelers, incensed about an overbooked flight, stormed an airport tarmac to prevent a commercial jet from taking off…

Wednesday’s protest happened after a group of about 30 travelers with tickets from Sao Paulo to the northeastern city of Recife waited more than 40 minutes aboard an airline transport bus outside a Tam Linhas Aereas SA jet at one of Sao Paulo’s two airports, Brazil’s Globo TV reported.

When the crew closed the jet’s door because the plane was full, some of the passengers got off the bus in an attempt to stop the plane from leaving. Police removed them from the tarmac, but the flight was delayed for more than two hours. Last week, Brazilians invaded runways at several jammed airports plagued by delays just before Christmas.

Rubber Sidewalks

More

Mayor Richard M. Daley’s [Chicago] green initiative is gaining ground yet again — this time with two new infrastructure technologies…

Cheri Heramb with the Chicago Department of Transportation said the aim of the initiative is to become the “greenest city in the world.” Chicago is taking one more step toward that goal with new green infrastructure technology.The DOT has kicked off a pilot program to test 550 feet of recycled rubber sidewalk over the next year, right across the street from the Chicago Center for Green Technology on the city’s West Side.

Cheese cam

The Daily Record via Ananova
A round of cheese going slowly mouldy for a year could be a surprise internet hit. Cheese fans can log on to watch the 20kg lump of cheddar mature under a webcam, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Cheddarvision is the brainchild of the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group. And chairman Philip Crawford admitted: “Its better than watching paint dry – just.”

………….

There’s more at the link — if you can stand the excitement.

File under “Butt But wait”

Stuff.co.nz
A digital model of the human buttocks engineered at the university is set to bring new levels of comfort to office workers and wheelchair users.

Masters student Sarah Cox, from the Faculty of Engineering’s Bioengineering Institute, is using advanced computer and mathematical modelling techniques to create anatomically correct virtual buttocks.

Formway, a New Zealand-based office furniture company, approached the university looking for scientific input into chair design.

“The goal is for Formway to have a virtual model of the buttocks to use each time it designs a new chair to predict how the muscles will react,” Miss Cox said.

Good News: We found your luggage. Bad News: In the trash

News
Authorities are trying to figure out how dozens of pieces of luggage belonging to international air travelers ended up in a trash bin behind a Houston [Texas] pet store.

FBI Special Agent Rolando Munoz said 68 pieces of luggage from various international flights were discovered. He said the luggage was turned over to Continental Airlines to sort out. Harris County sheriff’s deputies said the luggage belonged to people who flew internationally on Continental, Lufthansa, British Airways and US Airways, Houston TV station KPRC reported.

Sgt. Dana Wolfe, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which first responded to the luggage report, said tags on the bags showed some of the travelers were going to or from London and Dubai.

Continental spokeswoman Mary Clark didn’t know if the contents of the bags were stolen. She said the airline would investigate along with law enforcement authorities.

Don’t know whether to cheer for him or yell at him. Yell, I think.

Ananova
Peter Davies, who is half blind, was banned from the road last month after neighbours sent a petition to the DVLA saying he was too dangerous behind a wheel. While learning to drive he crashed into a fence, mounted a pavement and parked two feet from the kerb.

After an eye test he was told he was not eligible to drive. Pete’s family in Burry Port, near Swansea chipped together to buy him a £300 pair of special glasses for Christmas. According to the Mirror he said: “They have made all the difference. My last glasses were like bottle tops and so heavy they slipped down. But not these.

“I fully expect to pass my eye test next time and my driving test.”

This guy needs a new career

ScienceDaily:
Maybe a check list would work for one Moscow car thief, who was arrested after the car he stole ran out of gas during rush hour.

Traffic police arrested Alexei Ashurin, 30, during morning rush hour last Thursday after the 15-year-old Volkswagen he was driving ran dry in southern Moscow, police told the Moscow Times. Police said as officers at the scene helped Ashurin push the vehicle out of traffic, they noticed “a screwdriver sticking out of the ignition, and the lock on the door had been damaged.”

The suspect, previously convicted of car theft and drug possession, didn’t even try to offer excuses. Instead, he cried, the newspaper said. His other auto theft conviction bore a resemblance: The brakes failed on the car he stole from a repair shop — where it was scheduled for a brake job.