From my home town in Tennessee

A dead rabbit may be responsible for neighbors not being very neighborly on Thanksgiving Day.

Monroe County Deputy Jeff McMillan responded to a call about 11:30am Thursday to learn that three neighbors were upset over a dead rabbit.

The names were changed to protect the idiots.

Neighbor #1 complained that neighbor #2’s dog had killed a rabbit in her yard. So she proceeded to throw the dead rabbit across the fence to neighbor #2 when the rabbit hit a tree and bounced into neighbor #3’s yard. Neighbor #3 was then enraged, charging that her children ‘might be infected with some disease from the dead rabbit’.

Deputy McMillan explained the childishness of the whole thing and went on to his next assignment.

After which he investigated thoroughly a dead turkey.

Pass the butter, Bubba

Bubba, left, a 22-pound lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., is in a tank beside your average 1.5 pound lobster at Wholey's fish market. The big crustacean received a reprieve from being dinner, but died after being moved to the Pittsburgh Zoo.

I like the last 4 words

In this photo released by World Wildlife Fund-National Geographic, two Thai fishermen show a 646-pound giant catfish they caught from the Mekong River in Chiang Khong district of Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand Saturday, June 11, 2005. Thai fishermen caught this giant catfish, believed to be the world's heaviest living freshwater fish, but it died after environmentalists and officials negotiated for its release to allow it to spawn, and then was eaten.

That's a PANDA?!

A newly born giant panda, weighing 157 grams (5.4 ounces), in a panda research and protection center in Wolong, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

A place for the Crazies

A Place in the Desert for New Mexico's Most Exclusive Circles
By Richard LeibyWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, November 27, 2005; Page D01
Secret Flying Saucer Base Found in New Mexico?

Maybe. From the state that gave us Roswell, the epicenter of UFO lore since 1947, comes a report from an Albuquerque TV station about its discovery of strange landscape markings in the remote desert. They're etched in New Mexico's barren northern reaches, resemble crop circles and are recognizable only from a high altitude.

The circles etched into the desert match the logo of the Church of Spiritual Technology, a Scientology corporation.

Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology.

(Cue theremin music.)

The church tried to persuade station KRQE not to air its report last week about the aerial signposts marking a Scientology compound that includes a huge vault "built into a mountainside," the station said on its Web site. The tunnel was constructed to protect the works of L. Ron Hubbard, the late science-fiction writer who founded the church in the 1950s.
The archiving project, which the church has acknowledged, includes engraving Hubbard's writings on stainless steel tablets and encasing them in titanium capsules. It is overseen by a Scientology corporation called the Church of Spiritual Technology. Based in Los Angeles, the corporation dispatched an official named Jane McNairn and an attorney to visit the TV station in an effort to squelch the story, KRQE news director Michelle Donaldson said.

The church offered a tour of the underground facility if KRQE would kill the piece, the station said in its newscast. Scientology also called KRQE's owner, Emmis Communications, and "sought the help of a powerful New Mexican lawmaker" to lobby against airing the piece, the station reported on its Web site.

McNairn did not respond to messages requesting comment; an employee said that McNairn was traveling last week, and that no one else from the church would be able to comment.
What do the markings mean? For starters, the interlocking circles and diamonds match the logo of the Church of Spiritual Technology, which had the vault constructed in a mesa in the late 1980s. The $2.5 million construction job was done by Denman and Associates of Santa Fe, but company Vice President Sally Butler said of the circles, "If there is anything like that out there, it had nothing to do with us."

Perhaps the signs are just a proud expression of the Scientology brand. But there are other, more intriguing theories.

Former Scientologists familiar with Hubbard's teachings on reincarnation say the symbol marks a "return point" so loyal staff members know where they can find the founder's works when they travel here in the future from other places in the universe.

"As a lifetime staff member, you sign a billion-year contract. It's not just symbolic," said Bruce Hines of Denver, who spent 30 years in Scientology but is now critical of it. "You know you are coming back and you will defend the movement no matter what. . . . The fact that they would etch this into the desert to be seen from space, it fits into the whole ideology."

Recall if you will that Scientology traces most of mankind's woes to an evil alien lord named Xenu, a galactic holocaust perpetrated 75 million years ago, and, uh, the field of psychiatry. (The latter is a particular concern, as all of America now knows, of movie star Tom Cruise.)
The church maintains two other vaults in California to preserve Hubbard's materials and words, according to Hines and another longtime staff member who also quit a couple of years ago, Chuck Beatty of Pittsburgh.

"The whole purpose of putting these teachings in the underground vaults was expressly so that in the event that everything gets wiped out somehow, someone would be willing to locate them and they would still be there," said Beatty, who spent 28 years in Scientology. Some loyalists are tasked specifically with the "super-duper confidential" job of coming back to Earth in the far-off future, he added.

The billion-year contracts are signed by members of what Hubbard, a Navy lieutenant in World War II, called the church's Sea Organization. The motto of that cadre, according to Beatty and Hines, who said they were both members, is "We come back."

The New Mexico site is about a 2 1/2 -hour drive east of Santa Fe, near the small town of Trementina. The contents of the vault itself are not secret -- they were shown in 1998 on ABC News's "20/20."

"Buried deep in these New Mexico hills in steel-lined tunnels, said to be able to survive a nuclear blast, is what Scientology considers the future of mankind," ABC's Tom Jarriel said in his report. "Seen here for the first time, thousands of metal records, stored in heat-resistant titanium boxes and playable on a solar-powered turntable, all containing the beliefs of Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard."

Other religions preserve their sacred texts. Nothing strange there. Scientology leaders apparently just don't want to misplace theirs, and maybe this is why somebody put the giant circles on the scrubland. Because there's nothing worse than arriving from deep space, and not knowing where to park.

Made in Mexico

WASHINGTON -- The labels inside U.S. Border Patrol uniforms have been making many federal agents feel uneasy.

It's not the fit or feel of the olive-green shirts and pants, but what their labels read: “Made in Mexico.''

Agents and lawmakers are concerned about the consequences if the uniforms for agents charged with combating illegal immigration fall into the hands of criminals or terrorists.

U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, worries about how easy it might be for people to cross the border if they stole a uniform.

Customs officials say they haven't detected any security breaches or misuse of the uniforms.

Strict security measures are in place, including on-site inspections at the Mexican plant.

For more than a year, the shirts and pants worn by agents and inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been made in Mexico.

The uniforms are supplied by VF Solutions of Nashville, Tennessee, which subcontracts its work to plants in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and the Dominican Republic.

Smoker tries to open door in-flight

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A French woman who is terrified of flying admitted in an Australian court Monday that she drunkenly tried to open an airplane door mid-flight to smoke a cigarette.

Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, was placed on a good behavior bond after pleading guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to endangering the safety of an aircraft.

Sellies was traveling on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to the east coast city of Brisbane on Saturday when the incident occurred at the start of a three-week Australian vacation with her husband, the court heard.

She walked toward one of the aircraft's emergency exits with an unlit cigarette and a lighter in her hand and began tampering with the door, prosecutors said. But a flight attendant intervened and took Sellies back to her seat.

Sellies was arrested and charged by police on arrival at Brisbane airport.

Defense lawyer Helen Shilton told the court Sellies was terrified of flying and had taken sleeping tablets with alcohol before takeoff.

Shilton said Sellies has no memory of what happened on the flight and that she has a history of sleepwalking.

But Magistrate Gordon Dean sternly warned the woman: "You must understand, if you are on a plane you must behave yourself."

Sellies, who did not speak in court and was aided by a translator, was placed on a 1,000 Australian dollar (US$734; euro623) bond -- meaning she will have to pay that amount if she commits another offense in the next 12 months.

Worlds Oldest Turtle

CANBERRA (Reuters) -
One of the world's oldest living animals, Harriet the tortoise, celebrated her 175th birthday on Tuesday -- with a pink hibiscus flower cake at her retirement home in northern Australia.

Australia Zoo, where Harriet has spent the past 17 years, says the Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise was collected by scientist Charles Darwin in 1835, although some historians have disputed this.

There is no doubt however over the age of Harriet -- who for more than a century was thought to be a male and named Harry -- and she is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living chelonian, or reptile with a shell of bony plates.

"She would definitely be the oldest living animal on Earth ... I can't see why she shouldn't live till 200," Australian conservationist and television celebrity Steve Irwin, who owns Australia Zoo north of the city of Brisbane, told Guinness World Records.

Transvestites Hoodwink Tourists With Kiss

BANGKOK, Thailand
Thai transvestites are often pretty enough to fool tourists and expatriates into taking them home for the night, but the unwary foreign visitor risks losing his wallet as well as his pride, Thai police warned Monday.

Members of a transvestite gang have confessed to concealing strong sedative pills under their tongues and spitting them down the throats of their victims while kissing, causing them to pass out so they can be easily robbed, police said.

Several years ago, members of another transvestite gang in the eastern seaside resort city of Pattaya admitted they applied strong tranquilizers to their nipples in order to drug and then steal from unsuspecting men.

Can you believe it? They're in Bangkok. . . BANG-COCK!!!

1 Square Inch of Land for Sale at $1,500

SPENCER, Ind.
-- A tiny parcel of land in southwest Indiana is some of the priciest real estate in the world. Owen County officials are trying to sell a 1-square-inch plot of land for $1,500. At that rate, an acre of land would cost nearly $7 billion.

No buyers ponied up for the postage-stamp-sized plot during a tax sale.

"It's too small to plant a flower on," said Peter Dorsey, with the county's mapping department.
The parcel was originally part of a 1.12-acre tract under a separate deed, said auditor Angie Lawson. Officials think the tiny piece of land west of Bloomington was deeded to someone in the 1960s, when people had to own property to use a nearby lake.

First National Bank foreclosed on the property owner's mortgage, which covered the entire 1.12-acre tract, and the land was up for bid at the tax sale. There is a minimum bid of $1,500 for tax sale parcels.

County attorney Richard Lorenz said he wants to find a way for the county to get rid of the land and the responsibility of selling it, perhaps by giving it away.

"Maybe we could donate that 1-inch plot to Owen County Preservations as the smallest land donation in history," Lorenz said.

Iowa Woman Finds Dead Turtle in CoffeeThursday

Hey. . . at least it was dead.


AINSWORTH, Iowa (AP) —
Marjorie Morris just wanted to pour coffee into a canister. What she found in the package of freeze-dried coffee left her shell-shocked.

Morris, 77, of Ainsworth, found a dead baby turtle in the 2-pound package of Folgers coffee last Sunday.

"I thought it was a toy at first," said Morris, 77, of Ainsworth.

Morris said she had been making coffee from the same package for a month before she made the discovery.

"It's a responsibility of the company to check their shipments closer," she said. "It could be much more serious."

Morris said she doesn't plan to file a lawsuit against Folgers.

She said a customer service representative for the company dismissed the find, explaining that because many Folgers plants are based in New Orleans the turtle might have ended up in the coffee as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

Sussane Dussing, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, the company that owns the Folgers brand, said it's too early to say how the turtle ended up in the coffee.

Dussing said she wasn't aware of other similar incidents and that Morris' discovery would be investigated.

Morris, who has kept the turtle, said she would continue to drink coffee, but that she is now a more mindful consumer.

Things could have been worse, she said.

"It could've been a snake."

Stupid costs $23,800,000.00

American artist David Smith's large-scale metal structure 'Cubi XXVII,' seen here, has become the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction, fetching 23.8 million dollars at Sotheby's in New York

Golden Retriever Gives Birth To Green Puppy

A dog breeder in Alhambra, Calif., is mystified after his golden retriever gave born to a green puppy, according to a Local 6 News report.

The green puppy, named Wasabi, was one of four puppies born five days ago.

The dog is healthy and green, according to the report.

Local 6 News showed video of the puppy rolling around with its normal-looking newborn brothers and sisters.

Skeptics said the dog had to be dyed green but the owner said the puppy was born green.
Veterinarians said it is possible for a newborn puppy's fur to be green because the placenta, which is green, rubs off at birth.

Accused 'used head as bowling ball'

A MAN who allegedly decapitated a 17-year-old boy with a tomahawk in a suburban back yard later was said to have played with the teenager's head, rolling it in a paddock as if it were a bowling ball.A chilling videotape showing police interviewing one of two men charged with the murder of transient teen Morgan Jay Shepherd was played in Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday.

Christopher Clark Jones, 22, told detectives in the interview recorded in April that his co-accused, James Patrick Roughan, 25, stomped on Shepherd's head several times before stabbing him with a kitchen knife, then decapitating him. Mr Jones and Mr Roughan are facing a committal hearing on charges they murdered Shepherd and interfered with his corpse.

Mr Jones, who repeatedly broke down and cried during the interview, told detectives the three were "mates" and were drinking at a table in the back yard of Mr Roughan's home in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Sandgate at dusk on March 29.

"We'd all had quite a bit to drink," he said.

An argument erupted between Mr Roughan and Shepherd and both fell to the ground. Mr Roughan then stood and stomped heavily on the teenager's head, Mr Jones said. Shepherd was bleeding profusely and was making a "choking" sound.

Mr Jones said Mr Roughan then ran to the house, returned with a kitchen knife and stabbed Shepherd several times in the back. After severing the teenager's head with a tomahawk, Mr Roughan wrapped the torso in a carpet, dragged it under the house and stabbed it repeatedly with the knife.

"The c...'s psycho," Mr Jones told the two detectives. "He was just so calm about it. It was nothin' to him."

Mr Jones said that next morning, Mr Roughan hugged him, saying, "us Celts should stick together", a reference to their Celtic ancestry. Later that day, with the aid of two other men, Shepherd's body was bundled into the boot of a car and driven to a property at Dayboro, north of Brisbane.

Mr Roughan sat in the back of the car with Shepherd's head in a plastic bag on his lap, Mr Jones said. A shallow grave was dug on the property and the torso buried.

Mr Jones said Mr Roughan laughed as he "bowled the head up the hill, like it was a bowling ball". The hearing was told there were more than 100 knife wounds on Shepherd's body when it was found. Detective Sergeant Craig Williams said most of the wounds were believed to have been inflicted after death.