Interesting News Stories

QUOTE (psammead @ January 30, 2007 12:47 pm)

....ARG. That's just so horrifying.

QUOTE (psammead @ January 30, 2007 01:36 pm)

QUOTE

Unknown to the rest of Greece’s monastic community, the nuns of the Saints Kyrikos and Ioulite convent at Sidi-rokastro near the Bulgarian border had been doing a brisk clothing trade since installing six large knitting machines in the convent ten years ago. They sold to some 25 clothing chains around Greece and often travelled to European capitals to keep an eye on fashion.

I just sent this to Greek Best Friend and she is HORRIFIED. And she also said that this part --

QUOTE

Nuns, considered the very models of meekness and piety in Greece, have almost never been implicated in scandal.

-- is totally true, and that all of Greece is going to freak out.

QUOTE (tothemax @ January 30, 2007 03:18 pm)

Because I have no soul, I have little pity for anyone that thinks its a good idea to wear 3 layers of contacts.

I'm totally with you on that one. In fact, had I been that doctor, I would have been sorely tempted to just let him lose his eyesight, if he was going to be that amazingly fucking stupid with his contacts.

This story sounds funnier than it really is:

Moose avoiding deep snow by walking around in Anchorage

Poor moose! And the worst of the season yet to come.

Finish novel composes entirely of text messages.

A few years ago there was a feature film in Korean (I think) at the London Film Festival that consisted entirely of text messages. So people spent 90 minutes watching a mobile phone with messages (in Korean) appearing on it in real time. To make it even more fun, apparently the phone was slightly at an angle so even if you could read Korean, you couldn't see it properly. That's what I call arthouse.

Could it really be that easy?

QUOTE

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

This is one of the weirdest, creepiest things I have ever read. Under no circumstances should a 29-year-old pass as a 7th grader.

QUOTE (Nerg @ January 31, 2007 11:17 pm)

This is one of the weirdest, creepiest things I have ever read. Under no circumstances should a 29-year-old pass as a 7th grader.

HOLY SHIT. That is really horrific. (And it will probably be on Law & Order: SVU by the end of the year. Stabler is going to be so pissed.)

It's creepy and wrong but - and this might get shot down - he seems to have been treated quite harshly by the judicial system. Obviously I'm not in favour of propositioning 6 year olds but he doesn't seem to have followed up on it so seven years in jail is quite tough (especially from someone who is already really damaged). Has he actually been using his school contacts to pimp kids? He doesn't seem to have actually assaulted any, unless I'm misreading. He does need treatment and to be taken away from the paedophile ring he's part of. Which probably isn't going to happen so potentially he's going to be a danger to kids for another 40 years. But throwing him in and out of prison won't sove the problem. (Not that he would get much in the way of treatment here).

What is a charter school and why are they easier to get into than other schools?

Fuck that is very, very, very frightening.

QUOTE (Lily Rose @ February 01, 2007 07:37 am)

HOLY SHIT. That is really horrific. (And it will probably be on Law & Order: SVU by the end of the year. Stabler is going to be so pissed.)

The "12 year old" went to school in Surprise, Arizona. This is going to be a Lifetime movie of the week. What a mess.

QUOTE (psammead @ February 01, 2007 07:44 am)

It's creepy and wrong but - and this might get shot down - he seems to have been treated quite harshly by the judicial system. Obviously I'm not in favour of propositioning 6 year olds but he doesn't seem to have followed up on it so seven years in jail is quite tough (especially from someone who is already really damaged). Has he actually been using his school contacts to pimp kids? He doesn't seem to have actually assaulted any, unless I'm misreading.

Well, he's described as "a 29-year-old convicted sex offender," so they're probably assuming there's no other reason he would pose as a student, and there's no telling whether he's victimized any new kids or not. It's entirely possible he has, and those kids just haven't come forward. But it's probably the already-convicted element that's causing the severest consequences.

True and I'm not defending the guy but his original conviction (according to the article) was for propositioning kids. And 10 years seems quite harsh for that especially as he was 19 at the time and had been abused himself. It's not like prison was going to do anything to reform him. There does seem a fair amount of evidence of more serious crimes but no other convictions.

While we're in NSFW areas - here's a headline you didn't expect to see!

Happy end to iguana penis saga

Do you think, after the surgery, Mozart asked his girlfriend for a massage with a happy ending?