funny pictures and bizarre news

2007: A biotechnology company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, breeds cattle that are immune to mad cow disease. A relieved beef industry pours funding into the lab.2008: Mad-cow-immune cows become the standard for livestock, but it is discovered that their prion-resistant brains have given them a primitive, sinister intelligence. Farmhand kickings, rodeo clown gorings and milkmaid stompings rise 400 percent. A few of the cows escape into the wild, making capture difficult. The government decides to sow biogenetically engineered grasses in their grazing areas, grasses that will release deadly spores into their systems.

2009: The genetically engineered grass spores fuse symbiotically with the musculature of the cows, giving them enhanced strength, increased endurance and possibly X-ray vision. These evil veg-cows begin to harass South Dakotan suburbs. Deciding to give genetic engineering a rest, the Department of Homeland Security instead creates a small army of cybernetically enhanced cougars to track and hunt the super-cows.

2010: The cybercougars are able to take out nearly all the veg-cattle except for a few pockets of resistance. They then turn their attention to the human population. Cybercougars spread throughout Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Omaha is evacuated and falls to the cougars, and all major cities in Wyoming are abandoned, to the extent that Wyoming has major cities. Government forces are unable to restore order, and the president orders non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse bombs to be fired into much of the Midwest, hoping to disable the robotic predators.

2011: The electromagnetic pulses take out only about half the cougars, but interrupt the electric grid from Utah to Kentucky. Half the population of the United States is in darkness, and the cougars prey on those who dare leave their homes, batting their bodies around for hours in a grim mockery of adorable kitten posters. The military authorizes the construction of tens of thousands of units of exoskeletal battle armor, the most powerful personal armament ever constructed, in order to take back the Midwest.

2012: The battle armor is stolen from a secret research laboratory by a well-organized group of militant swingers, who use it to take over the state of Nevada, rechristening it the Progressive Republic of Swapovia. The cougars spread into Idaho, Washington and Oregon. The government reveals the existence of a secret cloning and neurotransfer program designed to replicate important celebrities. A special forces unit made up of clones of Dr. Phil is airlifted into Nevada with the goal of talking the Swapovians into a life of monogamy and weight loss.

2013: The Dr. Phil clones, on the verge of a negotiations breakthrough, suddenly contract a virus to which they are all genetically susceptible. In a desperate move, they are all given an untested super-antibiotic.

2014: An antibiotic-resistant form of the Dr. Phil virus assails the general public. This disease affects not only Dr. Phil, but any professional advice-giver. Columnists, life coaches and bartenders alike fall to the virulent disease. Without sound advice, wives are unable to leave their deadbeat husbands, teenagers are not warned against drunk driving, and nobody knows how to fix that knocking noise their ‘87 Grand Am makes when it gets rainy. American civilization collapses. Chicago is in flames. Boston is reduced to rubble. Los Angeles is somewhat less pleasant than it used to be.

2015: Aliens stop by Earth because they heard the Western Hemisphere was a good place to pick up a burger and a microbrew cheap. Disappointed in their quest, they extinguish the sun on their way out of the solar system, partially because they come from a vindictive planet, and partially because one of them got a sun extinguisher for his birthday and wanted to try it out. As the Earth enters an eternal freeze that no form of life will survive, America’s global approval rating goes down by another 4 percent.

Three more skulls have been found near the home of an Indian businessman and servant arrested for alleged multiple rape and murder, Indian media say.The discovery could bring the number of bodies found in Noida, a suburb of the capital Delhi, to 20. Reports quoted Central Bureau of Investigation detective, who took over amid anger at local police inaction. The CBI has not confirmed the new find.

Angry locals are continuing to hold a vigil outside the suspect’s home. Businessman Maninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surendra Koli are being questioned over the murders.

Lie detector test

Local media quoted CBI detectives as saying they had found the three skulls while searching drains near the home on Saturday night. However it was unclear if they belonged to the suspected 17 victims already discovered, or added to the number.

The Hindustan Times said a bag containing human body parts, bones and clothes was also pulled from the drain. CBI spokesman G Mohanty refused to comment on developments when contacted by the BBC. Residents say as many as 40 children have disappeared in the area over the past two years.Parents of some of the missing children are holding a vigil at the home, shouting “killers, killers” and demanding those guilty be executed.

The two suspects were arrested two weeks ago and are being held on suspicion of multiple abduction, rape and murder. The CBI was granted the custody of the accused on Thursday for 14 days. The accused have undertaken lie detector tests. The crime has shocked the country with many people accusing the local police of negligence and dereliction of duty. Many locals say police failed to act over the abductions and murders because many of those reported missing came from poor families.

Six Noida policemen have been sacked for alleged incompetence. Three senior officers are suspended.

Investigators who made the incredible discovery of two kidnapped boys in a tiny apartment turned Saturday from euphoria to some troubling questions.

What could have motivated the suspect? How did he treat the boys? And how was he able to keep them hidden in plain sight just an hour’s drive from their hometowns — one for four days, the other for four years?

“It’s hard to believe that somebody could be that brazen,” said Craig Akers, whose stepson Shawn Hornbeck was abducted in 2002 at age 11. “This has been going on four years, and he’s been right under our nose the whole time.”

In back-to-back news conferences Saturday, parents of the now-15-year-old Hornbeck and 13-year-old Ben Ownby told of an outpouring of hugs, kisses and “I love yous” following the discovery in this St. Louis suburb Friday that they described as nothing short of a miracle.

The sons smiled often by their parents’ sides but were told not to answer questions. Police said they could not discuss details of their investigation of 41-year-old Michael Devlin, who was jailed on $1 million bond on a kidnapping charge and could face more charges before an arraignment later this week.

Neighbors in the two-story, brick apartment complex said Devlin, a burly, 300-pound man with wire-rimmed glasses and a beard, hardly appeared to be keeping secrets. He had lifelong ties to this middle-class suburb of 26,000, family in the area and apparently no criminal record beyond a pair of traffic fines. He was often seen coming and going from his jobs at a pizza parlor and a funeral home, and nothing seemed odd about a teenager seen hanging around his place.

Others said Devlin said little and stayed to himself — unless someone took the parking spot he preferred. Last fall, when Rob Bushelle pulled into the unassigned spot, Devlin pulled next to him and became irate, threatening to call police.

The landlord at the apartment, Bill Romer, said he was in the apartment once to fix a plumbing problem and saw the teen, apparently Hornbeck, sleeping.

“As far as I knew, that was his son living with him,” Romer said. “The kid’s bedroom didn’t even have curtains on the windows.”

Rick Butler, 43, who lives across the street, said he saw no evidence that the boy was scared or trying to get away. He even saw Devlin and the teen pitch a tent outside in the complex, which sits near railroad tracks and Interstate 44 in a working-class section of well-to-do Kirkwood.

“I didn’t see or hear anything odd or unusual from the apartment,” Butler said. “I just figured them for father and son.”

Last fall, Butler said he found a cell phone outside, called a number on it and the teen came outside to retrieve it.

“Thanks a lot for the phone,” he recalled the boy saying.

Alma Rodriguez often saw the teenager riding his bike in the parking lot behind the complex. Her husband, Mario, sometimes saw him throwing a football with another boy. Hornbeck did not attend school during his time in captivity, his stepfather said.

Harry Reichard, 33, who lives in the apartment directly above Devlin’s basement apartment, said he would hear arguing and banging noises at all hours coming from the apartment.

At the Bopp Chapel funeral parlor, where Devlin worked a twice-a-week shift answering phones, he was described as a punctual but quiet worker who never discussed his private life.

“I can’t tell you the feeling here,” said funeral director Chris Roth. “Complete excitement for the boys being found to shock that it was him.”

The Devlin family released a statement through their attorneys Saturday expressing gratitude to law enforcement for returning the boys safely to their families.

“Speaking on behalf of the Devlin family, these past few days have been incredibly difficult,” the statement read. “This is not to diminish the anguish that Craig and Pam Akers have felt over the previous 4 1/2 years — or the Ownby family over the last 4 1/2 days.

“Just as we are relieved that both Ben and Shawn are now safe, we hope that Michael will be safe as the facts of his case are revealed.”

At Imo’s Pizzeria, where Devlin was a manager, an employee who did not want to be identified told the newspaper that a boy called the restaurant Friday afternoon looking for Devlin, who was being questioned by the

FBI at the time. The worker noticed on the caller ID that the call came from Devlin’s home. The boy told him, “I’m Shawn Wilcox. My father is a friend of Mike Devlin.”The case recalls the improbable survival of Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City teen taken for nine months by a religious zealot. After her return, many questioned why she didn’t flee her captors, despite many apparent chances at freedom.

Stephen Golding, a forensic psychologist who examined the suspect in the Smart case, said captors often establish control over their victims through fear.

“People are led to believe, through someone taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, that leaving is not an option, that things will get worse for them or will get worse for others,” Golding said.

Both boys were abducted from rural areas of eastern Missouri, both about an hour from metro St. Louis. Hornbeck disappeared Oct. 6, 2002, while riding his bike in Richwoods in Washington County. Ownby was taken soon after getting off a school bus Monday afternoon in the Franklin County town of Beaufort, a beat-up white pickup seen by a schoolmate the only real clue.

On Thursday night, police in Kirkwood, an upper middle class suburban town, noticed a truck matching the description while serving an unrelated warrant at a nearby apartment.

When FBI agents walked into a suburban St. Louis apartment a day later, 13-year-old Ownby asked them, “Are you going to take me home?”, and another teenager in the modest dwelling identified himself as Hornbeck — reported missing 4 1/2 years ago.

“Obviously it was quite euphoric,” FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said Saturday.

Hornbeck’s parents dealt with their grief over the years by devoting themselves to bringing missing people home. Having their son back, they said at a news conference, was evidence for parents of other missing children to never give up hope.

“I still feel like I’m in a dream, only this time it’s a good dream, not the nightmare I’ve had four-and-a-half years,” said his mother, Pam Akers.

Hornbeck’s stepfather, Craig Akers, said he and his wife were in disbelief when they were reunited with the boy.

“There was that split second of shock,” he said. “Once I saw the face, I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s my son.’”

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, about 58,000 children are the victims of non-family abductions. The vast majority of those children are returned safely.

An average of 115 cases, however, involve children taken by non-family members for long periods, put up for ransom or killed by their abductors. Of that number, about 60 come home safely, said center spokeswoman Joann Donnellan.

But what makes the boys’ case rare, Donnellan said, is the fact that a single abductor took multiple children. The case was made rarer still by the length of Hornbeck’s captivity, Donnellan said.

At the news conference in an elementary school adorned with balloons and welcome-home signs, the shaggy-haired Hornbeck smiled sheepishly, his mother’s arm draped around him.

At the other news conference, Ben Ownby grinned broadly as his mother recalled that soon after his return home, Ownby immediately went to the computer to play video games.

“We’re just ecstatic,” Doris Ownby said. “Don’t want to let him go out of our sight.”

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The Pentagon and to a lesser extent the CIA have been using a little-known power to look at the banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage within the United States, officials said Saturday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Saturday the Defense Department “makes requests for information under authorities of the National Security Letter statutes … but does not use the specific term National Security Letter in its investigatory practice.”

Whitman did not indicate the number of requests that have been made in recent years, but said authorities operate under the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the National Security Act.

“These statutory tools may provide key leads for counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations,” Whitman said. “Because these are requests for information rather than court orders, a DOD request under the NSL statutes cannot be compelled absent court involvement.”

“It is our understanding that the intelligence community agencies make such requests on a limited basis,” said Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the Office of the National Intelligence Director, which oversees all 16 spy agencies in the government.

The national security letters permit the executive branch to seek records about people in terror and spy investigations without a judge’s approval or grand jury subpoena.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Whitman said Defense Department “counterintelligence investigators routinely coordinate … with the FBI.”

The national security letters have prompted criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who claim they invade the privacy of Americans’ lives, even though banks and other financial institutions typically turn over the financial records voluntarily.

The New York Times reported on expanded use of the technique by the Pentagon and CIA in an article posted Saturday on the Internet.

The vast majority of national security letters are issued by the FBI, but in very rare circumstances they have been used by the CIA before and after 9/11, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

The CIA has used these non-compulsory letters in espionage investigations and other circumstances, the official said.

“It is very uncommon for the agency to be issuing these letters,” the official said. “The agency has the authority to do so, and it is absolutely lawful.”

Another government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said one example of a case in which the letters were used was the 1994 case of CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who eventually was found to have been selling secrets to the Soviet Union.

None of the officials reached by the AP commented about the extent of use by the Defense Department agencies, but the Times said military intelligence officers have sent the letters in up to 500 investigations.

Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby disappeared 4 1/2 years and 40 miles apart. Police were stunned to find both boys — alive and apparently well — in the same suburban St. Louis apartment.

The shocking development Friday was hailed as a miracle in two rural Missouri communities — Richwoods, where Shawn was 11 when he disappeared on Oct. 6, 2002 — and Beaufort 40 miles to the north, where Ben, 13, hadn’t been seen since getting off a school bus Monday afternoon.

A routine search warrant led police to investigate the Kirkwood, Mo., apartment dweller, Michael Devlin, 41, an Imo’s Pizza manager and part-time funeral home worker. He was charged with first-degree kidnapping and held in the Franklin County Jail on $1 million bond.

An elated Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke, who headed the search for Ben, began a news conference Friday by telling reporters, “We have some good news and we have some probably unbelievable news.”

The key to finding the boys was a beat-up white pickup truck spotted by a schoolmate of Ben’s who got off the bus at the same time. The friend saw the pickup speeding away about the time Ben vanished from the gravel road near his home.

On Thursday night, Kirkwood city police officers were serving a warrant on an apartment complex when they noticed a white truck matching the description. They contacted the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and determined where the owner of the truck was, then searched Devlin’s home Friday and found the boys.

After being reunited with their families, both boys were taken to SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis for evaluation. Hospital spokesman Bob Davidson said both were in good spirits.

“The boys were smiling and appeared very pleased to be with their families,” Davidson said. “Obviously the families were incredibly tickled to have the boys back. It’s a thrilling night.”

Ben’s uncle, Loyd Bailie, told The Associated Press he was escorted to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department with Ben’s parents. He said Ben was delighted when he saw his parents.

“His eyes lit up like silver dollars,” Bailie said.

Everyone broke into tears and Ben’s parents embraced him as tightly as they could, Bailie said.

Ben seemed in good health, but was hungry. Sheriff’s deputies brought in sandwiches and a honey bun and Ben instantly devoured the sweet, Bailie said.

In Kirkwood, law enforcement officials congregated outside the modest brick apartment where Devlin lived. Temporary lights and trailers were set up in the apartment complex courtyard as a cold, driving rain fell.

There were no immediate details about what was inside the apartment, or how the boys might have been detained.

A neighbor, Rick Butler, 43, said the

FBI came to his door Thursday night and showed a picture of Ben, asking if he had seen him. He said he had not. But he had seen a boy he now believes was Hornbeck.He said he saw no evidence that the boy now believed to be Hornbeck was scared or trying to get away. He had seen Devlin and the teen pitch a tent in the courtyard. On another occasion, he found the boy’s cell phone and returned it to him.

“I didn’t see or hear anything odd or unusual from the apartment,” Butler said. “I just figured them for father and son.”

The two disappearances had similarities. Both boys seemed to vanish without a trace, both from quiet rural areas. Richwoods is about 50 miles southwest of St. Louis, in Washington County. Beaufort is about 60 miles from the city, and about 40 miles north of Richwoods.

Shawn Hornbeck, now 15, disappeared from his rural home when he was 11. He went for a bike ride and never returned. His parents, dozens of volunteers and sniffer dogs searched for weeks. The couple set up a Web site and listened to anyone who offered a tip.

In the years since, Shawn’s parents, Pam and Craig Akers, devoted themselves to missing child cases. They were reunited with their son in Union, the Franklin County seat and where the sheriff’s department is.

Craig Akers, Shawn’s stepfather, quit his job as a software designer to devote his time to a foundation bearing his son’s name. They depleted their savings, borrowed against their retirement and talked to psychics. The financial strain forced both of them back to work.

On the anniversary of the disappearance in October, Pam Akers said, “It’s been four years. But for me, it’s just been one long continuous day.”

Toelke said authorities were still investigating the motive behind the abductions. Franklin County Prosecutor Robert Parks said more charges are likely.

“There are a lot of things we don’t know right now,” Toelke said.

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Dubbed “style-free and fashion deprived,” Britney Spears and Paris Hilton tied for the No. 1 spot on Mr. Blackwell’s 47th annual “Worst Dressed” list released Tuesday.

“Two peas in an overexposed pod,” Blackwell said of the skimpy attire worn by the two celebutantes he called the “Screamgirls.”

Some of Blackwell’s nastiest words were reserved for Camilla Parker-Bowles, a member of the British royal family, who finished No. 2 on the list.

“The Duchess of Dowdy strikes again,” wrote Blackwell. “In feathered hats that were once the rage, she resembles a petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age. A royal wreck.”

Blackwell, no longer an active designer but still an acid-tongued critic of celebrity fashion, aimed his poison pen at Hollywood, with young entertainers dominating the list.

At No. 3 was actress Lindsay Lohan, scolded by Blackwell for turning “from adorable to deplorable.”

Christina Aguilera was also in Blackwell’s fashion hall of shame. He called her a “dazzling singer” but added that she “puts good taste through the wardrobe wringer. All crass and no class.”He referred to Mariah Carey as “Mariah the fashion pariah … the queen of catastrophic kitsch,” and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul as “a fallen fashion idol.”

He said actress Sharon Stone resembles “an over-the-hill Cruella DeVille,” and Tori Spelling embodies “down and out in Beverly Hills.”

“Grey’s Anatomy” star Sandra Oh was faulted for too many beads and bangles. “She’s layered lunacy from head to toe,” Blackwell said.

Meryl Streep, who starred in the fashion-themed movie, “The Devil Wears Prada,” came in at No. 10 on the annual dis-list.”From Streep you could weep,” Blackwell said. “Her beauty of a career cannot be denied, but that beast of a wardrobe is pure mother of the bride.”

On a kinder note, Blackwell offered his 10 “fabulous fashion independents” — actresses Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie and Helen Mirren, singers Barbra Streisand and Beyonce, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Princess Charlotte of Monaco, model Heidi Klum and actresses Katie Holmes and Marcia Cross.

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Below are some of the best political videos I have found:

The David Zucker Albright Ad

War In Iraq

Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered. The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It’s the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star “Lucy” after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Twinkle twinkle

“You would need a jeweller’s loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond,” says astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team of researchers that discovered it.

The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa which resides in the British Crown Jewels.

The huge cosmic diamond - technically known as BPM 37093 - is actually a crystallised white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon.

For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallised, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently.

The white dwarf is not only radiant but also rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulsations.

“By measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth.

“We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy’s largest diamond,” says Metcalfe.

Astronomers expect our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun’s ember core will crystallise as well, leaving a giant diamond in the centre of the solar system.

“Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever,” says Metcalfe.

“A teaspoon-sized, white dwarf diamond, will weigh five tonnes”

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Police and family members said a 10-year-old boy who died by hanging himself from a bunk bed was apparently mimicking the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Sergio Pelico was found dead Sunday in his apartment bedroom in the Houston-area city of Webster, said Webster police Lt. Tom Claunch. Pelico’s mother told police he had previously watched a news report on Saddam’s death.

“It appears to be accidental,'’ Claunch said. “Our gut reaction is that he was experimenting.'’

An autopsy of the fifth-grader’s body was pending.

Julio Gustavo, Sergio’s uncle, said the boy was a happy and curious child.

He said Sergio had watched TV news with another uncle on Saturday and asked the uncle about Saddam’s death.

“His uncle told him it was because Saddam was real bad,'’ Gustavo said. “He (Sergio) said, ‘OK.’ And that was it.'’

Sergio’s mother, Sara Pelico DeLeon, was at work Sunday while Sergio and other children were under the care of an uncle, Gustavo said. One of the children found Sergio’s body in his bedroom.

Police said the boy had tied a slipknot around his neck while on a bunk bed. Police investigators learned that Sergio had been upset about not getting a Christmas gift from his father, but they don’t believe the boy intentionally killed himself.

Clinical psychologist Edward Bischof, of California, said children Sergio’s age mimic risky behaviors they see on TV - such as wrestling or extreme sports - without realizing the dangers. He said TV appeared to be the stimulant in Sergio’s case.

“I would think maybe this kid is trying something that he thinks fun to act out without having the emotional and psychological maturity to think the thing through before he acts on it,'’ Bischof said.

Family members held a memorial for the boy Wednesday in the apartment complex activity center. Gustavo said the family is trying to put together enough money to send Sergio’s body to Guatemala for burial.

“I don’t think he thought it was real,'’ Gustavo said of Saddam’s hanging. “They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?'’

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