Arun Kumar was born to disabled parents, beaten by his grandparents, ran away from home, got a job in a garment factory and had all his savings stolen by the police.

He was only 11.

Today, at 13, he shares a cramped, dingy shelter with 63 other runaways and former street kids in New Delhi.

He is one of the lucky ones.

A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff's officials mystified.

Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed.

But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from carrying away the livestock.

Two officers from the Costilla County Sheriff's Office have investigated the mutilations but say they don't know what's killing the calves.

"There's nothing really to go by," said Sanchez, who's ranched for nearly 50 years. "I can't figure it out."

A spokesman for the sheriff's office told The Pueblo Chieftain that investigators doubt a person butchered the calves because there is no blood at the scene.

"I've butchered a cow before and I know what kind of a mess it leaves," Sgt. James Chavez said.

Some in the area believe the mutilations are the work of aliens. An area UFO chaser, Chuck Zukowski of Colorado Springs, has been to the Costilla County pasture to investigate.

He told the paper there have been other unexplained calf mutilations in the area, including three in March. One of the other calves, found dead on a ranch near Trinidad, had its ears removed, Zukowski said.

"We're trying as much as we can to find a pattern," said Zukowski, who runs a UFO Web site called ufonut.com.

Sanchez said he has sold off his 32 remaining calves out of fear more would be mutilated. He hasn't decided how he'll manage the remaining 40 animals in his herd.

"It's a big loss for a small rancher," he said.

When Europeans first encountered turkeys in the Americas they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl (Numididae), also known as Turkey fowl (or Turkey hen and Turkey cock) from their importation to Central Europe through Turkey, and that name, shortened to just the name of the country, stuck as the name of the bird.[citation needed] The confusion between these kinds of birds from related but different families is also reflected in the scientific name for the turkey genus: meleagris (μελεαγρίς) is Greek for guineafowl. The domesticated turkey is attributed to Aztec agriculture, which addressed one subspecies of Meleagris gallopavo local to the present day states of Jalisco and Guerrero.

The names for M. gallopavo in other languages also frequently reflect its exotic origins, seen from an Old World viewpoint, and add to the confusion about where turkeys actually came from. The many references to India seen in common names go back to a combination of two factors: first, the genuine belief that the newly-discovered Americas were in fact a part of Asia, and second, the tendency during that time to attribute exotic animals and foods to a place that symbolized far-off, exotic lands. The latter is reflected in terms like "Muscovy Duck" (which is from South America, not Muscovy). This was a major reason why the name Turkey fowl stuck to Meleagris rather than to the guinea fowl (Numida meleagris): the Ottoman Empire represented the exotic East.

The name given to a group of turkeys is a rafter, although they are sometimes incorrectly referred to as a gobble or flock.

Several other birds which are sometimes called turkeys are not particularly closely related: the Australian Brush-turkey is a megapode, and the bird sometimes known as the "Australian Turkey" is in fact the Australian Bustard, a gruiform. The bird sometimes called a Water Turkey is actually an Anhinga (Anhinga rufa)."

Published in October 1919 when the poet was 53 years old, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" has proved enduringly popular, despite the fact that copybooks disappeared from schoolrooms in Britain and America during, or shortly after, World War 2. A copybook was an exercise book used to practice one's handwriting in. The pages were blank except for horizontal rulings and a printed specimen of perfect handwriting at the top. You were supposed to copy this specimen all down the page. The specimens were proverbs or quotations, or little commonplace hortatory or admonitory sayings—the ones in the poem illustrate the kind of thing. These were the copybook headings.

Kipling had lost his dearly loved son in World War 1, and a precious daughter some years earlier. He was a drained man in 1919, and England, with which he identified intensely, was a drained nation. Though he was no atheist, was in fact a Christian of an eccentric sort, Kipling seems to have found little consolation in religion. From Andrew Lycett's biography:

For spiritual values, Rudyard was still looking for accommodation with Christianity, his instinctive religion. He explained to Haggard [i.e. the novelist Rider Haggard, his friend] in May 1918 that occasionally he felt the love of God but 'that the difficulty was to "hold" the mystic sense of this communion—that it passes.' True to form, Rudyard told his friend that God meant this phenomenon of the soul to be so—'that He doesn't mean that we should get too near to Him—that a glimpse is all that is allowed.' In recording this in his diary, Haggard noted: 'I think R. added because otherwise we should become unfitted for our work in the world.' Rudyard's reliance on Masonry [i.e. Freemasonry] as a prop, as an 'average plan of life,' was clear when, that very same month, he, who had taken little active part in Masonry since Lahore, joined the Correspondence Circle of the Quatuor [sic] Coronati Lodge No. 2076.
At the time he wrote the poem, Kipling was embarked on his two-volume history of the Irish Guards—his son's regiment—in WW1. The project took him three years, and was, he remarked, "done with agony and bloody sweat."

With all this as background, it is hard to disagree with the general opinion that "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" is a clinging to old-fashioned common sense by a man deeply in need of something to cling to.

-- Source

Two Enter. One Leaves.

Do you remember all the scare stories, all the Wall Street Journal editorials, about the degradation of the dollar under Bush? Neither do I.

cappsize

I read (most of) Hetalia: Axis Powers, not really getting most of the jokes (and eventually coming around to the idea that there aren't actually all that many jokes to get). And I'm aware the fandom exists, and it mostly consists of two things;
(1) People slashing entire countries. Rule 34 stopped being shocking sometime during 2006, anyway.
(2) Great. Big. Fucking. Political. Historical. Rampant. WANK!

Neither of which, I particularly concern myself with. I bring it up because I happened to mention on a comm recently that it was such a shame they never included Ireland as England's psycho ex. and also, that they keep making the mistake the Britain and England are the same thing. Nope, England's its own guy and Britain is the flat it shares with its' two roomies, Scotland (the tall, tough badass who can drink you under the table) and Wales (the shy, quiet, poor one who's still a virgin).

Ireland: "Where the hell have you been?"
England: "Busy, okay?! Me and America went over to Afghanistan's place. Trying to fix the place up, and it's taking longer than we'd thought. It's like the guy doesn't even want our help."
Ireland: "Oh, sure, go off gallivanting around! Forget you have responsibilies here! What about our son, huh? What about little Northern Ireland? You're supposed to take him every weekend! It's all I can do to get you to take him for the holidays!"
England: "Hey, I said I was busy, okay!"
Ireland: "Oh sure, goofing off with your BFF America is busy!"
England: "At least he understands me! At least I can leave him alone with Canada and not have to find out he's been blowing him up!"
Ireland: "How dare you! I haven't laid a finger on Northern Ireland in ages! And don't think I haven't been tempted! He's an ugly little funny-speaking loser, just like his father! You know he still uses your money?!? I've been trying to get him to switch to the euro, but oh no, has to use pounds! He gets that from you, you know!"
England: "Like you're one to talk about money, Little Miss Recession! You should hope you don't get your economy back, you'd just drink it, anyway!"
Ireland: "HOW DARE Y-"
America: "Yo, England! Ready to go paintball Iraq's house?! This is gonna be so- ....Heyyyyyy. Who's your cute friend?"
Ireland: "Hello, handsome!"
England: "Oh God!"
America: "England didn't tell me he had such a... picturesque neighbour."
Ireland: "He didn't tell me his friend was so... big and rugged."
England: "Come on, man! Bro's before ho's!"
America: "Hey, watch your mouth! There's a lady present!"
Ireland: "To be sure, to be sure. Oh, begorrah and bless us, all the saints!"
America: "She is so cute! XD"
England: "Dude, she's just putting that on because she knows you're rich! She's only interested in you because you're a superpower! That's why she hooked up with me! She's a fuckin' bitch, man, trust me!"
Ireland: "He so mean to me! And me a poor little famine-stricken orphan."
America: "There, there, it's okay, I won't let him hurt you."
England: "Oh God, again with the fuckin' famine story, Jesus! That was AGES ago! She wasn't even a real country back then! She didn't even have infrastructure! I had to pay for all that!"
America: "Dude, knock it off! I won't tell you a second time."
Ireland: "You're such a gentleman. A real decent nation. We don't get many of those over here."
America: "You think? Everyone always tells me I go sticking my nose where it doesn't belong."
Ireland: "Oh no, it's really nice that someone is that considerate. Do you... invest in a lot of less-developed countries?"
America: "Just the pretty ones."
Ireland: *giggle*
England: "For crying out loud, man! She's a drunken, piss-poor nutsack with an inferiority complex and a violent streak a mile wide! If she were one of your own states, she'd be Alabama!
America: "TO ME SHE'S PERFECT!"
Ireland: "Never mind him. He's just jealous he's not a real superpower anymore like you."
England: "You know her own brother moved upstairs from me just to get away from her?!"
Scotland: "Leave me out of this."
England: "Aw, fine, screw this! You two deserve each other anyway! Here, buy her a drink, she'll let you touch her Shannon airport, go ahead, it's on me! Just don't come crying to me when she tells you she's knocked up with a little terrorism-riddled shithole you'll have to pay to support! Come on, Wales! We're going paintballing!"
Wales: "Ooh mye God, peeple're tolking t'mee, yay!"

'Fat' remark snares Asheville doctor

An Asheville eye doctor said he is prepared to go to court against the N.C. Medical Board if it reprimands him for telling a patient she was fat.

Dr. Earl Sunderhaus, of Asheville Eye Center on Tunnel Road, is awaiting word from the board about any actions it may take against him for making cutting criticisms of a female patient, including telling her she was fat and poking her thigh.

The Medical Board will decide if Sunderhaus overstepped the bounds of professional decency. Sunderhaus could lose his medical license.

"They are chastising me for telling her she should lose some weight because it is raising the cost of health care and it is also bad for her children and she is going to end up with diabetes," Sunderhaus said. "I had to take three days out of my practice and go down to Raleigh, losing income, just because somebody didn't like that I told her that she was fat."

The patient complained that Sunderhaus poked her thigh and told her she was fat, and scolded her as irresponsible for being unemployed and relying on taxpayers to pay for another pregnancy.

"I told her the thick glasses were not going to blind her, she would go blind because of her thick thighs because diabetes is the No. 1 cause of blindness in this country," Sunderhaus said.

( Read more... )

The case could test whether the agencies' ratings are constitutionally protected as a form of free speech.

The lawsuit asserts that Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch were in league with the banks and other issuers, helping to create an assortment of exotic financial instruments that led to a disastrous bubble in the housing market.

"We believe that the credit rating agencies, in exchange for fees, departed from their objective, neutral role as arbiters," the attorney general, Richard Cordray, said at a news conference. "At minimum, they were aiding and abetting misconduct by issuers."

Death plant opens to tourists

The abandoned site of the world's worst industrial disaster is to open as a tourist attraction in India next week.

The move has infuriated the families and victims from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, where thousands died in a gas leak.

( Read more... )

Suspect bailed out by victim's fundraiser money

Vancouver police are looking into alleged improper use of funds gathered from fundraisers that were held after a popular teacher was killed in a hit-and-run incident in September.

According to a story Friday in The Columbian newspaper, some of the money may have been used to bail the suspect in the case out of jail.

Gordon Patterson, 50, died Sept. 15 when police say 18-year-old Antonio Eugene Cellestine hit Patterson from behind in his car. Patterson was traveling by bike south of St. Johns on 41st Street. After the collision, police said Cellestine left Patterson dying near his mangled bicycle.

Patterson was a popular teacher at Hudson's Bay High School in Vancouver. He often rode his bicycle to the school.

Now, investigators think Mallory Ewart used money raised for Patterson's family to bail Cellestine out of jail. Ewart is reportedly Cellestine's girlfriend.

She reportedly organized fundraisers for Patterson's family after his death, including car washes. However, when she gave the money to the family, some of it was apparently missing. This prompted the investigation.

Court records said jail tape recordings revealed Cellestine and Ewart talked about diverting the money from the car wash to pay Cellestine's bail. Investigators also said Ewart talked about the plan on her MySpace page.

The revelation that money was diverted came as a blow to members of First Evangelical Church, which is where Patterson worshipped. It is also across the street from the restaurant where the fundraiser was held.

Twenty-eight people made donations that totaled about $400. But only $190 came back.

"It takes some gall – gall," said Joy Kersteter, a member of the church. "It's very unbelievable that somebody would prey on people that way – to use the situation to help somebody who was the cause of the situation."

Cellestine faces hit-and-run charges in Patterson's death. More recently, he has been charged with marijuana possession and as a minor in possession of alcohol while out on bail.

He is currently back in jail and is being held without bail. His brother also has been arrested in the hit-and-run investigation.

Ewart is scheduled to appear in court next week. She is charged with third degree theft, which carries a maximum of one year in jail. She and Cellestine both had been students at Hudson's Bay.

Vicks nasal spray recalled over bacteria

Kennedy says RI bishop banned him from Communion

PROVIDENCE — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.

He declined to say when or how Tobin told him not to take the sacrament. And he declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop's injunction.

( Read more... )