Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Top Ten Dumbest Criminals of 2008

Everything's bigger in Texas, and maybe that's what 21-year-old Charles Ray Fuller was thinking when he allegedly tried to cash a $360 billion personal check from his girlfriend's mother. She was not amused.

That number — double the GDP of Peru — caught the eye of workers in a Fort Worth Bank, who reported Fuller to police. They weren't amused, either, and charged the North Texan with forgery.
The rest:

Head's Up! (In Flames)

Two Maryland teens lit a boy's hair on fire and recorded the attack on a camera phone, police said.

The Wicomico County Sheriff's Office said the victim was sleeping early Sunday at a home in Eden in eastern Maryland when 17-year-old Forrest Wilson poured lighter fluid on his hair and set it ablaze. The victim put out the fire, then discovered a 14-year-old boy was recording the video.

Investigators said the video showed Wilson light the 16-year-old victim's hair on fire. Police did not know a motive and withheld the victim's name. The victim, whose hair was singed, notified his parents later that day.

Wilson and the 14-year-old are charged with assault and other charges — Wilson as an adult, and the younger teen as a juvenile.

It's Time...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Boss Tattoo


Mona!?!!

Those Keeping Up With The Comments.....

I was looking for "Saytan McDevil" from the Lil' Hitler post below.
This is the best I could come up with:

Every Chick You've Ever Met


A hysterical college girls babbles incoherently and apologizes for using a fire extinguisher to make snow angels in her sorority house.

Pushing His (Benjamin) Buttons

A South Philadelphia man enraged because another father and son were talking during a Christmas showing of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button took care of the situation when he pulled a .380-caliber gun and shot the father, police said.

James Joseph Cialella Jr., 29, of the 1900 block of Hollywood Street is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and weapons violations.

Police were called to the Riverview Theatre in the 1400 block of Columbus Boulevard about 9:30 p.m. where the gunshot victim, a Philadelphia man who was not identified, told police a man sitting near him told his family to be quiet and threw popcorn at his son.

After exchanging words, Vanore said Cialella allegedly got out of his seat to confront the family when the father got up to protect them. That's when the victim was shot once in the left arm, sending others in the theatre running to safety.

Cialella then sat down to watch the movie. Police arrived a short time later and arrested Cialella and confiscated his weapon, Vanore said.

Dork Scout

A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It's an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls "an almost unheard-of feat."

Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday in November. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout.

He says he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a matter of months. He did it with the encouragement of his grandmother, who died shortly before he reached his goal.

The Binghamton University freshman was awarded his final badges on Dec. 19. He says he hopes to become a businessman and politician.

Welcome Back!

....but who wants to be here?

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Encore!

Horse Head, Jesus, Lamb

The discovery of three almost invisible drawings on the back of Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin and Child With Saint Anne in the Louvre museum in Paris have the French art world screaming "Sacre bleu!"

Reminiscent of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, the mysterious sketches were found by experts looking into restoring the sixteenth-century masterpiece.

They were detected when a curator noticed that some of the gray marks behind Virgin and Child With Saint Anne resembled a horse's head.

An infrared photo confirmed his suspicion and revealed two other sketches: a human skull and the infant Jesus with a Lamb.

Experts say Da Vinci had a habit of sketching on whatever was at hand, and might have used the planks of wood he used to form the backing for the work.

"This is an exceptional discovery as sketches on backs of works are very rare and there is no known example of one from Leonardo to this day," the Louvre said in a statement.

Now Friends...

Snow Is So Money, Baby

A rare pre-winter storm brought Las Vegas its heaviest snowfall in nearly three decades, closing the airport and freeways as several inches coated marquees on the Las Vegas Strip and weighed down palm trees.

Flights resumed in and out of Las Vegas Thursday after the snow caused them to be canceled a day earlier. Schools and highways on Thursday were closed by the storm, which also dumped snow on rain on much of southern California and parts of Nevada outside Las Vegas.

The National Weather Service measured 3.6 inches of snow overnight at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, and meteorologist Jerome Jacques said about 2 inches was left before dawn on the ground near the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. Visitors parked and posed for pictures wearing hooded jackets.

"Snow is not unknown in the Las Vegas valley. On average we get 1/2 inch of snow a year," Jacques said. "But this amount made it a significant storm. We haven't had this amount of snow since 1979." The weather service recorded 7.5 inches of snow at McCarran on Jan. 30-31, 1979.

Want To Die?

A new map plotting deaths resulting from forces of nature reveals where Mother Nature is most likely to kill you.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Lil' Hitler

The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child's full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance.

Heath Campbell and his wife, Deborah, are upset not only with the decision made by the nearby ShopRite, but also with an outpouring of angry Internet postings in response to a local newspaper article about the cake.

Heath Campbell, who is 35, said in an interview Tuesday that people should look forward, not back, and accept change. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what [Hitler] did," he said.

After ShopRite refused the request for the cake as inappropriate, the Campbell’s got a cake decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said.

The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name."

Plax Attack!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Paying Tribute

Teen Wolf is, of course, an awesome movie. It has Michael J. Fox, a girl named "Boof" and, well, werewolves. Also, it has Styles, Fox's lovable sidekick-type friend that has huge sunglasses and sports crazy antics. Yeah, he's awesome.

Greg White, Tampa Bay defensive lineman, thinks the character is so awesome, actually, that he has officially changed his name in order to honor the guy.

Tampa Bay's second-year DE has officially changed his name. On Monday, a Hillsborough County Circuit Court granted White's request to change his name from Gregory Alphonso White Jr. to Stylez G, White.

Circuit Judge Steve Scott Stephens signed off on White's petition and as White walked through the Bucs locker room Monday, he gleefully distributed copies of the final judgment.

White said he picked his new name from a character in the 1985 movie "Teen Wolf,'' starring Michael J. Fox.

To Infinity....And Beyond!

Penn State has given longtime football coach Joe Paterno a three-year contract extension. A university press release said the new deal could be shortened or extended farther if warranted.

Dear Santa,

A 9-year-old girl's letter to Santa Claus, asking that a relative stop touching her and her sister, has led to the arrest of a 55-year-old Pharr man.

Andres Enrique Cantu, 55, of Pharr, remained in the Hidalgo County Jail Monday night after his arrest Friday. His bond was set at $100,000. It wasn't immediately clear if Cantu had an attorney.

The girl wrote the letter Thursday and turned it in at Cesar Chavez Elementary School, The McAllen Monitor reported. It wasn't clear whether the letter was for a school assignment.

A probable cause complaint said a counselor at the school reported that the student turned in a wish list to Santa asking that the relative stop touching her and her sister. A day later she was interviewed at the Children's Advocacy Center in Edinburg, which works with abused children, and told authorities about the alleged molestation. Police investigators believe the molestation occurred over a four-year period, according to the complaint.

Facing It...Head On?!?

The nation's first near-total face transplant has been done on at the Cleveland Clinic, the hospital announced Tuesday.

Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow replaced nearly all of the face — 80 percent — with that of a dead donor in an operation a couple weeks ago.

The world's first partial face transplant occurred in France three years ago on a woman who had been mauled by her dog. Two others have been announced since then — a Chinese farmer attacked by a bear and a European man disfigured by a genetic condition.

The patient's name and age were not released. The hospital plans a news conference Wednesday to give details.

In a related story, John Travolta is now Nicholas Cage – and – Nicholas Cage is now John Travolta....

My New Jam!

This is amazing....truly.


Monday, December 15, 2008

Rubin With A Reuben?

Police say a Port St. Lucie man was arrested for throwing a sandwich at his girlfriend, the second food attack that sent a man to jail in about a month.

According to a police report released Monday, 20-year-old Matthew Rubin threw the sandwich at his girlfriend's face during an argument. Rubin then hit the top of her head with his first before taking off.

Rubin admitted to throwing the food but not hitting her. He was arrested Friday and faces a battery charge.

Last month, another man was arrested on a battery charge for hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off and nearly causing a traffic crash.

Police reports did not say what type of sandwich was used in either attack.

Guano!

Drug agents in Peru say they have seized three tons of cocaine mixed into a shipment of guano bound for Spain.

A four-month investigation led to the seizure at a warehouse in the capital of Lima, anti-drug police Col. Cesar Cortijo said Monday.

Cortijo said the drugs belonged to a trafficking ring that smuggled cocaine out of the country mixed with other products. Four Peruvians and a Colombian were arrested.

Police delayed announcing the Dec. 4 raid because it was initially impossible to calculate how much cocaine was mixed with the guano, the nitrogen- and phosphate-rich droppings of birds and bats.

Peru is the world's largest producer of coca and cocaine after Colombia, and it is also a major source of guano, harvested from excrement-stained islands off its southern coast. Most is used as fertilizer in Peru's fields, but some is shipped overseas, where it is a favorite among organic gardeners.

The Big 3-0!

From all of us at 'Finger My Blog'....
Happy Birthday Melanie!

Shoe - Shoe Pa Doop - Shoop

Christmas Came Early

Tie Me Up!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Nuttin' Honey

Nuts!!! That's likely what Hope Wideup thought when her car's turn signal and windshield wipers wouldn't work.

It's also what she found later when she opened the hood. "There were thousands in there. They were everywhere," she said, speculating a chipmunk found its way into her car, which had been sitting idle for several weeks, and used the engine compartment as a storage depot for a trove of black walnuts.

Wideup thinks it all started last fall when a chipmunk snatched a garden glove from her yard. She later found the glove in the engine compartment when she was trying to repair the broken turn signal. Unable to fix the problem, however, Wideup let the car sit unused for a couple of weeks and then heard a loud revving sound from the engine when she tried to start the vehicle.

That's when she looked under the hood again and found the walnuts.

"Apparently this little guy stuffed a bunch of these nuts in the accelerator throttle," said Wideup, who had to spend $242 for towing and repairs.

The chipmunk hasn't returned, Wideup told the Post-Tribune for a story published Wednesday. But she's not taking any chances, alternating use of her two cars so neither one is sitting too long.

>:-(

A Russian businessman has trademarked the emoticon, ;-), used to convey a wink in text messages and e-mail.

Oleg Teterin, president of the mobile ad company Superfone, said Thursday he doesn't plan on tracking down individual users following the decision by the federal patent agency. "I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder," he said in comments to NTV.

Companies will be sent legal warnings if they use the symbol without his permission, he said.

He also said since other similar emoticons, :-) or ;) or :), resemble the one he has trademarked, use of those symbols could also fall under his ownership.

Scott Fahlman, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, claims that he was the first to use three keystrokes, a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis , as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message 25 years ago.

Original Recipe

Three employees of a Kentucky Fried Chicken have been suspended for bathing in a deep sink used to clean dishes.

The prank was discovered after one of the young women posted photos on a social networking site of the trio posing and cavorting in the steaming water in their underwear and swimwear.

The photos were filed in a gallery called "KFC moments." Captions included "haha KFC showers!" and "haha we turned on the jets."

A manager of the fast-food restaurant said the three were reprimanded and suspended Tuesday.

She said no manager was on duty when the photos were taken as the three had closed the restaurant for the night.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Face Off

Veterinarians performed an unusual surgery to reattach the face of a cat they believe was injured by a car's fan belt, probably because she tried to stay warm under the hood.

Edgar, a 4-year-old long-haired feline, went missing from her home in Winthrop for three days last week. When she finally came home, her owner found her in her litter box — with part of her face dangling from her head.

"When her owner saw her face, she passed out," said Elizabeth Kendrick, a surgical technician at Angell Animal Medical Center. The owner, who asked not to be identified, recovered from the shock and rushed Edgar to an animal hospital.

Remarkably, Edgar suffered no major blood loss nor any permanent nerve damage from her accident. She just needed to have her facial skin stitched back on during an hour-long surgery Tuesday, according to veterinary surgeon Michael Pavletic.

Pavletic reattached Edgar's face using about 35 stitches. She came through the surgery with no problems, though she looks as though someone punched her in the eye. "She'll need to take some medicine but I don't anticipate her having any problems," Pavletic said.

Joe Dirt

'Joe the Plumber' told conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday that he felt "dirty" after hitting the campaign trail with Republican presidential nominee John McCain and "seeing some of the things that take place," Politico reported.

Joe Wurzelbacher said he was specifically put off by McCain when it came to talk of the $700 billion bailout.

"When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen," Wurzelbacher told Beck. "I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him."

Wurzelbacher said he stayed on the trail with McCain "honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more."

Wurzelbacher, however, offered kind words to McCain running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. "Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal," he said.

Up In Smoke

Arizona Department of Public Safety Detectives have confiscated about 2,118 pounds of marijuana from a truck that appeared identical to a United Parcel Service truck.

A suspect fled the scene when an officer and narcotics canine attempted to stop the vehicle, according to MYFOXPhoenix.com.

A search of the truck yielded nearly $1.2 million worth of marijuana bundles typically transported by human drug carriers or "mules" through the desert.

Suspects painted the truck to look like a UPS vehicle, complete with the typical reflective yellow decals, the station reported. The truck also sported a homemade Arizona license plate with a number that was assigned to an actual UPS truck servicing the Tucson area.

Monkey Business

A Washington state woman and her mother have been convicted in federal court on charges of sneaking a rhesus monkey into the United States from Thailand.

Gypsy Lawson, 29, hid the sedated young rhesus macaque under her blouse, pretending to be pregnant when she successfully passed through U.S. Customs in Los Angeles after a trip to Bangkok.

Her mother, Fran Ogren, 55, of Northport, Wash., also went on the trip in November 2007.

The two women were found guilty Monday by a 12-member jury on separate charges of conspiracy and smuggling goods into the United States. Sentencing is set for March 3.

The monkey is now at a primate rescue facility in Oregon.

Welcome To Today, Brian!!!



Popeye...Or Santa?

Alabama police are trying to find out who left a baby in a bag along a busy intersection. The boy was discovered Tuesday morning in a green sack by a man checking his mailbox in Bessemer, Ala.

Sgt. Darren Hunter said the boy is between two weeks and a month old and is now in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Powell Dabbs told MyFOXAL.com that he heard a grunt coming from what he thought was a bag of trash near a fire hydrant. The baby boy was wearing a hat and covered in a blanket, and a bottle and pacifier were also in the bag.

Local police have no leads as to who left the child by the side of the road.

“I’m still flabbergasted by the whole thing," Dabbs told MyFOXAL.com. "I’ve lived in the South all my life, and I always thought this stuff happened up North. Not down here.”

Hookin' A Chook

An Australian woman submitted stunning photographs of a python killing and eating a chicken in her Cairns yard to Cairns.com.au on Tuesday.

Public relations consultant Sarah Fraser told the site that "never in her wildest dreams" did she expect to see pythons at her home in a residential suburb.

The snake entered both her house and her chicken pen.

"The photos are pretty gruesome with the snake killing and eating our chook," Fraser told The Cairns Post. "After its first unsuccessful attempt to catch one of the chooks, the snake had a mouth full of feathers."

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Getaway

Police were searching for Hector Gomez, 28, of Kensington, who they said slipped through the ductwork of the Homicide Unit and then is believed to have walked out a door of the Police Department's headquarters at Eighth and Race Streets.

Gomez, who is described as a 5-foot-8 Hispanic weighing 140 pounds, is the first person in memory to successfully escape from custody in the department's central headquarters, police say.

Gomez, who has tattoos on his arms and fingers, has 15 prior arrests on charges including theft, drug possession and receiving stolen property. He now faces escape charges as well.

Gomez was arrested Sunday night near his home in the 3300 block of Kip Street in a car that police said had been reported stolen six days earlier.

After Gomez was unable to post 10 percent of the $10,000 bail that was set yesterday morning, he told East Division detectives that he had information about a murder.

Gomez was taken downtown to the Homicide Unit around 1:30 p.m. and placed in a locked interview room without handcuffs. If he had been a suspect in a homicide, Vanore said, he would have been manacled.

Around 5 p.m., detectives discovered that Gomez had stacked several chairs in the room and ripped out a vent in the ceiling, gouging out the opening in the drywall. He shimmied through the shaft and then apparently dropped out of the ceiling through a vent in a hallway.

Then the suspect apparently descended in an elevator from the second floor and walked out the door, said Vanore.

Just Give Me My Sausage

A "nagging" wife who pushed her husband to buy a lottery ticket helped scoop the $4.2 million first prize — with only minutes to spare. The man from New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, bought his ticket just two minutes before ticket sales closed Saturday night.

"My wife had been nagging me all week to get a ticket, so I when saw the Lotto sign ... I sprinted in to get the ticket before they closed," said the man, who asked not to be identified — normal practice among lottery winners in New Zealand.

"I must have been their last customer of the night," he said, adding that the young married couple had had a "rough" couple of years, reduced to one income after having children.

"I have never been so glad to listen to my wife's nagging," the man said Tuesday.

He discovered their newly won fortune Sunday thanks to his wife's request for a barbecued sausage. Out shopping for bargains, the man said he didn't have enough money to buy his wife the sausage she'd asked him for. So he decided to check his Saturday lottery ticket in case he'd won a small prize.

"I could not believe it when they said I was actually the big winner," he said.

When he showed the printout to his wife, she initially thought they had won $4,200. "When she realized how much it really was, she fell to the floor, and then said: 'but all I wanted was a sausage.'"

Caylee?

A photo of a child snapped at a Florida mall has some believing that missing Orlando toddler Caylee Anthony is still alive.

The photo, which was taken by Florida Mall employee Halima Solomita, shows a child that resembles Caylee in a mall playground, MyFOXOrlando reported. Solomita told the station that she tried to call Crimeline but was kept on hold for 20 minutes.

"I took my last cell phone picture as the woman [accompanying the little girl] tried to cover her head with her arm to hide from me taking her picture," Solomita said.

Giving Him Something He Can Feel

"How'd It Look?"

Visanthe Shiancoe is having a breakout season at tight end for Minnesota. His national exposure is now at an all-time high.

Fox televised a clip of Vikings owner Zygi Wilf's postgame locker-room speech after Sunday's victory at Detroit, and Shiancoe was inadvertently shown naked in the background. He was wearing a towel that did little to cover him. The network apologized, but screen-grab images were all over the Internet.

Shiancoe wasn't available to the media Monday, but he joked with a gossip columnist for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis about it. "How'd it look?" he told the newspaper.

But Shiancoe's agent, Tony Agnone, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that his client was embarrassed and hopes fans understand it wasn't intentional.

Buckshot

A western Pennsylvania woman charged with plotting her estranged husband's murder wanted it to look like a hunting accident, state police said.

State Police said they were called after 39-year-old Shawn Yeager's sons, 12 and 15, found him shot on the rear deck of his home in Warren County.

A preliminary hearing is set Dec. 16 for 33-year-old Susan Yeager and her brother, 28-year-old Cory Altman. Altman allegedly shot Shawn Yeager with a hunting rifle then joked to a friend that he "got his buck for the year," according to police.

Twenty-six-year-old Robert Pessia was also charged in the plot. The suspects have all been jailed without bond.

Taking One On The Chin

"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno will move to a 10 p.m. ET slot on General Electric's NBC-TV programming unit, according to published reports.

The move to cut away from scripted TV shows an hour earlier will both preserve the marquee comedian's place at the Peacock network and eliminate costly programming.
"Can we continue to program 22 hours of prime time? Three of our competitors don't," NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said Monday at an industry conference, according to a published report.

NBC recently cut 500 jobs as part of efforts to trim $500 million from NBC Universal's 2009 budget.

Conan O'Brien will take over the "Tonight Show" in 2009 as previously planned, while other networks have been circling around Leno in attempt to catch a big star in the TV firmament.

Leno will face off against a battery of 10 p.m. dramas. CBS's "CSI: Miami" has averaged about 15 million viewers this fall, compared to 4.8 million viewers for Leno's 11:30 p.m. talk show as the top show in the post prime-time slot.

Friday, December 5, 2008

In A Jiffy

A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat, authorities said.

The Sheboygan County Humane Society says the "morbidly obese" dog, an aging border collie mix named Jiffy, froze to the sidewalk when he was left out overnight Wednesday. Shelter manager Carey Payne says few dogs could survive the single-digit temperatures, and it was probably the fat that made the difference.

Jiffy's 59-year-old owner was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of animal neglect, Sheboygan Police Lt. Tim Eirich said. She told police she tried to get the dog inside but couldn't, and instead checked on him every few hours.

The dog is 11 or 12 years old, Eirich said. Shelter workers poured warm water over Jiffy's back end to unstick him from the sidewalk, Payne said, and it was too soon to say whether he suffered any long-term effects.

Scratch And Claw

A lady lobster with four claws was pulled from the deep this week in the waters off Newport. With a large crusher claw and three pincher claws , instead of the usual one , the crustacean was unlike anything 39-year-old lobsterman Patrick Marks had ever seen in his 14 years catching the creatures.

All of the lobster's excess appendages worked.

Marks trapped the mutated animal about 60 miles south of Newport and hauled her up on Monday.

Marks told the Newport Daily News he sometimes lets lobsters go out of guilt when they look at him funny.

So after showed off the multi-clawed lobster for most of the day, he let her go. She weighed 1.5 pounds and could have sold for $7.50 retail.

Running Some Tests

A 24-year-old Ohio man was accused of driving drunk after was caught doing "doughnuts" on a snow- and ice-covered suburban Pittsburgh airport runway.

Police said the man ignored orders to stop spinning on the runway of the Beaver County Airport. The airport is about 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Police said they followed the man to a parking lot where he told police he had permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to test brakes on the runway.

The man faces drunken driving and other related charges.

Alforque In The Road

A romantic marriage proposal on the Oregon coast turned deadly for the bride-to-be when a wave swept her out to sea.

Police don't suspect foul play in the disappearances Saturday of Leafil Alforque, Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson said. Thick fog and dangerous water conditions off Neskowin Beach hampered the rescue efforts, and the search was called off Monday.

Scott Napper had a ring in his pocket and planned to pop the question to Alforque, 22, at Proposal Rock, which got its name from couples ready to marry.

Napper said the tide had receded around the rock when the couple began to walk to it, but then a wave around 3 feet high suddenly came in.

"I turned into it to keep from getting pulled under it," Napper said. By the time he turned to find Alforque, who was only 4-foot-11, she had been caught by the receding waters. "She was about 30 feet away, getting swept away," Napper said.

The 45-year-old Silverton man tore off his jacket to get rid of any extra weight, and when he looked up again she was gone.

"That's the last I saw of her," he said Wednesday, breaking into tears. "I yelled for her," he said. "I was praying to God."

His own phone was wet and no longer worked, but someone on the beach called for help and emergency personnel arrived within minutes.

Napper and Alforque had been dating since they met on the Internet in 2005. Alforque arrived in Oregon on a visa from the Philippines just three days before the fateful trip to the coast.

The two had already set a wedding date for this week, but he wanted to use the moment Saturday to make a formal proposal and give Alforque the ring.

Squeezin' The Juice

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Greatest Finish Ever?

Cream, Poison, 2 Sugars

The coffee served in the private offices of European Commissioners tasted decidedly odd, even though the espresso machines cost more than $7,500 each.

The metallic tang was too much for one official, who sent samples from his machine back to his native Austria for testing — only to receive results suggesting that the European Union’s most senior figures were being slowly poisoned.

Now the Commission’s entire collection of elegant Cimbali coffee-makers, together worth $153,500, have been mothballed while the Italian company — which disputes the findings — carries out its own analysis.

The tests commissioned in Austria by Alexander Just, an archivist with a background in biology, suggested that in every cup that he tested he found up to 175 times the recommended intake of nickel and doses of lead that were 16 percent above the level considered safe.

Mr. White

A Lego-style figurine resembling an Islamic terrorist strapped with explosives and made by a small American company has caused an uproar among Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The controversial miniature figure, created by Seattle-based Will Chapman as part of his BrickArms military fighters line, is a bearded militant with a face-covering hood, a tiny toy assault rifle, a little grenade launcher and plastic bombs that can be attached to an explosives belt.

The character is called "Bandit — Mr. White" and sells for $14.

The jarring toy has outraged the British Muslim organization known as the Ramadhan Foundation, which called the figurine "absolutely disgusting," according to Sky News.

"I do not sell an 'Osama bin Laden' miniature figure," he wrote in an e-mail to FOXNews.com. On his Web site, he explains that his 9-year-old son gave him the idea for the toy line, which includes 31 different Lego-style weapons and a variety of military figurines.

"We started in 2006, when one of our sons expressed an interest in military history and weaponry of the WW2 era," he wrote. "He wanted to recreate scenes from history, with his LEGO bricks and figures, so he and I designed the first of many of our BrickArms miniature toy weapon replicas."