Aug 5

World’s largest soap bubble made in London – UPI.com.

LONDON, Aug. 4 (UPI) — A ‘bubbleologist” has created what he says is the world’s largest free-floating soap bubble in a London park.

Samsam Bubbleman, 37, a professional bubble-maker who has performed for the Dubai royal family and numerous celebrities, said he created the giant bubble, which stretched to 20 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet at its largest, using a secret formula he developed during the past 20 years, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

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Oct 13
clipped from www.upi.com
Lost cows create udder chaos in Britain
LONDON, Oct. 13 (UPI) — A British minister has been forced to admit in Parliament his department lost track of nearly 21,000 head of cattle.

The livestock should have been logged into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ tracking system but something went wrong, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

“Laptops, data and now cows, is there anything this government cannot misplace?” asked Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment secretary. “Defra’s performance would do credit to Little Bo Peep.”

The cattle tracing system was set up to protect the public and animals after the mad cow and foot and mouth epidemics.

Last week Britain’s Ministry of Defense revealed a computer hard drive with the private details of 100,000 members of the Armed Forces was missing.

In August, a memory stick containing data on all prisoners in England and Wales was lost by a Home Office contractor.

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Sep 22
but then again, I often take tea with my cows, too.
clipped from www.upi.com
Farmer: Mooing at cows beneficial
Published: Sept. 21, 2008 at 5:59 PM
EXETER, England, Sept. 21 (UPI) — A farmer in the English county of Devon says he has been able to boost his cows’ milk production by simply mooing at them.

Farmer Graham Vallis said by conducting a meditative mooing session with his cows for five minutes before each milking session, he has been able to increase the amount of milk he gets from them, The Sun reported Saturday.

Vallis said he accidentally happened upon the technique during a routine tea break.

“I often take my tea break with my cows, but on one occasion suddenly I became deeply relaxed,” he said.

“I realized it was the mooing. I started mooing in time and they crowded round like the Pied Piper,” he added, referring to the mythical character who could lead rats with music.

The Sun said Vallis’s advice has been heeded by the Federation of Organic Milk Groups, which has passed along the recommendation to its 450 members.

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Sep 18
clipped from news.yahoo.com

AP

Man acquitted in Aug. accused of robbing same bank

Wed Sep 17, 7:28 PM ET

JONESBORO, Ark. – A man acquitted a month ago of robbing a bank has been arrested in another robbery at the same bank. The man, 35, was accused of robbing Liberty Bank on Tuesday, police say.
The man was acquitted Aug. 21 of robbing the bank last October after employees could not positively identify him during his trial.
In another case, the man faces charges of aggravated assault and aggravated robbery in the beating of an elderly woman inside the downtown post office last fall. Police said he stole the woman’s purse and her car.
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Sep 14
But at the end…. doesn’t it just seem like they were out to get him for SOMETHING?
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Court blames apartment fire on dog

Published: Sept. 11, 2008 at 4:29 PM
HELSINGBORG, Sweden, Sept. 11 (UPI) — A Swedish court has acquitted a man of arson charges after ruling the fire that destroyed his apartment was caused by his pet dog.
The court ruled the apartment fire in Helsingborg, which raised arson flags after investigators found three stove burners had been left on to the maximum settings and some paper and a popcorn machine had been atop the stove, was likely caused when Butler, the 30-year-old man’s dog, attempted to scale the stove to retrieve a plate of cookies that had been left on top of the appliance, The Local reported Thursday.
However, the 30-year-old man received a 2-month prison sentence after it emerged during trial that he had been driving a car without a license.
“Ugh, this is so embarrassing,” the man said after the trial.
Butler, the man’s cat and two pet hamsters were killed in the fire.
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Sep 1
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Missing S.C. cat turns up in Canada
Published: Aug. 29, 2008 at 9:09 PM
MONTREAL, Aug. 29 (UPI) — The owner of a Myrtle Beach, S.C., cat that went missing in June said her 17-year-old feline has been found 1,000 miles away in Lorraine, Quebec, Canada.

Janet Nease said she had nearly given up hope of ever seeing her cat, Sylvester, again when she received a call from a Montreal resident that had discovered the cat whimpering in a suburban parking lot, The Gazette (Montreal) reported Friday.

“He was a wanderer and had gone missing in the past, but usually for only a couple of days,” Nease said.

The cat was discovered by Marie Chevarie, who immediately phoned Nease after seeing her phone number on the cat’s collar.

She said she does not know how the cat made the 1,000-mile journey to Canada, but noted that one of Sylvester’s favorite spots to visit is a campground near her home. She said he may have hitched a ride on someone’s camper that was headed to or through the Montreal suburb.

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Sep 1
clipped from www.upi.com

Cow’s head freed from washing machine

Published: Aug. 30, 2008 at 4:54 PM
TRURO, England, Aug. 30 (UPI) — Animal rights activists in Britain say they had to free a cow’s head from a washing machine after the animal got a bit too curious.
Royal Society of the Cruelty of Animals spokeswoman Jo Barr said the group’s workers were called to Cornwall county after a young cow came across the machine in an area field and investigated it a little too closely, The Times of London reported Saturday.
“It is one of the more unusual things we had had to rescue an animal from,” Barr said of the washer, which had been dumped in the field by unknown parties. “Young cows are quite curious, and she probably thought there was some food inside the drum.”
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Aug 17
From King to Knight?
clipped from www.upi.com
King penguin receives knighthood
Published: Aug. 16, 2008 at 8:48 AM
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Aug. 16 (UPI) — Nils Olav, a king penguin at the Edinburgh Zoo, may not be actual royalty, but he’s getting close — the flightless bird has been knighted.

The penguin has long been the mascot of the King’s Guards of Norway, and in that role has risen through their ranks, starting out as a lowly lance corporal and eventually making it to colonel-in-chief, The Daily Telegraph reported.

But Friday, Nils Olav became Sir Nils Olav as 130 King’s guardsmen gathered at the Edinburgh Zoo to knight the penguin in a formal ceremony. The bird reportedly came out to inspect the troops and celebrated his peerage with some tasty dead fish.

The Telegraph said an earlier Nils Olav king penguin was first adopted by the Norwegian soldiers in 1962 and each successor has proudly worn the mantle of the regiment’s mascot.

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Aug 17
maybe the problem is the men?
clipped from www.upi.com
Mining town mayor wants ugly women
MOUNT ISA, Australia, Aug. 17 (UPI) — The mayor of an Australian mining town says “beauty-disadvantaged” women who see themselves as ugly ducklings could turn into swans in his town.

“May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa,” Mayor John Molony told The Australian.

Published: Aug. 17, 2008 at 4:00 AM

Some young men in the town seemed dubious. Paul Woodlands, a 25-year-old construction worker, said the problem is that traditional women’s jobs in the town, like hairdressing, do not pay as well as the men’s jobs — or as well as they do in the big cities.

“I know a few women who have come out here to do hairdressing, but they left to go back to the coast because the pay was bad and there’s not much to do,” Woodlands said.

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