Snakes Alive
Topic: animals
An Idaho couple's fixer-upper turned out to be more snake pit than money pit. Turns out Lyman and Jeanine Hepworth's recently purchased chunk of surreal estate doubles as a winter snake sanctuary, where reptiles gather to hibernate during the winter. "When it warmed up, we walked onto the yard and the whole yard moved," Jeanine told the Standard Journal of Rexburg, Idaho. The snakes -- most likely terrestrial garters -- took over the place and, because it's illegal to kill them, the Hepworths are stuck paying the mortgage on creepy-crawly accommodations they can't move into. Instead, they're seeking reptile relief from a TV show, Extreme Home Makeover. Guess nobody told 'em about the snakes in the showbiz industry.

Widow Leases Phones for 42 Years
An Ohio woman spent thousands of dollars leasing two rotary phones over the course of four decades. Ester Strogen and her late husband first got their hands on the rotary-dial devices in 1964, and the Canton couple never saw a reason to cancel the contract, The Repository reports. But now Strogen's granddaughters are buzzing mad, estimating that their 82-year-old granny rang up more than $14,000 in payments on the phones over the years.  But Lucent Technologies says they've got the wrong number -- the $29.10 fee was charged quarterly, not monthly, so Strogen paid only about $2,000 over the lease's lifetime, according to the telephone company. Now that the granddaughters are on the case, the black rotary dinosaurs have been replaced by push-button phones. And that makes Strogen sad. "I'd like to have my rotary back," she said. "I like that better."

The Other Puppy Chow

In the United States, hot dogs are a popular summertime treat. In North Korea, people wolf down actual dogs to help them get through hot summer days. Widely consumed as a "stamina food" in the country, "sweet meat" (as dog meat is known there) is valued for the vitamins it contains, and supposedly can help battle digestion problems and fatigue, reports the Choson Sinbo newspaper. But its reputation as a beauty aid has women increasingly flocking to canine meat for its supposed benefits. "Customers get convinced about the efficacy of sweet meat when they see the skin of our employees and cooks," said Ryu Jong Mok, 47, the chef of a Pyongyang dog-meat restaurant whose skin the paper described as "resilient and fine."

China Texts Typhoon Warning

 

Cell phones are so common in China that authorities used text messages to warn millions of residents of the impending landfall of Typhoon Kaemi, the Associated Press reported. "Typhoon forecast to make land this evening near Jinjiang," said the message sent to millions of mobile phones in the coastal city and surrounding Fujian province. "Please attend to preparations." In Fujian, authorities have sent 18 million SMS messages with storm information during five typhoons this year, according to the provincial government. The system is still new, and residents contacted Thursday said they already knew Kaemi was coming before getting the messages and didn't do anything differently because of them.

 

Tour de France Winner Flunks Drug Test

American Floyd Landis' Tour de France victory is in question after his team, Phonak, said he tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race. The team suspended Landis, pending results of the backup sample of his drug test, according to the Associated Press. His dodgy test results came after stage 17, the Alpine stage when Landis made a remarkable comeback, racing far ahead of the field for a solo win that moved him from 11th to third in the overall standings. He was wearing the leader's yellow jersey two days later. Landis rode the Tour with a degenerative hip condition that will require surgery in the coming weeks or months and was possibly taking pain meds, his mother says. The positive test results could be from a natural process or a mistake -- apparently the backup test will tell.
 

Scotty Heads for Final Frontier

The mortal remains of actor James Doohan, best known for his portrayal of Star Trek's miracle-working chief engineer "Scotty," will take a rocket ride into space this October, Reuters reports. Capsules containing Doohan's ashes -- as well as the remains of about 100 other people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper -- will make a quick trip into zero-gravity space, then return to Earth, said Susan Schonfeld, spokeswoman for Space Services, the company that will conduct the launch. After returning to Earth, Doohan's ashes will make another flight planned for early 2007, with the remains orbiting the planet for several years before burning up upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. A public memorial service near Spaceport America, the New Mexico launch site, will offer fans an opportunity to say goodbye to the man whose character kept the Enterprise going against all odds. Doohan died last year at age 85.

SMS Evacuation: How Swede It Is

Sweden turned to text messaging to help get its citizens safely out of war's-a-poppin' Lebanon, and other countries are hailing the evacuation as a "model of order," according to Swedish news site The Local. "In the last week we have sent out five text messages to everyone in Lebanon who is registered with a Swedish mobile network," said Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman Nina Ersman. The SMS barrage kept Swedes up-to-date with the latest evacuation plans. All Swedish citizens made it safely out of Beirut, said Ersman, although more than 100 remain in southern Lebanon, where the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is most intense. Calling the evacuation "enormously hard work," Ersman said that despite the effectiveness of the SMS-fueled operation, Swedish officials still weathered a bit of criticism. "Almost 5,000 people, who are all in a state of anguish, have been evacuated from a war zone," she said. "Of course there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion."

Give the Man His Diet Coke
Now Playing: "Part Man, Part Monkey," Springsteen
Topic: words of wisdom

The mike was on and Bush was off script. Chewing the fat (or in this case a buttered roll) with Tony Blair during a G-8 luncheon in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bush offered his opinion on the conflict between Israel and Lebanon: "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

Complaining about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an immediate cease-fire in the region, Bush said, "I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens." He said he felt like telling Annan to get on the phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad to "make something happen." He indicated Condi might visit the region soon. Now that ought to help.

Babbling on, Bush expressed amazement that it would take some leaders eight hours to fly home -- the same amount of time it would take Air Force One. "You eight hours? Me, too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country," Bush said. "Takes him eight hours to fly home. Russia's big and so is China."

Apparently, he didn't like sitting through world leaders' talks at the summit. "I'm not going to talk too long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long. Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight," he said.

All this talk didn't stop him from making sure a waiter knew the U.S. Prez wanted Diet Coke.

 

Have a Happy 4th
America is a vulgar, greedy, money-obsessed country, dominated by big business and bent upon world domination. And it's led by an incompetent president who hypocritically champions democracy while ruthlessly championing American self-interests. That's the view of an overwhelming number of Britons surveyed by The Daily Telegraph ahead of America's 230th Independence Day. Seventy-seven percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the U.S. is "a beacon of hope for the world." A huge number, 83 percent, say the United States doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks. However, 70 pecent say they like Americans, at least a little bit. Most attitudes seem to be influenced by the average Briton's hearty dislike of President Bush. While 77 percent said Bush is a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader, only 1 percent rated him a "great leader."

No War Crimes Trials
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying in a strong rebuke that the trials were illegal under U.S. and international law. Bush said there might still be a way to work with Congress to sanction military tribunals for detainees and the American people should know the ruling "won't cause killers to be put out on the street." The court declared 5-3 that the trials for 10 foreign terror suspects violate U.S. law and the Geneva conventions. The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of the approximately 450 men still being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them. It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court, said the Bush administration lacked the authority to take the "extraordinary measure" of scheduling special military trials for inmates, in which defendants have fewer legal protections than in civilian U.S. courts. The decision blocked a trial for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.