Qun Mang

We used to have to do that in my house growing up. Our cats just loved climbing that tree; so what if it didn't smell like one (artificial)? What is it about cats and Christmas trees?

Perhaps the tree seller was trying to spend his break times a bit unwisely... The family might want to consider purchasing their tree elsewhere next year. Then again- five days? How long does it take pot to go through an owl's system? Does the family have any teenagers I wonder?

Owl discovered in Christmas tree found with marijuana in system Posted: 12/15/2005 11:24 am Last Updated: 12/15/2005 11:36 am Sarasota, FL - Here's a holiday story you just won't believe.A family found an owl in their Christmas tree, and the bird apparently had a little hooter in him. A small screech owl was found in a live Christmas tree that a family bought. They kept the tree for five days before they decided to decorate it. When they did, they found the owl. Animal control officers came to get the owl, and when they did, they made a shocking discovery! "I kept smelling him and smelling him, saying 'What is that odor'. It was lying there as happy as can be,"says one animal control officer who was at the scene. "Curiously enough, the owl's feathers smelled very, very potently like marijuana," says Animal Control Officer Dering. They examined the owl, looked at its eyes, big owl eyes, and the owl was, in the vernacular, stoned." Blood tests confirmed the owl was flying high, on marijuana. They checked him out, fed him and named him Cheech. He'll be released in a few days.

I mentioned the Salvation Army ban on a tech site (the topic had to do with shopping, so...) and one of the responses to it was "I'm glad they banned beggars from their property." Sad.

Take 3 on responding (I wasn't happy with what I typed before so I just cancelled it). Sorry, I didn't mean to stir up a debate here. I do agree with Keith that we have to be careful what we find funny though. All too often I catch myself laughing at wrong things. However, I did have a chuckle at this, though it was really more my scientific interest that had me post it. I can see that if I was a teenager I might be initially offended, but I urge teenage readers to think as their parents as they read this- someday you'll more than likely be parents of teenagers too (well, I'm the uncle of one anyway).

A Mosquito that scatters swarms of unruly teens By Sarah Lyall The New York Times TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2005 BARRY, Wales Though he did not know it at the time, the idea came to Howard Stapleton when he was 12 and visiting a factory with his father, a manufacturing executive in London. Opening the door to a room where workers were using high-frequency welding equipment, he found he could not bear to go inside. "The noise!" he complained. "What noise?" the grownups asked. Now 39, Stapleton has taken the lesson he learned that day - that children can hear sounds at higher frequencies than adults can - to fashion a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble. The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away. So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in south Wales. Like birds perched on telephone wires, surly teenagers used to plant themselves on the railings just outside the door, smoking, drinking, shouting rude words at customers and making regular disruptive forays inside. "On the low end of the scale, it would be intimidating for customers," said Robert Gough, who, with his parents, owns the store. "On the high end, they'd be in the shop fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff." Gough planned to install a sound system that would blast classical music into the parking lot, another method known to horrify hanging-out youths into dispersing, but never got around to it. But last month, Stapleton gave him a Mosquito for a free trial. The results were almost instantaneous. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one. At first, members of the usual crowd tried to gather as they normally did, repeatedly going inside the store with their fingers in their ears and "begging me to turn it off," Gough said. But he held firm and neatly avoided possible aggressive confrontations: "I told them it was to keep birds away because of the bird flu epidemic." A trip to Spar here in Barry confirmed the strange truth of the phenomenon. The Mosquito is positioned just outside the door. Although this reporter could not hear anything, being too old, several young people attested to the fact that yes, there was a noise, and yes, it was extremely annoying. "It's loud and squeaky and it just goes through you," said Jodie Evans, 15. "It gets inside you." Evans and a 12-year-old friend who did not want to be interviewed were once part of a regular gang of loiterers, said Gough's father, Philip. "That little girl used to be a right pain, shouting abuse and bad language," he said of the 12-year-old. "Now she'll just come in, do her shopping and go." Robert Gough, who said he can hear the noise even though he is 34, described it as "a pulsating chirp." Stapleton, a security consultant whose experience in installing store alarms and the like alerted him to the gravity of the loitering problem, studied other teenage-repellents as part of his research. Some shops, for example, use "zit lamps," which drive teenagers away by casting a blue light onto their spotty skin, accentuating any whiteheads and other blemishes. Using his children as guinea pigs, he tried a number of different noise and frequency levels, testing a single-toned unit before settling on a pulsating tone that, he said, is more unbearable, and that can be broadcast at 75 decibels, within government safety limits. The device has not yet been tested by audio experts. Andrew King, a professor of neurophysiology at Oxford University, said in an e-mail interview that while the ability to hear high frequencies deteriorates with age, the change happens so gradually that many non-teenagers might well hear the Mosquito's noise. Stapleton is considering introducing a much louder unit that can be switched on in emergencies with a panic button. It would be most useful when youths swarm into stores and begin stealing en masse, a phenomenon known in Britain as "steaming." "It's very difficult to shoplift," Stapleton said, "when you have your fingers in your ears."

But KITT required an off-screen (usually ) ramp... A car that can jump over obstacles Bose

'I stole mail' By James Vicini Mon Nov 28,11:40 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a California man to be sentenced to spend a day outside a San Francisco post office wearing a signboard stating, "I stole mail. This is my punishment." The justices rejected an appeal by Shawn Gementera, who argued that this was designed to publicly shame and humiliate him. He said it violated the Sentencing Reform Act and the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Gementera pleaded guilty to mail theft after the police arrested him and an accomplice in 2001 for stealing letters from several mailboxes in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in 2003 sentenced Walker to two months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. The conditions for his release required Gementera to spend four days at a post office observing patrons inquire about lost or stolen mail, to write letters of apology to the victims of his crime, to give three lectures at high schools about his crime and to wear the two-sided sign for one eight-hour day. Gementera appealed the legality of the signboard requirement, but a U.S. appeals court panel, by a 2-1 vote, ruled against him in August. The appeals court said the record in the case showed that the judge imposed the condition for the legitimate purpose of rehabilitation. It said the judge could have imposed a lengthier prison term instead of the signboard condition, and added that crimes and the resulting penalties nearly always cause shame and embarrassment. Gementera's attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court. "The shaming condition amounted to nothing more than the piling on of an additional and quite gratuitous requirement -- designed to publicly humiliate (Gementera) -- in contravention of federal law," they said. "Punishments aimed at imposing shame and humiliation are inconsistent with a constitutional requirement that punishments, even for heinous crimes, be consistent with human dignity," they said. U.S. Justice Department attorneys said a sentence may serve a legitimate rehabilitative purpose, even if makes the defendant feel uncomfortable or embarrassed in public. The high court turned down Gementera's appeal without any comment or recorded dissent.

Top Paris hotels get five-star fines for price-fixing Nov 28 1:24 PM US/Eastern The Ritz, the George V and four other of Paris's top hotels -- all of them world-famous institutions that have lodged entertainers, princes and presidents -- have been fined tens of thousands of euros (dollars) each for price-fixing, France's anti-trust authority said. The hefty punishment was meted out Friday by the Competition Council after it found that the six hotels collaborated by exchanging confidential business information to artificially keep prices high on rooms and services. A total of 709,000 euros (829,000 dollars) was levied against the hotels, the others of which were the Meurice, the Bristol, the Plaza Athenee and the Crillon. The cartel came to light after a French television programme revealed in 2001 that the sales directors of the hotels met regularly to swap statistics and agree on certain prices. The establishments constitute the top-end of the hotel sector in Paris. According to the Competition Council, the Crillon -- a favourite of Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger -- received the heaviest fine, 248,000 euros. A standard room at that hotel, off season, costs 500 euros a night, according to its web page. Its priciest suite costs 8,080 euros a night in high season. The hotel Meurice was fined 55,000 euros, the Bristol was fined 81,000, the Ritz was fined 104,000 euros, the Plaza Athenee was fined 106,000 and the George V was fined 115,000 euros. Copyright AFP 2005

Oops... Did I spell that name wrong? Ronald MacDonald charged with stealing from Wendy's November 28, 2005 MANCHESTER, N.H. --You'd think that just working at a Wendy's restaurant would be difficult for Ronald MacDonald. Now, the 22-year-old MacDonald -- no relation to Ronald McDonald, the clown -- has been charged with stealing money from a safe at the Wendy's. Police said the restaurant manager called police early Monday, saying he found MacDonald and another employee taking money from the safe at about 1:30 a.m. MacDonald and Steve Lemay, 20, both of Manchester, were detained at the store until police arrived.

How did you manage to quote my pre-edited message so long after I edited it? I apologize you had to read the angry version of my original posting. Nonetheless I still disagree. For what it's worth I don't join in the celebration much myself but I will defend any Christian's right to do so. I will not argue your conviction of the Holy Spirit, as there are many things that one person will be convicted of but not others- like going to a bar. There are great reasons to stay away and some may even be convicted by the Holy Spirit to stay away. On the flip side there is a group of people I know who witness to bikers, and the bar is a place for doing that. How this pertains to the topic is that you have probably been convicted of it for a reason and I will not even try to guess why. For myself and many others I truly believe celebrating Christmas is indeed okay. I don't buy your syncretism argument. People don't place non-Biblical Christmas traditions on the same level as Jesus. He is number one, it is His birthday that is being celebrated, the rest is just, well, tradition. We all do certain traditions without placing it at the same level as Jesus- if we do then it is indeed wrong. I, and I think I speak for most here too when I say this, do not take traditions like gift-giving and say it's worship to God, just that when done in love it is showing godly traits. I certainly don't take a yule log either and offer it up to God and I'm pretty sure no one here does either. As for the date, why would God care if we celebrate on the exact date or not? It's not as if celebrating birthdays is in the Bible. And I still don't see any good arguments from you against trying to pull people out of pagan celebrations by turning their eyes toward Jesus instead. Back to your conviction, again I fully understand if you were truly convicted, but that does not make it truth for all. It just makes it truth for you. When I am before God at the end of my days I will account for some pretty terrible things in my life. Unless I start actually mixing those non-Biblical traditions with my worship to God, I am certain my celebration of Christ's birth, God's gift to the world, will not be one of them.

I respectfully disagree. Christmas has always been a Christian holiday. The holidays that pagans celebrated were not Christmas. Yes, some pagan customs were borrowed, and sadly are even the sole things some non-Christian families celebrate on Christmas. Nevertheless, I and many, many other Christians will be celebrating Jesus's birthday that day. We will be be celebrating God's gift to the world (note: turning something pagan into something Christian is not wrong) while others just pass out gifts. Note by the way that gift giving for most people is an act of love, the first in the list of fruits of the spirit in Galations I might add, so never mind that it was not originally Christian. As for the day of the celebration, what does it matter?. We don't know when he was born, so what is so wrong about picking a time for disgusting winter solstice celebrations and having people celebrate the birth of Jesus instead? I seriously hope you don't also hold churches in contempt that try to steer people away from Halloween and have a church gathering instead. It's the same thing. Feel free to not celebrate Christmas if you don't want to. Even be angry at stores capitalizing on the gift-giving aspect. But please don't get down on Christians for celebrating the birth of our Savior into the world. I don't know if that was your intention, but it does sound like it. Edited to remove some of my anger. Boy, that was toasty warm.

Yomo, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=44961 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=45931 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=46157 and Matt Barber's site that he started because of this: http://www.webtruth.net/

Good for you. I dumped them a few months ago, turning in a similar letter. My former agent asked for it but didn't even look at it. Did you know they are now saying Mr. Barber was fired for using company resources for that column? Flies right in the face of prior given information.

Some would say this wouldn't be a bad thing, for churches to no longer be tax exempt. Then they can be free to support specific candidates for governmental office. For this reason the ACLU/CCCP will likely not challenge it.

Okay, maybe it's because I'm not completely right with Christ right now, but I'm not seeing the concern here. The Bible tells us that this mark will happen and there is nothing we can do about it. Furthermore, this will only happen after several other things come to pass. So in short, the mark is not happening now, and when it does happen there is nothing we can do about it anyway since it is part of prophecy. So again, why get all bothered about what the mark might be? The only thing that this whole discussion should push us to do is get out and bring people to Christ while we still can. We do not know the hour, day, or year of Christ's return after all (though a friend of mine believes it to be 2011 ).

Reading is for when, well, the job isn't completed after a minute or two... Men, ever been some place where reading material is posted on the wall at head level for quick reading? That reading had better be light and quick- don't want to stand there all day in that position reading a novel or even just a full-page plus (newspaper) article! Since we require, *ahem*, hands-free reading, maybe full newspapers (so there is something for everyone, you know- not everyone wants to read the sports page!) would be an idea for the future in the form of a voice activated electronic paper- just say "turn page" and it will automatically do it. Problem would be if there is someone standing next to you doing the same thing!

I really hope this isn't becoming another anti-mega-church thread. I attend a church of around 7000 and I can assure you it is very much a Bible-believing, Christ-focused church. Incidentally, I could have chosen to attend Willow Creek as I live just about ten miles from it. I understand that they are having a few issues with certain ministries (like singles), but I'm told their Wednesday/Thursday night services (their "meat" services- weekends are "milk" services) are very good ones though I cannot testify first-hand, nor for their outreach ministries.

I just have to say that the Pledge of Allegiance is (so far) alive and well in the schools in my area. As for the money motto, it's been tried before and failed, but these days who knows? And if it does get changed, guess who foots the bill? I say he should pay for it if he wants it removed so badly (if he wins that is). Of course Joe Taxpayer will have to pay instead. How can we fight this? Should we? The last time this was brought forth it only got to stay because of how generic the motto has become, not really being about putting trust in our Lord anymore as it claims.

And now that guy who sued over the pledge in CA is trying to remove In God We Trust from our money. It never ends. I know this was tried before and failed, but with liberal judges realizing how easy it is to say "unconstitutional" these days, I wonder if it will stick this time.

Cutting off your friendship would not be the right thing to do at all. After such a procedure she will need every bit of support you can give her. She may reject you for trying to talk her out of it or telling her mother, but even so don't give up. And keep praying. You know you have people here praying for you as well.

I don't believe there is just one, but several people out there who could be your soul mate. Keep looking and praying, and one day God will let you know you found one of them!

The paper today says the parents of these rioting youth are blaming laws that prevent them from corporally punishing their kids. They say children have "too many rights." Apparently there is even a hotline French youth can call to report "parental abuse." This undoubtedly played a part, as any parent here will understand, especially those who have gone through a bitter divorce and had a lawyer assigned to their children (just like the French hotline- in case of punishment, just call lawyer...) but I believe too that the calling of Islam is playing a large part in these riots. From what's in their own "holy" book it would be foolish not to believe so.

Now did she throw the party at the trial or sentencing hearing? If at the trial then how did she know he would be found guilty? Some of those truthinators, I mean lawyers, are pretty good at their jobs- too good, if you know what I mean... In short, the party could have been for naught.

Now, what if a group of Christians in a few of these towns were to get together late one night and put up some proper Christmas decorations right in the middle of the municipal display. Hmm...?