Here are 10 Impressive Heists that Shocked the World

If you’re a fan of the Oceans Trilogy, then you probably appreciate the complicated planning and execution required of a good heist. Just like with anything else in life, it takes quite a bit of work to come away from an endeavor with enough money, or loot, to become financially set. Only a few have had the rare combination of guts and brains that enabled to them to pull it off — at least until an enterprising investigator figured them out. Here are 10 impressive heists that shocked the world.

1. Mona Lisa Heist: The Mona Lisa is an iconic painting that any serious art collector would love to own. On August 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia , a custodian at the Musee du Louvre in Paris, took what would become his most valuable possession. He did it by hiding in the closet during closing time, eventually walking out with the painting hidden beneath his coat. The Italian immigrant later claimed that he had taken it for patriotic reasons in an effort to ensure Leonardo’s painting was put on display in his homeland, though he was caught when he tried to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The painting was displayed throughout the country before it was returned to France in 1913, and Peruggia was lauded by Italians for his supposed deed.

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Estranged couple win half of America’s 2nd largest lottery jackpot

What we have here are two people who are legally separated, but not divorced. The wife bought a winning lottery ticket. Some experts say the husband is entitled to half because of their martial status. They both have had run-ins with the law. Who gets what?

I wondered why at the time the “other winner of America’s second-largest lottery jackpot”  didn’t come forward to claim their prize. Now, I know. As Paul Harvey use to say, “And… that’s the rest of the story.”

Excerpt:

“Mother of 2 may have to split $190 million winnings with ex-con

An Idaho woman who is splitting America's second-largest lottery jackpot may need some legal luck to hold onto all of her share, according to media reports.

Holly Lahti, 29, is the Rathdrum, Idaho, mother of two identified last week as the second of two ticketholders in the $380 million Mega Millions drawing on Jan. 4. Jim and Carolyn McCullar of Ephrata, Wash., came forward as holders of the first ticket almost right away.

Lahti's ex-con estranged husband learned last week from a reporter of his wife's good fortune.”

GO HERE to read the story.

PATRIOT Act To Be Quietly Renewed

“The controversial USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), signed into law in 2001, is quietly up again for renewal. The Raw Story reports that Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) has introduced a bill intended to “renew controversial provisions of the Bush administration's USA Patriot Act that are due to expire this year."

In spite of FBI misuses of National Security Letters (NSLs) authorized by the Act — which allow the FBI to search telephone, e-mail, medical and financial records without a court order — and candidate Obama’s promise to support revisions that would strengthen civil liberties and prevent abuses, cases of federal intrusions are continuing to mount, including more

warrantless searches of homes and businesses without the knowledge of the owner or resident.

As It Stands: 'Aflockalypse' Now: The world gets weirder in 2011

BY Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 01/16/2011 04:10:29 AM PST

All the signs indicate that 2011 is shaping up to be a banner year for the weird books.

Thousands of dead birds have fallen out of the skies in America, Italy, Sweden, fish have died for no apparent reason by the tens of thousands in America, thousands of dead crabs have mysteriously washed up in England, and a loosely-organized group of Christians are sure that Judgment Day will come on May 21st.

 I'd say that was a pretty good start, wouldn't you? Residents of Beebe, Ark., woke up on New Year's Day to reports of 5,000 dead birds plummeting from the heavens, and other odd mass animal deaths have been reported worldwide. Some people suggested the cause was fireworks and the birds were literally “blown from the sky.”

I'll have to pass on that explanation. According to fish and game wildlife experts, a massive bird death is not that unusual. Newspapers and blogs are calling the phenomenon the “Aflockalypse,” a nice catchy name if you ask me.

Mere days after the 5,000 birds went crazy and dive-bombed terra firma at Beebe, 100,000 dead drum fish washed up along 20 miles of the Arkansas River less than 500 miles away.The experts called it a coincidence. They also were quick to say that pollutants/poisons were not involved in either case. That was without testing the carcasses. The bottom-feeding drum fish were the only ones affected in the river, which makes me suspicious of that claim.

Within five days of those two Events there was another case of birds falling out of the sky. About 500 lifeless birds dropped onto Louisiana's Highway 1 near Pointe Coupee. Officials with the Louisiana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife noted that many of the birds showed signs, like broken beaks and wings, of violent injury that was not just the result of hitting the ground.

Perhaps these weird events are a coincidence. Conspiracy theorists might think otherwise. A third dead bird drop followed in Sweden days after the Louisiana event. “This is a classic example of freak events coinciding,” said Petter Boeckman, a zoologist at the Norwegian Natural History Museum, in an interview with Reuters.

Right after the Swedish event, 40,000 dead crabs washed up on the coast of Kent, England, leaving experts baffled again. And in Gilbertsville, Kentucky, a woman found dozens of dead birds in her yard. That was followed up by reports from Italy where 8,000 turtledoves fell dead out of the skies and left authorities wondering why they had a strange blue stain on their beaks.

Much closer to home, 100 birds were found dead south of Geyserville clustered on the ground off of Highway 101 on Jan. 8.

The reports of mass animal deaths around the world are galvanizing self-appointed prophets to proclaim the apocalypse is upon us. The unlikely confluence of factors may be tantalizing, but so far I haven't read anything that actually explains them.

For now, I'm putting these reports on my weird watch list of animal species dying in mass numbers for no apparent reason.

If Marie Exley, a 32-year-old Army veteran with two tours of Iraq, is right, I won't be around to see the year's end. Exley is convinced that Judgment Day is just around the corner. May 21st, to be specific.

She and a loose coalition of Christians are spreading the word. They've put together radio broadcasts and websites, independent of mainstream churches, to get their message out. Exley and others believe the Bible warns that May 21st will be the end of the world.

Frankly, I'm not expecting explanations for all of these strange events. Improbable events happen daily and go unreported. Reports of animals falling out of the skies go back hundreds of years. One of my favorite examples in this category is the famous “Kentucky Meat Shower” of 1876. Louisville residents were pelted with chunks of raw mutton and venison falling from the sky. One popular theory suggested the meat came from a flock of vomiting buzzards flying by! Talk about Aflockalypse.

As It Stands, who knows what will happen next? Republican and Democratic buzzards might cooperate with one another this year and actually do the job the public elected them for. Now that would be a sure sign of the end days!

60 days of nothing but spuds leaves advocate 21 lbs. lighter

I think that if I went on a diet like this I would soon be seeing eyes (right) in everything I ate. I’m a meat and potatoes guy, but this is just going too far. Gotta love what some people will do to keep their jobs however:

‘No toppings, no sour cream, no butter’: The rigors of the all-potato diet

“As the head of the Washington State Potato Commission, it’s the job of Chris Voigt to promote the spud as a nutritious, cost-effective, easy-to-grow vegetable that should be part of a well-balanced diet.

To hammer home his message, Voigt ate nothing but potatoes between Oct. 1 and Dec. 1. He had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner — about 20 potatoes per day prepared in a variety of ways.”

Canadian radio stations told to censor Dire Straits

The slippery slope of rewriting history is not good for anyone. One American scholar recently wanted to rewrite Huckleberry Finn because it used the “N” word. This latest attempt at historical censorship in Canada really surprises me.

Why is it that people feel they have to rewrite history to make it acceptable by today’s standards?

Excerpt:

“Canadian radio station have been warned to censor the 1985 Dire Straits hit "Money for Nothing," after a complaint that the lyrics of the Grammy Award-winning song were derogatory to gay men.

A St. John's, Newfoundland, station should have edited the song to remove the word "faggot" because it violates Canada's human rights standards, according to ruling this week by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.”

Forget about man biting dog for a story – try Fox shoots man!

I remember the old journalism saying; “It’s not a story when a dog bites a man. It is a story however, if the man bites the dog.”

“MOSCOW (Reuters) – A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.

The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.

"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.

Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.”

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Matthew Jones)

I was a Scropio & now I’m a Libra because experts say that a wobbly earth means our horoscopes are wrong!

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Stars shifted over 2,000 years so horoscope signs are nearly a month off

If you look to your horoscope for a preview of your day, look again: You're probably following somebody else's supposed fate.Thanks to Earth's wobble, astrological signs are, well, bunk. (Or even more bunk than you might expect.) Astrological signs are determined by the position of the sun relative to certain constellations on a person's day of birth. The problem is, the positions were determined more than 2,000 years ago. Nowadays, the stars have shifted in the night sky so much that horoscope signs are nearly a month off. [Read: Why Your Horoscope for 2011 Is All Wrong ]

Billionaire Koch Brothers Fulfill Father's Campaign to Segregate Public Schools, End Successful Integration Program in NC

Just in case there’s any doubt that racism is still rampant in America check out this story…

“In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope. Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against “forced busing.” The nation’s largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity – on whose national board Pope sits – cast the old school board members as arrogant “leftists.” Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.”

The Tea party group founded and funded by the Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, led the way in destroying what was a model integration system in Wake County. 

“Today in the Washington Post, reporter Stephanie McCrummen detailed how a right-wing campaign in the Wake County area of North Carolina has taken over the school board with a pledge to end a very successful socio-economic integration plan. The integration plan, which created thriving schools in poor African-American parts of the school district along with achieving diversity in schools located in wealthy white enclaves, was a model for the nation. However, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party group founded and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, worked with local right-wing financier (and AFP board member) Art Pope to fundamentally change Wake County’s school board.”

Proof that the Koch family bigotry infects each new generation:

“… the Koch brothers are simply fulfilling their father’s legacy. In 1958, Fred Koch — the founder of Koch Industries — joined a group of manufacturing executives and Robert Welch to found the John Birch Society, a virulent far-right group that dominated the civil rights debate.”