Grandma's House

Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, has been captured, officials in the Iraqi prime minister's office said on Sunday. Hasan is No. 36 on Washington's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis

Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.

A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed.

The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually.

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River.

G-rated family films earn far more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated.

More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for right-handed people.

A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!

The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds.

Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins.

The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something.

Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.

In 2004, one in six girls in the United States enter puberty at age 8. A hundred years ago, only one in a hundred entered puberty that early.

If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.

In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, and Paul Williams.

Astronauts cannot burp in space. There is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

According to the ASSIST News Service (ANS), the award amounts to a Christian Oscar. ANS reported that "The Passion" took home the $50,000 John Templeton Foundation Epiphany Prize for Most Inspiring Movie while Jamie Foxx's The "Happy Trails" episode of PAX-TV's series DOC won the $50,000 John Templeton Foundation Epiphany Prize for Most Inspiring TV Program.

The Epiphany Prize, ANS explained, is given to the movie and television program that "greatly increases man's love and understanding of God."

Jim Caviezel won the Grace Award for Most Inspiring Movie Performance of 2004 for his portrayal of Jesus Christ in "The Passion."

Chris Thomas, a 20-stone photographic technician from Llanelli, plunged to his death after leaping from a 180ft crane in the car park of a pub in Swansea.

The appalling accident at the Old Barn Inn in Pontlassau, Morriston, was witnessed by onlookers at a family fun day including Chris's girlfriend Helen Perkins, 23, and his parents David and Yvonne Thomas who were filming the jump.

An inquest in Swansea heard yesterday that Chris, who lived with Helen in Canton, Cardiff, weighed 132kg, or 20st 10lb. But an expert investigation discovered that the rope holding him had a maximum load weight of just 90kg, and should not have safely held more than 70kg.

Wharton authorities and officials with the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety said a man in his 50s and a man in his 20s were apparently upset with the food and service at a McDonald's restaurant in Wharton, Texas, at about 2 p.m. Thursday when they made the alleged threats.

Manuela Gomez Ruiz, 74, was transferred out of the main trauma room at the Marian Medical Centre in Santa Maria, California, when Jackson was rushed in suffering from "flu-like symptoms" last week.

Her family claims she was taken off a machine ventilator and her breathing was instead assisted manually by a handpump.

Mrs Ruiz was being treated after having a heart attack but suffered two more that day before she died.

Her daughter-in-law, Anna Ruiz, told ABC News she saw Jackson come into the emergency unit.

"He walked in," she said. "When I saw him, he was walking unassisted."

A new type of organism discovered in an Arctic tunnel came to life in the lab after being frozen for 32,000 years.

The deep-freeze bacteria could point to new methods of cryogenics, and they are the sort of biology scientists say might exist on Mars and other planets and moons.

NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice."

"They immediately started swimming when the ice melted," Hoover told LiveScience, adding that the cryopreserved bacteria were instantly ready to eat and multiply.

The announcement of the discovery Wednesday comes just a day after a team of European researchers said they found blocks of ice just under the surface of Mars near the equator. The Europeans said the ice, between 2 million and 5 million years old, could serve as storehouses for life.

Kelli Davis, 18, had her senior class photo taken in a tuxedo top and bow-tie outfit provided for boys rather than the gown-like drape and pearls provided for girls. The school's principal decided it could not appear in the yearbook because she didn't follow the dress code.

Kelli, a straight-A student with no discipline problems, is a self-proclaimed lesbian. She said she was uncomfortable to have her chest exposed in the photo.

I was testing the children in my Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to heaven. I asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"

"NO!" the children answered.

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"

Again, the answer was, "NO!"

By now I was starting to smile. Hey, this was fun! "Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me
into Heaven?" I asked them again.

Again, they all answered, "NO!"

I was just bursting with pride for them. Well, I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"

A five-year-old boy shouted out, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!"

The men, identified only as an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old, broke into a summer cabin late Wednesday near Kaldred, 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of capital Copenhagen.

As they carried their haul to the car, they were confronted by a passer-by, who witnessed the break-in and insisted that they return the stolen property. To ensure they couldn't get away, the passer-by took the keys from their car, and refused to return them.

"The two young men then called us and said they needed our help getting their keys back," Chief Superintendent Asger Larsen said on Thursday. Police said they were only too happy to help, and arrested them after they confessed to breaking and entering.

Italian news agencies say doctors are preparing to operate on Pope John Paul

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

A A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour.

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.

A cat's urine glows under a black light.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Starfish have no brains.

Polar bears are left-handed.

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

U.S. citizen held in Saudi Arabia charged with plotting to kill President Bush -
A former Virginia high school valedictorian who had been detained in Saudi Arabia as a suspected terrorist was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush.

Get "snippy" with an airlines' ticket agent and you may never see your luggage again.

That's the experience of Dr. Esha Khoshnu, a New Jersey psychiatrist traveling to San Diego to attend a conference.

While changing planes in Phoenix, Khoshnu got testy at a Mesa Airlines ticket counter, reports KGTV news, saying, "If I had a bomb, you wouldn't find it."

Plumondore, a 2001 graduate of Gresham High School, died Wednesday in Mosul after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, according to the Defense Department. Family members said military officials told them he was filling in for another solider during a patrol and probably died because he was in a hatch that left him more exposed than others.

The infant weighed only 24 ounces at birth, and his heart was no bigger than a grape.

Doctors at first thought they wouldn't be able to conduct the complex surgery that included switching the aorta and pulmonary arteries in his heart.

"Jerrick is doing far better than expected, especially since he was originally given no chance of survival." said Maria Lourdes, his mother. "This miraculous surgery has corrected his heart problem. Now I'm just looking at a premature baby. I don't know how to express how thankful I am."

A young punk who tried to mug an 88-year-old picked the wrong man -- his intended victim turned out to be a former boxing champion who knocked the attacker out cold.

"I was visiting a friend's grave when a young, long-haired man came up to me and demanded I hand over my money," said granddad Gerhard Brinkmann of Halberstadt, Germany, who was the country's top lightweight boxer in 1936.

"I told him to come closer if he wanted it and, as he did, I landed a full-force right hook on his chin."

The structure surpasses previous sculptures in size, towering between 50 to 55 feet and spanning 18 feet wide. The mainmast stands 56 feet high, and the foremast stands 52 feet high. Sketches for the ship began in early December, as Eric Clum '08 and Lucas Schlumtz '08 designed various structural parts for use in the ship's construction.

The snow boat is designed with steps up the stern and a removable slide on its side. It will be open to the public throughout the weekend.

Bamse, which means teddy bear, sailed to Britain on the Royal Norwegian Navy (KNM) minesweeper Thorodd in 1940, part of the flotilla that carried King Haakon VII into safety, newspaper The Scotsman reports.

The dog became a favorite with locals as well as Norwegian troops fighting to liberate Norway from abroad. The mascot of the Royal Norwegian Navy, Bamse regularly sailed at the front gun tower of the ship when the Thorodd went into battle, and only left his post when fighting ended, The Scotsman reported.

Norway's Defense web site Forsvarsnett writes that the loyal marine hound rounded up his human shipmates when local bars closed and made sure they made it back to their vessel.

Bamse reputedly knew every pub in town and had his own bus card hanging around his neck on a chain. The St. Bernard soon became so well known in Montrose that bus drivers would just pick him up if they passed him on the road.

The beloved dog had his own helmet made for him to protect him during his battle watch and according to legend, the entire crew of the Thorodd jumped overboard to save Bamse when he once fell into the water.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by American forces in Iraq had been targeted.

He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place and were killed by a bomb, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.

"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.

A newborn was tossed out a car window onto the grass beside a busy street Thursday afternoon, and the car sped off, authorities said.

Investigators were seeking the parents of the boy, whose umbilical cord was still attached when he was found by a woman passer-by. Doctors believe the infant was less than an hour old at the time.

Sheriff's spokesman Jim Leljedal said the woman brought the infant to the sheriff's office. The baby was taken to Broward General Medical Center, which upgraded his condition from critical to serious Thursday night.

It was unclear what injuries the eight-pound, two-ounce child suffered.

The woman who rescued the baby - who was inside a small plastic bag - said she saw a man and woman arguing inside the vehicle.

The baby was thrown from the passenger side, landing three or four feet away in the grass.

No information was released on the baby's identity.

North Lauderdale is about 13 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale.

Prince Charles to marry Camilla Parker Bowles -
Britain's Prince Charles is to marry his longtime partner Camilla Parker Bowles, the prince's office said Thursday.

North Korea acknowledges it has nuclear weapons -
North Korea's government publicly acknowledged for the first time Thursday that it has nuclear arms, and said it is suspending participation in six-country talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The conservative reporter who asked President Bush a loaded question at a news conference last month resigned yesterday after liberal bloggers uncovered his real name and raised questions about his background.

Jeff Gannon, who had been writing for the Web sites Talon News and GOPUSA, is actually James Dale Guckert, 47, and has been linked to online domain addresses with sexually provocative names. He has been under scrutiny since asking Bush how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." The information about Gannon was posted on the liberal sites Daily Kos, Atrios and World o' Crap.

Markos Moulitsas, a San Francisco liberal who writes the popular Kos site, said of Gannon: "He has been extremely anti-gay in his writings. He's been a shill for the Christian right. So there's a certain level of hypocrisy there that I thought was fair game and needed to be called out."

Asked if digging into someone's personal and business activities was proper retaliation, Moulitsas said: "If that's what it took to really bring attention to him, it's one of those unfortunate facts of reality in the way we operate today. It's sex that really draws attention to these things."

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who writes on InstaPundit.com, said the tactics used against Gannon "seem to me to be despicable.

"If I were a member of the White House press corps, I'd be really worried," Reynolds said. "If working for a biased news organization disqualifies you, a lot of people have a lot to be worried about. If being involved in a dubious business venture is disqualifying, I suspect a lot of people have a lot to be worried about. I guess I don't see what all this has to do with his job."

Hampton was attacked July 4 at a bar in Immokalee, a farming town in southwestern Florida. According to prosecutors, she put her hand on Trujillo's shoulder to lead him out of the place when the bartender wanted to close up. Trujillo bashed her with a bottle and kicked her in the head and body when she fell.

While doctors were examining her after the barroom attack, they discovered a brain tumor that could have killed her.

But now biggest Dutch newspaper the Telegraaf made the story public and many Dutch are angry. Several parents of other students on the school have contacted the newspaper and say they are not surprised about what the school did, they think the school is afraid. One of the parents of the two boys thinks the same. "My son had trouble with some of these boys, but now he thinks the school blames him".

But the management of the school denies to have acted out of fear. They say they have merely acted with the security of the students in mind.

Daily news paper Telegraaf now says that their are more schools who ban the Dutch flag. They write that Groene Hart Lyceum in Alphen aan den Rijn already ban the Dutch flag for nearly a year. They deny access to students who have flags on their bags or cloth. The school says they need to do this because of the new social climate. But they say prohibition is a big word, they do it in consent with the pupils...

It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.

The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.

Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

A buffalo that escaped from an auction ended up in a dressing room at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center where it spent a couple of hours staring into a mirror.

The buffalo jumped over a steel panel during the Black Hills Stock Show & Rodeo on Sunday morning, went down an alley and got into the dressing room reserved for visiting sports teams, said Brian Maliske, the civic center's general manager.

The issues that this case raises are very complicated, said Joseph Shedd, chair of the teaching and leadership programs in Syracuse University's School of Education.

It is about more than just a student's right to express their own opinions, he said.
"There is no clean dividing line between a person's opinions and his or her ability to make responsible professional judgments," Shedd said in an e-mail.

He pointed to change in socially acceptable behavior over time to illustrate that standards change. America has evolved from a society in which different genders and different races have been viewed as having different academic ability, Shedd said.

"SU's teacher preparation faculty - and, I suspect, LeMoyne's - will defend any student's right to assert any position, so long as he or she demonstrates an openness to different points of view and a commitment to and respect for every one of the children he or she teaches," Shedd said.

A U.S. appeals court has ruled the IRS cannot compel taxpayers to turn over personal and private property without a federal court order and that taxpayers can ignore the agencies summonses until actual enforcement action is taken.

In the case Schulz v. IRS, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled:

... absent an effort to seek enforcement through a federal court, IRS summonses apply no force to taxpayers, and no consequence whatever can befall a taxpayer who refuses, ignores, or otherwise does not comply with an IRS summons until that summons is backed by a federal court order. … [A taxpayer] cannot be held in contempt, arrested, detained, or otherwise punished for refusing to comply with the original IRS summons, no matter the taxpayer's reasons, or lack of reasons for so refusing.

The appeals court decision [.pdf document] of Jan. 25 stated the federal courts protect taxpayers from an "overreaching" IRS and that the agency must go through the federal courts before force can be applied on anyone to turn over personal and private property to the IRS. Absent a federal court order, the IRS summons amounts simply to a "request," the court ruled, which can be ignored.