Twice on the same day, unlucky animals sabotage wires in 2 Midwest cities
ASHLAND, Wis. - It was an unlucky day for two squirrels and hundreds of Midwestern power customers.
Brian Elwood, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, said a squirrel came in contact with an overhead transformer and knocked out service to 177 customers Monday. Power was fully restored in just under an hour, and repair crews found the remains of the "unfortunate squirrel," he said.
By coincidence, another squirrel got into a substation 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich., Monday morning and caused a temporary outage that affected about 1,400 customers in Ironwood and two nearby communities, Elwood said.
The utility takes many preventive steps to keep the curious animals away from lines, he said, but they are one of the leading causes of outages, trailing only severe weather.
"We kind of liken it to anyone who's had a bird feeder and tried to keep the squirrels out," he said. "They find a way."
Rodney Johnson was stuck on an elevator at the city's Enterprise Center, where he works, when the power went out.
"For a couple of minutes there, I wasn't sure if I'd make it to Thanksgiving," said Johnson, who said he is somewhat claustrophobic. "They kept talking to me while they were trying to open it up, though, so that helped."
Once a firefighter opened the door, Johnson wasted no time in getting out.
"I'm surprised I didn't knock him down," he said. - source
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Parents of MySpace hoax victim seek justice
I've been saying it for years now: MySpace will be the downfall of civilization. But not because MySpace is the devil, but because it gives people better access to eachother. And people are stupid.
Here is the article:
The parents of a 13-year-old Missouri girl who hanged herself after a failed MySpace romance — later uncovered as a hoax — say they have yet to receive an apology from the family they blame for their daughter’s death.
“They’ve absolutely offered no apologies,” Ron Meier told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “They sent us a letter in the mail, basically saying that they might feel a little bit of responsibility, but they don’t feel no guilt or remorse or anything for what they did.”
Rather, said Tina Meier, the people are upset with her for going public with their story. Last week, while shopping, she ran into the woman who invented the hoax, Tina Meier said.
“She asked me to stop doing all of this,” she told Lauer. “I told her that we would not stop, that we were going to continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did.”
The Meiers’ daughter, Megan, hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006.
The Meiers have not named the people because they do not want to identify their teenage daughter, who had once been a friend of Megan’s.
After the two girls had a falling out, the mother invented a 16-year-old boy, “Josh Evans,” created a MySpace account for him, and made Megan believe he was new in town and thought she was cool.
‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand’
Megan, a girl who had battled attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for much of her young life, believed him, despite her mother’s warnings to be cautious.
“That was always the talk,” Tina Meier told Lauer, repeating the conversations she had with her daughter: “‘Megan, c’mon, we don’t even know this person. Let’s not get too excited.’ She’d say, ‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand.’ So I did talk to her daily about that. But children at this age, they don’t think that.”
And then the boy turned on Megan, leading a campaign of vilification and online name-calling that ended when Megan took her own life.
For a year, the Meiers kept quiet at the request of both the FBI and local law enforcement officials while they investigated the incident.
Ultimately, investigators told the Meiers that while the hoax was cruel, it was not criminal.
‘Continue to monitor your children’
The case remains open, though, and the Meiers continue to hope that criminal charges can be filed under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.
“We are still continuing on with the fight on the criminal and the civil side,” said Ron Meier.
The family’s story is, Tina Meier told Lauer, a cautionary tale about the trouble that lies in wait for kids on the Internet, a tale made more painful because they had monitored their daughter’s Internet use closely and had talked to her about “Josh” and the events that ended so tragically.
“It was monitored highly,” Tina Meier said of her daughter’s MySpace account. “We had the password. She couldn’t sign on without us. We had to be in the room” when she was online.
They have not filed a civil suit against the people who invented Josh, but are not ruling that out.
And they also want to warn other parents and children to beware of people online who claim to be their friends.
“Continue to monitor your children,” Tina Meier told Lauer. “Take an extra step. Ask the question. Look at their computers, know what they’re doing. To kids, don’t trust anybody online that you do not know is your true friend.”
Tina Meier has said that she doesn’t think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself.
‘Absolutely vile’
”But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year-old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile,” she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, which first reported on the case.
Tina Meier said law enforcement officials told her the case did not fit into any law. But sheriff’s officials have not closed the case and pledged to consider new evidence if it emerges.
Megan Meier was described as a “bubbly, goofy” girl who loved spending time with her friends, watching movies and fishing with her dad.
Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death, her mother said, after striking up a relationship on MySpace with Josh Evans about six weeks before her death.
Josh told her he was born in Florida and had recently moved to the nearby community of O’Fallon. He said he was home-schooled, and didn’t yet have a phone number in the area to give her.
Megan’s parents said she received a message from him on Oct. 15 of last year, essentially saying he didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn’t nice to her friends.
Megan seemed upset
The next day, as Megan’s mother headed out the door to take another daughter to the orthodontist, she knew Megan was upset about Internet messages. She asked Megan to log off. Users on MySpace must be at least 14, though Megan was not when she opened her account. A MySpace spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
Someone using Josh’s account was sending cruel messages. Then, Megan called her mother, saying electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like “Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat.”
Megan’s mother, who monitored her daughter’s online communications, returned home and said she was shocked at the vulgar language her own daughter was sending. She told her daughter how upset she was about it.
Megan ran upstairs, and her father, Ron, tried to tell her everything would be fine. About 20 minutes later, she was found in her bedroom. She died the next day.
Her father said he found a message the next day from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.
Another parent, who learned of the MySpace account from her own daughter, who had access to the Josh profile, told Megan’s parents about the hoax in a counselor’s office about six weeks after Megan died. That’s when they learned Josh was imaginary, they said.
Creator of fake account not charged
The woman who created the fake profile has not been charged with a crime. She allegedly told the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department she created Josh’s profile because she wanted to gain Megan’s confidence to learn what Megan was saying about her own child online.
The mother from down the street told police that she, her daughter and another person all typed and monitored the communication between the fictitious boy and Megan.
A person who answered the door at the family’s house told an Associated Press reporter on Friday afternoon that they had been advised not to comment.
Megan’s parents had been storing a foosball table for the family that created the MySpace character. Six weeks after Megan’s death, they learned the other family had created the profile and responded by destroying the foosball table, dumping it on the neighbors’ driveway and encouraging them to move away.
Megan’s parents are now separated and plan to divorce.
Aldermen in Dardenne Prairie, a community of about 7,000 residents about 35 miles from St. Louis, have proposed a new ordinance related to child endangerment and Internet harassment. It could come before city leaders on Wednesday.
“Is this enough?” Mayor Pam Fogarty said Friday. “No, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s something, and you have to start somewhere.” - source
Here is the article:
The parents of a 13-year-old Missouri girl who hanged herself after a failed MySpace romance — later uncovered as a hoax — say they have yet to receive an apology from the family they blame for their daughter’s death.
“They’ve absolutely offered no apologies,” Ron Meier told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Monday. “They sent us a letter in the mail, basically saying that they might feel a little bit of responsibility, but they don’t feel no guilt or remorse or anything for what they did.”
Rather, said Tina Meier, the people are upset with her for going public with their story. Last week, while shopping, she ran into the woman who invented the hoax, Tina Meier said.
“She asked me to stop doing all of this,” she told Lauer. “I told her that we would not stop, that we were going to continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did.”
The Meiers’ daughter, Megan, hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006.
The Meiers have not named the people because they do not want to identify their teenage daughter, who had once been a friend of Megan’s.
After the two girls had a falling out, the mother invented a 16-year-old boy, “Josh Evans,” created a MySpace account for him, and made Megan believe he was new in town and thought she was cool.
‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand’
Megan, a girl who had battled attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for much of her young life, believed him, despite her mother’s warnings to be cautious.
“That was always the talk,” Tina Meier told Lauer, repeating the conversations she had with her daughter: “‘Megan, c’mon, we don’t even know this person. Let’s not get too excited.’ She’d say, ‘Oh, Mom, you don’t understand.’ So I did talk to her daily about that. But children at this age, they don’t think that.”
And then the boy turned on Megan, leading a campaign of vilification and online name-calling that ended when Megan took her own life.
For a year, the Meiers kept quiet at the request of both the FBI and local law enforcement officials while they investigated the incident.
Ultimately, investigators told the Meiers that while the hoax was cruel, it was not criminal.
‘Continue to monitor your children’
The case remains open, though, and the Meiers continue to hope that criminal charges can be filed under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.
“We are still continuing on with the fight on the criminal and the civil side,” said Ron Meier.
The family’s story is, Tina Meier told Lauer, a cautionary tale about the trouble that lies in wait for kids on the Internet, a tale made more painful because they had monitored their daughter’s Internet use closely and had talked to her about “Josh” and the events that ended so tragically.
“It was monitored highly,” Tina Meier said of her daughter’s MySpace account. “We had the password. She couldn’t sign on without us. We had to be in the room” when she was online.
They have not filed a civil suit against the people who invented Josh, but are not ruling that out.
And they also want to warn other parents and children to beware of people online who claim to be their friends.
“Continue to monitor your children,” Tina Meier told Lauer. “Take an extra step. Ask the question. Look at their computers, know what they’re doing. To kids, don’t trust anybody online that you do not know is your true friend.”
Tina Meier has said that she doesn’t think anyone involved intended for her daughter to kill herself.
‘Absolutely vile’
”But when adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year-old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile,” she told the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, which first reported on the case.
Tina Meier said law enforcement officials told her the case did not fit into any law. But sheriff’s officials have not closed the case and pledged to consider new evidence if it emerges.
Megan Meier was described as a “bubbly, goofy” girl who loved spending time with her friends, watching movies and fishing with her dad.
Megan had been on medication, but had been upbeat before her death, her mother said, after striking up a relationship on MySpace with Josh Evans about six weeks before her death.
Josh told her he was born in Florida and had recently moved to the nearby community of O’Fallon. He said he was home-schooled, and didn’t yet have a phone number in the area to give her.
Megan’s parents said she received a message from him on Oct. 15 of last year, essentially saying he didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn’t nice to her friends.
Megan seemed upset
The next day, as Megan’s mother headed out the door to take another daughter to the orthodontist, she knew Megan was upset about Internet messages. She asked Megan to log off. Users on MySpace must be at least 14, though Megan was not when she opened her account. A MySpace spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
Someone using Josh’s account was sending cruel messages. Then, Megan called her mother, saying electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like “Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat.”
Megan’s mother, who monitored her daughter’s online communications, returned home and said she was shocked at the vulgar language her own daughter was sending. She told her daughter how upset she was about it.
Megan ran upstairs, and her father, Ron, tried to tell her everything would be fine. About 20 minutes later, she was found in her bedroom. She died the next day.
Her father said he found a message the next day from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.
Another parent, who learned of the MySpace account from her own daughter, who had access to the Josh profile, told Megan’s parents about the hoax in a counselor’s office about six weeks after Megan died. That’s when they learned Josh was imaginary, they said.
Creator of fake account not charged
The woman who created the fake profile has not been charged with a crime. She allegedly told the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department she created Josh’s profile because she wanted to gain Megan’s confidence to learn what Megan was saying about her own child online.
The mother from down the street told police that she, her daughter and another person all typed and monitored the communication between the fictitious boy and Megan.
A person who answered the door at the family’s house told an Associated Press reporter on Friday afternoon that they had been advised not to comment.
Megan’s parents had been storing a foosball table for the family that created the MySpace character. Six weeks after Megan’s death, they learned the other family had created the profile and responded by destroying the foosball table, dumping it on the neighbors’ driveway and encouraging them to move away.
Megan’s parents are now separated and plan to divorce.
Aldermen in Dardenne Prairie, a community of about 7,000 residents about 35 miles from St. Louis, have proposed a new ordinance related to child endangerment and Internet harassment. It could come before city leaders on Wednesday.
“Is this enough?” Mayor Pam Fogarty said Friday. “No, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s something, and you have to start somewhere.” - source
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Mental Shed Christmas Classics
Since 2003 I've been using Christmas as my outlet for the release of pent up stupidity.
This happens in the form of ridiculously horrendous Christmas cartoons. The concepts are good, I suppose, but the follow-through is terrible. I blame this mostly on laziness.
I hope to one day find a good animator to work with, but until then I'll be fiddling around on my own, ruining good ideas with the need for instant gratification.
Anyway, I just finished the new site.
This happens in the form of ridiculously horrendous Christmas cartoons. The concepts are good, I suppose, but the follow-through is terrible. I blame this mostly on laziness.
I hope to one day find a good animator to work with, but until then I'll be fiddling around on my own, ruining good ideas with the need for instant gratification.
Anyway, I just finished the new site.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Half Man, Half Tree
Tree man 'who grew roots' may be cured
An Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body has been given hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A.
Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.
The welts spread across his body unchecked and soon he was left unable to carry out everyday household tasks.
Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, Dede has been raising his two children - now in their late teens - in poverty, resigned to the fact that local doctors had no cure for his condition.
To make ends meet he even joined a local "freak show", parading in front of a paying audience alongside victims of other peculiar diseases.
Although supported by his extended family, he was often a target of abuse and ridicule in his rural fishing village.
But now an American dermatology expert who flew out to Dede's home village south of the capital Jakarta claims to have identified his condition, and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.
After testing samples of the lesions and Dede's blood, Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland concluded that his affliction is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers.
Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts.
The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on his hands and feet.
Dede's counts of a key type of white blood cell are so low that Dr Gaspari initially suspected he may have the Aids virus.
But tests showed he did not, and it became clear that Dede's immune condition was something far rarer and more mysterious.
Warts aside, he had enjoyed remarkable good health throughout his life - which would not be expected of someone with a suppressed immune system - and neither his parents nor his siblings have shown signs of developing lesions.
"The likelihood of having his deficiency is less than one in a million," Dr Gaspari told the Telegraph.
Dr Gaspari, who became involved in the case through a Discovery Channel documentary, believes that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been shown to arrest the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV.
"He won't have a perfectly normal body but the warts should reduce in size to the point where he could use his hands," Dr Gaspari said.
"Over the course of three to six months the warts should be come smaller and fewer in number. He will be living a more normal life."
The most resilient warts could then be frozen off and the growths on his hands and feet surgically removed.
Dr Gaspari hopes to get the necessary drugs free of charge from pharmaceutical firms. They would then be administered by Indonesian doctors under his supervision.
Still intrigued by the origins of Dede's peculiar immune condition, the doctor would like to fly him to the United States for further examination, but fears the financial and bureaucratic barriers would prove too difficult to overcome.
"I would like to bring him to the US to run tests on where his immune condition has come from, but I would need funding and to get him a visa as well as someone to cover the costs of the tests," he said.
"I've never seen anything like this in my entire career." - source (w/ videos)
An Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body has been given hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A.
Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.
The welts spread across his body unchecked and soon he was left unable to carry out everyday household tasks.
Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, Dede has been raising his two children - now in their late teens - in poverty, resigned to the fact that local doctors had no cure for his condition.
To make ends meet he even joined a local "freak show", parading in front of a paying audience alongside victims of other peculiar diseases.
Although supported by his extended family, he was often a target of abuse and ridicule in his rural fishing village.
But now an American dermatology expert who flew out to Dede's home village south of the capital Jakarta claims to have identified his condition, and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.
After testing samples of the lesions and Dede's blood, Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland concluded that his affliction is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers.
Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts.
The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on his hands and feet.
Dede's counts of a key type of white blood cell are so low that Dr Gaspari initially suspected he may have the Aids virus.
But tests showed he did not, and it became clear that Dede's immune condition was something far rarer and more mysterious.
Warts aside, he had enjoyed remarkable good health throughout his life - which would not be expected of someone with a suppressed immune system - and neither his parents nor his siblings have shown signs of developing lesions.
"The likelihood of having his deficiency is less than one in a million," Dr Gaspari told the Telegraph.
Dr Gaspari, who became involved in the case through a Discovery Channel documentary, believes that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been shown to arrest the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV.
"He won't have a perfectly normal body but the warts should reduce in size to the point where he could use his hands," Dr Gaspari said.
"Over the course of three to six months the warts should be come smaller and fewer in number. He will be living a more normal life."
The most resilient warts could then be frozen off and the growths on his hands and feet surgically removed.
Dr Gaspari hopes to get the necessary drugs free of charge from pharmaceutical firms. They would then be administered by Indonesian doctors under his supervision.
Still intrigued by the origins of Dede's peculiar immune condition, the doctor would like to fly him to the United States for further examination, but fears the financial and bureaucratic barriers would prove too difficult to overcome.
"I would like to bring him to the US to run tests on where his immune condition has come from, but I would need funding and to get him a visa as well as someone to cover the costs of the tests," he said.
"I've never seen anything like this in my entire career." - source (w/ videos)
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Crazy Rulers of the World
To quote the video, "people are basicly nutty."
Documentary about the bizarre beliefs and experiments of the government, such as the U.S. Military experiment to kill things by staring at them. This video contains excerpts from episode one of "Crazy Rulers of the World", by Jon Ronson. Based on his book, "The Men who Stare at Goats".
Three years in the making, Jon Ronson’s Crazy Rulers of the World explores the apparent madness at the heart of US military intelligence.
With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary - and plain bizarre - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's war on terror.
Crazy Rulers of the World
Here is the full version:
Crazy Rulers of the World Episode 1 of 3
Want more? Go here: Revolution of Truth
Documentary about the bizarre beliefs and experiments of the government, such as the U.S. Military experiment to kill things by staring at them. This video contains excerpts from episode one of "Crazy Rulers of the World", by Jon Ronson. Based on his book, "The Men who Stare at Goats".
Three years in the making, Jon Ronson’s Crazy Rulers of the World explores the apparent madness at the heart of US military intelligence.
With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary - and plain bizarre - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's war on terror.
Here is the full version:
Want more? Go here: Revolution of Truth
Spawn of the Jersey Devil Found
Just in time for Halloween, we present to you The Thing That Came from the Attic.
The unholy demon creature was pulled out of the Crowleytown Schoolhouse in Mullica Township by Doug Laubert, who hasn't the slightest idea of what it is.
"The general consensus is that maybe it's a deformed flying squirrel," Laubert said of the freakish mummy-thing. "Maybe it's a salamander - but it has hair! Maybe it's a chipmunk - but it has a fish tail! When I first saw it, I thought it was a mudskipper - but it has teeth!"
All he knows is that mysterious crypto-creature was found in an area where no one has set foot for at least 30 years. He had punched a hole in a panel to run some TV cable through it, and there it was in all of its glory.
He and his family have thought up some names for the ungodly fish-being, among them "The Spawn of the Jersey Devil" and his nephew's suggestion, "Herman the Vermin."
Press nature columnist Kevin Post chimed in that "Herman" could be a dried up mudpuppy, until he saw the hair and teeth. Other suggestions thrown around included some kind of bat, a rodent, or the Fiji Mermaid.
Whatever it is, Laubert - who, incidentally, is on the ballot next week for a spot as a Mullica committeeman - plans to preserve the tiny gremlin-corpse forever. It will take its place of honor in his collection, he said, next to a dead cat with a glass eye named "Sammy."
So if you see something like this in your own home, whether it's slowly crawling along your floor or simply creeping unseen into your bed in the middle of the night, just try not to look directly into its eyes.
If it starts talking to you, run. - source
The unholy demon creature was pulled out of the Crowleytown Schoolhouse in Mullica Township by Doug Laubert, who hasn't the slightest idea of what it is.
"The general consensus is that maybe it's a deformed flying squirrel," Laubert said of the freakish mummy-thing. "Maybe it's a salamander - but it has hair! Maybe it's a chipmunk - but it has a fish tail! When I first saw it, I thought it was a mudskipper - but it has teeth!"
All he knows is that mysterious crypto-creature was found in an area where no one has set foot for at least 30 years. He had punched a hole in a panel to run some TV cable through it, and there it was in all of its glory.
He and his family have thought up some names for the ungodly fish-being, among them "The Spawn of the Jersey Devil" and his nephew's suggestion, "Herman the Vermin."
Press nature columnist Kevin Post chimed in that "Herman" could be a dried up mudpuppy, until he saw the hair and teeth. Other suggestions thrown around included some kind of bat, a rodent, or the Fiji Mermaid.
Whatever it is, Laubert - who, incidentally, is on the ballot next week for a spot as a Mullica committeeman - plans to preserve the tiny gremlin-corpse forever. It will take its place of honor in his collection, he said, next to a dead cat with a glass eye named "Sammy."
So if you see something like this in your own home, whether it's slowly crawling along your floor or simply creeping unseen into your bed in the middle of the night, just try not to look directly into its eyes.
If it starts talking to you, run. - source
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