Search on for toe-sucking assailant, beware of the stinky gray blobs, and a man tries to smuggle snakes in his skivies

Good Morning Humboldt County!

I hope you brought your coffee cup because I have a pot of steaming joe ready to go! From toe-suckers to snakes in a man’s underwear, I have several odd stories to start your week out: 

Arkansas town searching for toe-sucking assailant

There's nothing illegal about a foot fetish but police in Conway, Arkansas, are looking for a toe-sucking man they said has crossed the line into assault. Police have received two complaints in the past week about a man who seems desperate to suck women's toes -- whether they want him to or not.

"We want him off the streets," said Conway police spokeswoman LaTresha Woodruff. Last Saturday, Ruth Harris, 83, told police she was sitting in a chair in front of her apartment when a man approached and said he liked her feet. According to a police report, the man took off one of her shoes and began sucking on her toe.

You say potato, I say stinky gray blobs

Along with ruined homes and massive flooding, turns out Hurricane Irene left a few "presents" in her wake: Beaches covered in mysterious, stinky, gray blobs. The blobs were found on several Virginia beaches (and no, they weren't tourists), confounding the locals. Scientists later identified them as "potato sponges," which normally live in shallow waters, attached to the sea floor.

The strong sea currents from Irene kicked up a bunch of these sponges, which then washed up on shore and eventually died. Peace out, potato sponges.

Snakes in underwear smuggler fined $400

A Brazilian man who was caught at Miami airport trying to smuggle seven baby pythons and three baby tortoises concealed in his underwear and pockets was fined $400 by a U.S. judge on Wednesday.

Simon Turola Borges, 30, who had been detained since August 25, pled guilty to smuggling and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz to time served, two years of supervised release, and a $400 fine. He was ordered to be deported.

Prosecutors said Borges initially denied having anything hidden in his pants when Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at the airport pulled him aside for a further search after he went through a body scanner while preparing to board a flight to Brazil last month. "Subsequently, he was asked to empty his cargo pants pockets, and he removed two hatchling pythons tightly wrapped in nylon pantyhose," prosecutors said in a statement. When he was asked to remove any foreign objects from his groin area "Borges pulled his underwear away from his body and removed two nylon pantyhose containing numerous snakes and tortoises," the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida added in the statement.

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Don’t like the way mom raised you? Take her to court

      By Dave Stancliff/For The Times-Standard

 Have you ever seen an episode of “Leave It To Beaver?”
The iconic sitcom, which debuted on October 4, 1957, was about a suburban family (The Cleavers) and their daily life. The main character was Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver, played by Jerry Mathers. The show followed his adventures at home, in school, and around his neighborhood. 
If you will, imagine the following episode and this summary of the sitcom in TV Guide:
“Wally (played by Tony Dow) and Beaver sue Their Parents! The boys have had enough. After drawing up a list of complaints they get a lawyer to take their case pro bono. Their father, Ward (played by Hugh Beaumont) and mother (played by Barbara Billingsley) have to dip into their savings to defend themselves.”

 Excerpts:
Lawyer - Judge, I submit this recent birthday card as evidence A of Beaver’s hardships. It did not come with cash or a check.
Judge - Duly noted.
Lawyer - On behalf of my other client Wally, I submit another birthday card as evidence A. On the front, if the court will note, is a group of indistinguishable cartoon tomatoes. One of them is different and has funny-looking eyes. Inside it reads, “Son I got you this birthday card because it’s just like you ... different from all the rest!"
Judge - Hmmmm…okay. Anything else?

Lawyer - Yes, your honor. I submit these two detailed lists of complaints from both of my clients citing dates and times when hardships were suffered. They also accuse their parents of being evil. (Loud gasp from the audience) You’ll note that Beaver has listed physical abuse because of spankings.
Judge - Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver. Do you have anything to say to the court?
Ward - Your honor, I’m doing my best to teach the boys good old American values.

June - I may have gone overboard once and asked Wally to do the dishes, but I was recovering from back surgery.
Judge - I’m going to give you time to respond, point-by-point, to the accusations next week when we reconvene this trial.
(Music in backround - theme song from the “Omen” Ave Satani, composed by Jerry Goldsmith)
 Where am I going with all of this? Two children who grew up in the lap of luxury sued their mother in 2009, for doing a bad job of raising them. They wanted her to pay - literally. I’m serious. An Illinois appeals court disagreed with that assessment in June.
 Steven Miner II, now 23, and his sister Kathryn, 20, were hoping to get $50,000 from their mother, Kimberly Garrity, for “emotional distress’’ from “bad mothering.’’ The court ruled that finding in their favor “could potentially open the floodgates to subject family child rearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

  Gee, you think? How did this ridiculous case ever go so far? It sure wouldn’t have happened during the Cleavers time in the fifties. I may mock the judicial process today with my imaginary episode, but there’s nothing funny about what these children of privilege (they were raised in a $1.1 million dollar home) did.
   Look what happened. Their mother had to pay for a lawyer to defend herself and go through two years of stress wondering when the madness would end. Are you sitting down for this? The children’s lawyer was none other than their father, Steven A. Miner, who filed the lawsuit for free. Not getting money in a birthday card, having to wear seat belts, and other incredibly stupid items were listed as evidence against the mother.
   Isn’t there a law about filing frivolous lawsuits? How could anyone have taken this case seriously? It looks pretty obvious from the initial filing, dad was seeking the ultimate revenge by claiming his ex-wife was “an inadequate mother.”
  I couldn’t help but laugh when I read from the court report, “I tried to talk my children out of filing the lawsuit.” Say what? His kids have that much control over him? Doesn’t sound very convincing to me.
  As It Stands, I bet Ward Cleaver never had control issues with the Beaver and Wally.

Mid-Day Paws (okay pause): PANDA therapy for stress relief

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top photo: Mum? Can you come and get me down now? :)

Photo right: On the count of three.... lift! :)

photo left:

It wasn't me! I didn't steal this bamboo shoot!
It was just sitting here, I swear it! :)

 Need more therapy?

 Go here to see more of these cuddly creatures.

Man caught with kilo of coke in belly, people who eat dirt, and yellow eyeblobs may mean hidden heart disease

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s another day in paradise and I’ve got a trio of headlines dealing with medical issues. So pull up a chair and have a cup of coffee with me. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do. Swallowing nearly a kilogram of cocaine is just plain nuts!

How can 72 bags of cocaine fit in man's belly?

The gruesome images are a graphic reminder of just how far drug smugglers will go to elude law enforcement to get their product over the border. The images, which show an arrested man’s digestive tract that is literally stuffed with dozens of thumb-sized bags of cocaine, are also testimony to how far the digestive tract can expand. The 20-year-old Irish man was arrested at a Brazil airport with 72 bags filled with nearly a kilogram of cocaine.

Hospitalizations for dirt eating nearly double in past decade

The number of people hospitalized with pica, the disorder in which people eat non-edible substances including dirt and chalk, has nearly doubled within a decade, a new study finds.

Between 1999 and 2009, yearly hospitalizations in the United States for this disorder increased 93 percent, from 964 to 1,862, said the report from the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Pica is most commonly found in children, pregnant women and people with autism and other developmental disabilities. In many cases, the disorder lasts several months and then disappears without treatment, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Yellow eyelid blobs hint at hidden heart disease

We’ve all seen a few people, like maybe grandpa or grandma, with those little patches of yellowish plaques around the upper and lower eyelids. You know the ones, the tiny patches that look something like chicken fat. (Shown in photo)

As it turns out, if somebody you know has these (and it can occur in younger people, too), you should encourage them to be checked carefully for heart disease. A study published in the most recent British Medical Journal found that these patches, called xanthelasma, were predictors of heart attack, heart disease and death. In men between the ages of 70 and 79, those with xanthelasma had a 12 percent higher risk of heart disease than men without the eye blobs. The rise in risk in older women was 8 percent.

Time to walk on down the road…

Giant snails have Florida on search-and-destroy mission

An invasion of giant snails sounds like a good storyline for a B-Horror movie, but unfortunately in this case it’s reality: 

“Florida is used to strange creatures, but the discovery of a non-native animal — a giant snail from East Africa — has got local officials really worried.

A search-and-destroy advisory that went out included this bit of history: the last time the giant snails were found in Florida (back in 1966) they had multiplied from three to 18,000 in seven years and cost $1 million to eradicate.

The new population of giant African land snails was found in Miami-Dade County, and several dozen technicians were quickly dispatched to search them out. About 1,000 were found Thursday within a one-square-mile radius, the Miami Herald reported. Several hundred were found in one backyard in Coral Gables. How they got there was not immediately known. Why worry? Besides their intimidating size — up to 8 inches long and 4 inches in diameter — "they consume at least 500 different types of plants, can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco, and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans," the Florida Department of Agriculture said in a statement Thursday.”  source

Exclusive Timeline: Bush Administration Advanced Solyndra Loan Guarantee for Two Years, Media Blow the Story

It’s often claimed that the Solyndra loan guarantee was “rushed through” by the Obama Administration for political reasons.

In fact, the Solyndra loan guarantee was a multi-year process that the Bush Administration launched in 2007.

What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than “pushing funds out the door too quickly,” the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers’ investment.

You’d never know from the media coverage that:

1. The Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office.
2. The company’s backers included private investors who had diverse political interests.
3. The loan comprises just 1.3% of DOE’s overall loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.

Because one of the Solyndra investors, Argonaut Venture Capital, is funded by George Kaiser — a man who donated money to the Obama campaign — the loan guarantee has been attacked as being political in nature. What critics don’t mention is that one of the earliest and largest investors, Madrone Capital Partners, is funded by the family that started Wal-Mart, the Waltons. The Waltons have donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates over the years.

With a stagnant job market and Obama sinking in the polls, the media has decided on a narrative that matches right-wing talking points but not the facts.  For instance, Bloomberg had this incredibly misleading headline yesterday, “Obama Team Backed $535 Million Solyndra Aid as Auditor Warned on Finances.”  If you replace “backed” with “touted,” that would be accurate.  But the headline makes it seem like the White House had decided to give $535 million to a company after an auditor had said it was financially troubled.

You have to read half the story to learn that the loan guarantee was made in 2009 and the audit was done in 2010 after market conditions had sharply worsened! And the Bloomberg story never explains that the company itself raised $250 million from private investors after the supposedly devastating audit!

To set the record straight, Climate Progress is publishing this timeline — verified by Department of Energy officials — that shows how the loan guarantee came together under both administrations. In fact, rather than rushing the loan for Solyndra through, the Obama Administration restructured the original Bush-era deal to further protect the taxpayers’ investment:

May 2005: Just as a global silicon shortage begins driving up prices of solar photovoltaics [PV], Solyndra is founded to provide a cost-competitive alternative to silicon-based panels.

July 2005: The Bush Administration signs the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law, creating the 1703 loan guarantee program.

February 2006 – October 2006: In February, Solyndra raises its first round of venture financing worth $10.6 million from CMEA Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and U.S. Venture Partners. In October, Argonaut Venture Capital, an investment arm of George Kaiser, invests $17 million into Solyndra. Madrone Capital Partners, an investment arm of the Walton family, invests $7 million. Those investments are part of a $78.2 million fund.

December 2006: Solyndra Applies for a Loan Guarantee under the 1703 program.

Late 2007: Loan guarantee program is funded. Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed ready to move forward in the due diligence process. The Bush Administration DOE moves forward to develop a conditional commitment.

October 2008: Then Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet touted reasons for building in Silicon Valley and noted that the “company’s second factory also will be built in Fremont, since a Department of Energy loan guarantee mandates a U.S. location.”

November 2008: Silicon prices remain very high on the spot market, making non-silicon based thin film technologies like Solyndra’s very attractive to investors. Solyndra also benefits from having very low installation costs. The company raises $144 million from ten different venture investors, including the Walton-family run Madrone Capital Partners. This brings total private investment to more than $450 million to date.

January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE “without prejudice” because it wasn’t ready for conditional commitment.

March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE’s credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.

June 2009: As more silicon production facilities come online while demand for PV wavers due to the economic slowdown, silicon prices start to drop. Meanwhile, the Chinese begin rapidly scaling domestic manufacturing and set a path toward dramatic, unforeseen cost reductions in PV. Between June of 2009 and August of 2011, PV prices drop more than 50%.

September 2009: Solyndra raises an additional $219 million. Shortly after, the DOE closes a $535 million loan guarantee after six months of due diligence. This is the first loan guarantee issued under the 1703 program. From application to closing, the process took three years – not the 41 days that is sometimes reported.  OMB did raise some concerns in August not about the loan itself but how the loan should be “scored.”  OMB testified Wednesday that they were comfortable with the final scoring.

January – June 2010: As the price of conventional silicon-based PV continues to fall due to low silicon prices and a glut of solar modules, investors and analysts start questioning Solyndra’s ability to compete in the marketplace. Despite pulling its IPO (as dozens of companies did in 2010), Solyndra raises an additional $175 million from investors.

November 2010: Solyndra closes an older manufacturing facility and concentrates operations at Fab 2, the plant funded by the $535 million loan guarantee. The Fab 2 plant is completed that same month — on time and on budget — employing around 3,000 construction workers during the build-out, just as the DOE projected.

February 2011: Due to a liquidity crisis, investors provide $75 million to help restructure the loan guarantee. The DOE rightly assumed it was better to give Solyndra a fighting chance rather than liquidate the company – which was a going concern – for market value, which would have guaranteed significant losses.

March 2011: Republican Representatives complain that DOE funds are not being spent quickly enough.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI): “despite the Administration’s urgency and haste to pass the bill [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] … billions of dollars have yet to be spent.”

And House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-FL): “The whole point of the Democrat’s stimulus bill was to spend billions of dollars … most of the money still hasn’t been spent.”

June 2011: Average selling prices for solar modules drop to $1.50 a watt and continue on a pathway to $1 a watt. Solyndra says it has cut costs by 50%, but analysts worry how the company will compete with the dramatic changes in conventional PV.

August 2011: DOE refuses to restructure the loan a second time.

September 2011: Solyndra closes its manufacturing facility, lays off 1,100 workers and files for bankruptcy. The news is touted as a failure of the Obama Administration and the loan guarantee office. However, as of September 12, the DOE loan programs office closed or issued conditional commitments of $37.8 billion to projects around the country. The $535 million loan is only 1.3% of DOE’s loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.

Meanwhile, after complaining about stimulus funds moving too slowly, Congressmen Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns are now claiming that the Administration was pushing funds out the door too quickly: “In the rush to get stimulus cash out the door, despite repeated claims by the Administration to the contrary, some bets were bad from the beginning.”

by Stephen Lacey and Richard Caperton

Albino seal pup shunned by his colony – saved by photographer

Sitting all alone on a beach, this little seal is an outcast from the colony.

Its crime? Having reddish-brown fur and the palest of blue eyes. The rest of its sleek black family took an instant dislike to the ginger pup, leaving it to fend for itself.

The pictures were taken by Anatoly Strakhov, who spotted the seal on Tyuleniy Island, Russia.

The loneliest seal in the world: This rare brown furred pup was spotted on the beach.

Hiding hole: The seal, which is almost blind, had been hiding under a pile of logs when he was first spotted.

The photographer, 61, said: ‘He was hiding and waiting for his mother to come and feed him. ‘He had a very strange color fur and looked different from his two black brothers. I was pleased to be able to capture such an unusual animal, but the poor seal is almost blind and so was unlikely to survive in the wild.’

 

Shunned: The pup sits on is own up the beach while other seals group by the water's edge

Luckily, Mr Strakhov was with staff from a dolphinarium who took it into their care.The pup – whose color is the result of an accumulation of iron in its fur – might have had more luck in the U.S. One of the biggest concentrations of red-haired seals is in San Francisco.   source

Pair takes dead pal to strip club, man adopts duck as best friend, and teenager emerges from woods after five years

Good Morning Humboldt County!

The coffees hot and it’s that time again when we look at our trio of headlines to start the day. They’re all about people today. Slightly offbeat people…but interesting.

Cops: Pair took dead pal to strip club

In a real-life version of the movie "Weekend at Bernie's," two men drove around with a dead friend's body, used his ATM card and visited a strip club, police said. Robert Jeffrey Young and Mark Rubinson were charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft and criminal impersonation. They were freed on bond, according to the Denver Post. It's unclear how Jeffrey Jarrett died, but the men were not charged in his death. The cause has not yet been determined as toxicology tests are still under way, the paper reported.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This story will quack you up!

English-speaking boy emerges from German woods

Berlin police are investigating the story of an English-speaking teenager who appeared in the German capital last week saying he had lived the previous five years in the woods with his father, a spokesman said Friday.

Michael Maass said the approximately 17-year-old boy appeared Sept. 5 at Berlin's city hall and was then taken in by a youth emergency center.

Time to walk on down the road…

Mystery of appearance of armless hot dog sculpture solved

What a relief! The case of the mysterious Hot Dog Man statue has been solved.

The statue, which appeared on a Council Bluffs, Iowa, street corner near a school, prompting a call to police by a citizen who thought it was a man in costume , has been claimed by its rightful owner, The Daily Nonpareil reports.

What proof of ownership did Curtis Wennhold offer that the statue, which was missing its arms, was his? The arms, said police Capt. Terry LeMaster, according to the Nonpareil.

“(Wennhold) has the arms; to me, that’s enough proof that it is his,” LeMaster laughed. “We’ll be glad to give it back to him.” Wennhold told police he found the statue in California and brought it to his Council Bluffs yard, LeMaster told the Nonpareil.

The captain said a group of teenagers saw the statue and decided to take it. In lifting the 400-pound hot dog into a vehicle, the teens managed to break off the arms, one of which was applying ketchup to the wienie's head, the other holding mustard.

The statue-nappers took Hot Dog Man home, LeMaster told the Nonpareil, but they soon became "creeped out" by its leering expression, took it to the corner of Harmony Court and Benton Street, and left it. LeMaster told the paper that the teenage culprits had been identified but that no one involved in the case wanted to press charges. After some paperwork is taken care of, Hot Dog Man will return home with Wennhold, LeMaster told the Nonpareil. And then the widespread attention the statue's appearance attracted is likely to die down — police said they received tips and offers to take it from as far away as Australia.  Via Weird News

Part II – More stupid laws in 10 California cities

Don’t worry. I’ll be featuring every state in the union after I’ve exhausted all the dumb laws in each. Currently, I’m looking at cities In California:

Arcadia - Peacocks have the right of way to cross any street, including driveways.

Baldwin Park - Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.

Blythe - You are not permitted to wear cowboy boots unless you already own at least two cows.

Carmel - A man can’t go outside while wearing a jacket and pants that do not match.

Chico - One must obtain a permit from the city to throw hay in a cesspool. Full text of the law.

             It is illegal to own a green or smelly animal hide.Full text of the law.

Cathedral City - It is prohibited to sleep in a parked vehicle.Full text of the law.

             Persons may not ride their bicycles through the “Fountain of Life”.Full text of the law.

Dana Point - One may not use one’s own restroom if the window is open.Full text of the law.

El Monte - Pinball machines are outlawed, as well as mock horse racing games.Full text of the law.

Eureka - Persons may not sleep on a road.Full text of the law.

Fresno - No one may annoy a lizard in a city park. Full text of the law.