DC : Life imitates art, art imitates life

[Story]

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Pennsylvania couple far from home and suspected of cutting up a Good Samaritan into pieces were arrested after being found in an abandoned office building just several miles from the slaying.

Police thought Edward Garcia Jr., 36, and his 25-year-old wife, Melissa Hope Garcia, had left Southern California and may have returned to York, Pa. On Friday, a fugitive task force arrested the pair, who were living in squalid conditions in an abandoned office building in Hollywood.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... SECTION=US

[Story]

W.T.F., over?

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/303/829/ ... nimal.html

Note to self : carry more spare rounds, when hunting.
http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz28 ... onster.jpg
... maybe an M79 & half a dozen HEDP.

(See also http://www.geekosystem.com/alien-deer-cam-video/)

[ReHerakhte]

Hey that's a nice collection of items Story!

[Story]

More-famous WTF, DC-appropriate
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r11/ ... ON/WTF.jpg

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More real news, DC-esque

Elephant tails, dried hedgehogs and chicken blood probably weren't on the top of your packing list the last time you traveled. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized all of that and other animal parts and plants from one suitcase at Washington Dulles International Airport. CBP spokesman Steve Sapp said Thursday that the items were taken on Dec. 3 from a 59-year-old man who was traveling from Ghana. The passenger said the items were used for spiritual purposes.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/vir ... z17v072IHt

Dimsdale?

[Story]

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 - the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101219/D9K734E81.html

[Story]

Perfect DC PC/NPC - older hotty redhead with weird pysch ability

'Taxi' star Marilu Henner was featured on Sunday's '60 Minutes' for a reason entirely separate from her celebrity status: The actress, 58, has an ultra-rare ability called "superior autobiographical memory," a status scientists have only designated to a minuscule handful of people around the world.

In short, Henner can remember almost every day of her life vividly and accurately. "A day 10 years ago is as clear to them as yesterday is to you or me," a voiceover explains.

http://www.popeater.com/2010/12/20/mari ... id=webmail

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CHICAGO (STMW) – A man was found apparently crushed to death Monday morning near a trash compactor at a Magnificent Mile address.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/12/20/ ... compactor/

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Documentary shows current problems echo those in 1967 that led to Newark riots
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/201 ... incart_mce

[Story]

One NJ Neighborhood Opts for Private Police Force
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-be ... 41519.html

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Unusual creature slipped into this reality
http://www.wave3.com/story/13731615/mys ... son-county

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According to the National Association of Home Builders, the median size of a new single-family home is around 2,100 square feet. That may seem large, but the median size of a single-family home has been shrinking in the U.S. since 2006. And that’s good news for Jay Shafer.

He owns the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, which builds and sells what are called “tiny houses.” These are the miniature homes that are often super-efficient and insulated. Tiny homes are also generally built on wheels, so that they don’t have to meet the building codes of a house, including a minimum size standard.
http://www.hereandnow.org/2010/12/24/tiny-house-2

[Story]

The Flying Witches of Mexico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG6x3_Ua ... re=related

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E-Waste

Recyclers can make money from selling scavenged metal from electronic equipment, says Puckett, but the process to retrieve usable metals is typically extremely toxic. Workers who remove the metals often have no protective equipment and breathe in high levels of toxic chemicals, which are then released into the atmosphere. And most of the countries where the processing takes place — China, India, Ghana, Pakistan — do not have regulations in place to protect workers or prevent the primitive recycling operations.
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132204954 ... onic-waste

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In all likelihood, Kutcher is just punking the press but it's a good way to illustrate the awakening of a Nomenklatura.

http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment ... story.html

[Story]

As they used to say on Scooby Doo, so much for those meddling kids...

NEW ORLEANS – Eight homeless squatters who died in a fire at an abandoned warehouse where they were trying to keep warm were accomplished musicians and artists who rejected the label "gutter punk," acquaintances said.

Firefighters said they could not tell the ages or genders of those who died Tuesday in the city's deadliest blaze in decades because their bodies were so badly burned. A 23-year-old man who escaped told the American Red Cross he could not get back in to help his friends because of the smoke, agency volunteer Thomas Butler said. The group had been burning debris to keep warm, with temperatures below freezing, authorities said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101229/ap_ ... house_fire

[Story]

Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Saturday that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The birds fell over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/02/132582049 ... t=1&f=1003



Arkansas Game & Fish is trying to figure out why one-hundred thousand fish in Northwest Arkansas turned up dead. They were found along a 20-mile stretch between the Ozark dam and Highway 109 bridge, that's in Franklin County.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/sto ... 01&catid=2

[Story]

Global food prices rose to a new high in December, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. Its food price index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries. We hear from reporters in Egypt, India, and Russia who tell us what that means for people on the ground.
http://www.theworld.org/2011/01/06/glob ... cord-high/


Pivotal websites of the Tunisian government have been hacked by pro-Wikileaks activists. Sites belonging to the Ministry of Industry and the Tunisian Stock Exchange were both targeted by the Anonymous group since Monday.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/3 ... z1AJK3mper

Romanian witches angry about having pay income tax for the first time hurled poisonous mandrake into the Danube River to cast spells on the president and government.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... e-tax.html

[Story]

Haiti earthquake one year on: The squalid tent cities where rape gangs and disease run rife

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1ArUjQNd6

"Monsters are not allowed inside the city limits of Urbana." But that's not entirely true: Monsters are allowed; they just need to be licensed.

The basis for this strange city requirement can be found in an act from 1872, which states that "exhibitions of freaks of nature or monsters" staged for profit within city limits must first receive a license from the city clerk.

Of course, if you were bringing a monster show to Urbana for charity, well, then no license required.

http://www.wgal.com/entertainment/26402172/detail.html

[Story]

Circumstances, dually self-willed and unintentional, have left the father and son homeless. They have been of no fixed address since arriving in York Region not long ago. Edward, 44, from Calgary, Damian, 19, from Mississauga. Bound by blood and familial preservation, they are urban survivalists by design and necessity.

http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/ ... -of-idiots

[Morthrai]

This has to be a prime example of what the filthy rich spend their ill-gotten gains on...

A Billion Dollar Yacht shaped like Monaco

[Story]

Reading music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGoEcIEv3_Y

Federal agents are embedding with homicide investigators in Prince George's County starting this week in a rare move as authorities scramble to react to a string of 13 killings that have occurred already in 2011.

"It is very unusual for us to bring in agents and embed them in our homicide division," said police spokesman Maj. Andy Ellis. "I can't remember us doing that since probably the mid-to-late '90s."

The county has been rocked by news of a homicide spike since New Year's Day. The county's 13 killings exceed the 12 U.S. military deaths that have occurred this year in Afghanistan as of Friday morning.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/mar ... z1B1ylLf4k

True story - I heard more AK47 fire when I lived at the edge of an East Cost city's ghetto in the 1990s than when I was in Iraq. Then again, the gangs back home didn't lob 122mm Katyusha rockets around.

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WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities issued a recall Friday for a brand of Pakistan-made candy called Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars because it turns out the sweets actually are toxic.

Tests showed that the cherry flavoring in the chew bars contained extremely high levels of lead — 0.24 parts per million when the U.S. limit is 0.1.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Nuc ... z1B2upsE00

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Australians trying to rebuild in the wake of Cyclone Yasi have been warned to stay away from cassowaries – huge flightless birds with claws that can disembowel a human – on the hunt for food after their habitat was destroyed by the storm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... birds.html