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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Daily Drift

tonsofland:

number ten.
Number 10 Downing Street. Wait, you mean to say, there's another one!?

Some of our readers today have been in:
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Hamburg, Germany
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Cebu City, Philippines

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Today in History

1129 The warrior Yoritomo is made Shogun without equal in Japan.
1525 Estavao Gomes returns to Portugal after failing to find a clear waterway to Asia.
1794 France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.
1808 Napoleon Bonaparte's General Junot is defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimiero, Portugal.
1831 Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia that kills close to 60 whites.
1858 The first of a series of debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas goes on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time.
1863 Confederate raiders under William Quantrill strike Lawrence, Kansas, leaving 150 civilians dead.
1864 Confederate General A.P. Hill attacks Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon railroad. His attack is repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate casualties.
1915 Italy declares war on Turkey.
1942 U.S. Marines turn back the first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal in the Battle of Tenaru.
1944 The Dumbarton Oaks conference, which lays the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations, is held in Washington, D.C.
1945 President Harry S. Truman cancels all contracts under the Lend-Lease Act.
1959 Hawaii is admitted into the Union.
1963 The South Vietnamese Army arrests over 100 Buddhist monks in Saigon.
1968 Soviet forces invade Czechoslovakia because of the country's experiments with a more liberal government.
1996 The new Globe theater opens in England.

Red, White and Blue Triangle to Shine in Night Sky

The patriotic triangle will be formed by Saturn, Mars and the star, Spica.  
saturn, mars

Non Sequitur

http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/nq120820.gif

Deutsche Bank under investigation for business with Iran

Not to worry though because it's painfully clear after the crisis that the financial industry is the law, so little will come of this. Now that the US Department of Justice has taken a pass on prosecuting Wall Street for the 2008 banking crisis, it's hard to say what a bank has to do in order to be held fully accountable for their actions.
U.S. prosecutors are investigating Deutsche Bank and several other global banks over business linked to Iran, Sudan and other nations currently under international sanctions, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Manhattan District Attorney's office are investigating the banks for allegedly using U.S. branches to move billions of dollars in Iran-linked transactions, according to the report, citing unnamed law enforcement officials.

The investigation into Deutsche Bank is at an early stage and so far there is no suspicion the Germany-based institution moved money on behalf of Iranian clients through American operations after 2008, when a policy loophole allowing such maneuvering closed, the Times reported.

Deutsche Bank decided in 2007 it would "not engage in new business with counterparties in countries such as Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea and to exit existing business to the extent legally possible," a spokesman told Reuters on Saturday. He declined to comment further.
Equally unsettling is the NY Times report that our "allies" in Iraq (including those with deep ties to the government) are also finding lucrative business and banking partnerships with Iran.

Eleven Great Musician-Politician Campaign Feuds


Before selecting your election campaign music, better check out the politics of the musicians. The third or fourth time I read a story like this, I wondered why in the world didn't the campaign managers bother to get the music licensed. But it's not a copyright-infringement issue most of the time -the campaigns do get a license to use the music, usually through a third-party service. The issue is when the musician just plain doesn't like the politician or what he/she stands for. Since the music is properly licensed, the only recourse is to use the media to distance the musicians from the political campaign, and that can backfire on the politician. But since it rarely happens more than once to the same politician, we see it happen again and again as candidates rise to the big leagues. Read about eleven public candidate-musician spats at Time

In 1768, the HMS Romney came to America to raise your taxes

And she never left.
True story, in fact:
Claim: A ship named the HMS Romney was once used to help enforce import duties on the British North American colonies.

TRUE.

[Collected via e-mail, April 2012]

I was on facebook today and I saw a message directed at Teabaggers which stated:
Hey Teabaggers
Guess what?
In 1768, the British dispatched a 50-gun warship to New England to enforce the crown's right of taxation over the rebellious colonist.
The name of that ship?
HMS Romney


Paul Ryan was for stimulus spending before he was against stimulus spending

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

As if being caught in a blatant lie about requesting stimulus money wasn't enough, Paul Ryan will now have to answer questions about his complete support for stimulus spending during the shrub cabal. If ever there was an example of the obstructionist repugican party, it's right here. Everything that Ryan said in 2002 to support the shrub stimulus is somehow null and void during the Obama presidency. For the repugicans, it's all about obstructionism and politics rather than helping their country.

With flip-flopping like this, it's no wonder Mitt Romney loves the guy.

The truth hurts

Did you know ...

How the repugican party has broken the American dream

How religion has destroyed the repugican party

The truth be told

Crops unharvested in California due to labor shortage

The problem of crops going unharvested raises a few questions that have been ignored during the anti-immigration debates. If the anti-immigration people are able to shut down the border, are they also willing to pay a lot more money for the produce due to higher wages being paid by the farms? If farmers are struggling to find workers during this economy, clearly they're not offering enough money for the hard work involved.
Are the farmers themselves ready to pay more money or are their margins already too low? Some are but even then, few want to do this back breaking work. Either way, it's a pity so see good food go to waste while crops are dying elsewhere in the US.
"This year is the worst it's been, ever," said Craig Underwood, who farms everything from strawberries to lemons to peppers, carrots, and turnips in Ventura County.

Some crops aren't get picked this season due to a lack of workers.

"We just left them in the field," he said.

The Western Growers Association told CNBC its members are reporting a 20 percent drop in laborers this year. Stronger border controls are keeping workers from crossing into the U.S. illegally, and the current guest worker program is not providing enough bodies.

Miserable Monday is a Myth

Hate Mondays? Think that people have bad moods on Mondays more than any day of the week?
Turns out that "Miserable Monday" is a myth: people hate Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays just as much!
US investigators who looked at a poll of 340,000 people found moods were no worse on Mondays than other working days, bar Friday.
People were happier as they approached the weekend, lending support for the concept of "that Friday feeling".
More

Anti-suicide nasal spray

The US Army is funding the development of a hormone nasal spray that they hope may ease depression and lift suicidal thoughts. Indiana University medical researcher Dr. Michael Kubek co-discovered a hormone, called TRH, that has anti-depressant properties but isn't effective when ingested or injected. With the army funding, Kubek hopes to create a TRH nasal spray so the hormone can cross the blood-brain barrier. “Today’s commonly used anti-depressants can take weeks to have an effect and carry a black box warning label for suicidal ideation in young adults," Kubek said. "That is why we hope to develop a quick-acting, easy-to-use, non-invasive system that delivers a compound that’s been shown to reduce suicidal thoughts.” 

Why Can Some People Recall Every Day Of Their Lives?

Brain Scans Offer Clues
Researchers are using MRI scans to learn more about the brains of people with extraordinary memory.
Researchers are using MRI scans to learn more about the brains of people with extraordinary memory.
Six years ago, we told you about a woman, identified as A.J., who could remember the details of nearly every day of her life. At the time, researchers thought she was unique. But since then, a handful of such individuals have been identified. And now, researchers are trying to understand how their extraordinary memories work.
Bob Petrella, 62, of Los Angeles had to go through a lot of memory testing to qualify as someone with superior autobiographical memory. First, there were lots of questions about news events from the past several decades, like the O.J. Simpson car chase.
  Petrella scored 55 percent correct on the news events, according to a paper published in July in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. (Most people get 15 percent.) Then he was quizzed about his own life.
"They asked, 'What day of the week was Jan. 1, 1984?' — which was a Sunday," Petrella recalls. "And the Steelers, my favorite team, lost to the Raiders that day, 38-10."
Petrella is one of 11 individuals who have now been extensively studied by memory researcher James McGaugh at the University of California, Irvine. The testing has shown that Petrella and the others like him don't use memory tricks.
They don't have photographic memories. They're not savants. Other than their remarkable memories, they're normal, says McGaugh.
"They're reasonably successful in what they do. There is a professional violinist; there is Marilu Henner, who is a successful actress ... and so on," McGaugh says.
Surprisingly, Petrella and the group didn't do any better than you or I would on most standard memory tests — like repeating back lists of words, or a string of numbers. It's their autobiographical memory that's exceptional. Other types of memory are pretty much normal.
"People like us, we forget normal things. Like, I forgot where I parked my car a couple of months ago coming out of a theater. Or I forget where I left my keys," he says.
The researchers have identified another surprising set of behaviors that these individuals share.

Testing Extraordinary Memory

Here are a few questions from the preliminary screening for people with extraordinary memories. Subjects are given either a date and asked to give the event, or an event and asked to give the date.
  • May 25, 1977. Answer: Star Wars opened, a Wednesday.
  • Death of Anna Nicole Smith. Answer: Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007.
  • July 29, 1981. Answer: Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married, a Wednesday.
"Most, if not all of them, have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies," says Petrella. "They tend to save a lot of objects. They tend to have some repetitive habits. They tend to store things."
Take Petrella, for example.
"He's germ-avoidant. If he drops his keys, he has to wash them. He can't wear shoes that have shoestrings, because shoestrings touch the ground," McGaugh says.
But the obsessive tendencies don't seem to interfere with daily living, McGaugh says. It's a tantalizing clue, especially when coupled with the MRI findings that a brain area known to be involved in obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is larger than normal in these folks.
This brain area, called the caudate, may be related to having the constant, repetitive and precise replay of past events. The brain scans also revealed other differences in brain structure.
"What we've identified are nine regions of the brains of these subjects that differ from those of control subjects," he said.
Many of these regions are involved in memory encoding and retrieval. McGaugh hopes further research on these individuals will reveal how their phenomenal memories work, and perhaps how ordinary memory works as well.

Five Things You Should Know About West Nile Virus

Ten people have died so far this year from the virus, here are some facts.  
mosquito

Valedictorian denied diploma after "hell" quote in speech

A brilliant student, Kaitlin Nootbaar, was denied her High School diploma for using the word "hell" in her Valedictorian speech, according to Oklahoma City's KFOR. A school administrator at the High School in Prague, Okla., demanded a personal apology from her before handing it over, a condition she turned down—and which her family believes is illegal.

Mo Farah Running Away from Things


Mo Farah won gold for Great Britain in the Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 meter races, which solidified his status as a national hero. A classic image showing the moment he realized he'd won the second gold medal lent itself to an photo mashup meme, many of which are enshrined in the Tumblr blog Mo Farah Running Away from Things. No, he's not panicked, but with the proper menacing background, it sure can look that way! More

Gyrobike

Learning to ride a bike can be tough. But now there's Gyrobike's Gyrowheel. Gyrowheel is a revolutionary front wheel for children's bikes and is a better solution than traditional training wheels. Powered-on, Gyrowheel delivers high stability at low speed to help keep the rider upright. The rider learns correct riding technique and enjoys a safer, easier and faster learning experience.

YouTube link

How the refrigerator got its hum


Technology solves problems. But there's usually more than one way to solve a problem. Cars don't have to run on internal combustion — and they don't have to look like smoothly curved pods. (In fact, when I was in grade school, they didn't.) Our electric grid isn't the result of a rational discussion about ideal technology. Instead, it was built partly based on convenience and speed, and partly based on cost.
Basically, there are lots of ways to solve a problem and for almost every tool we use there's an alternative we chose (somewhere along the line) to not use. I'm working on my second column for The New York Times Magazine, which will come out in September. In the course of researching that, I stumbled across a really fascinating research paper about the history of the refrigerator. See, the electric fridge we're all familiar with wasn't the only option in home refrigeration. In the 20th century, the low hum of the electric refrigerator competed with a silent version powered by natural gas.
"How the Refrigerator Got its Hum" is an article written by science historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan. It was published in 1985, in a book called The Social Shaping of Technology. The article traces the development of the refrigerator and the story of why we use electricity, rather than natural gas, to cool our food today. I couldn't fit it into my NYT column, but it's absolutely fascinating and well worth the read. The key point of Cowan's article: Our world is full of "failed machines", technologies that worked just fine, but that we don't use today.
These are not junked cars and used refrigerators that people leave along roadsides and in garbage dumps, but the rusting hulks of aborted ideas; patents that were never exploited; test models that could not be manufactured at affordable prices; machines that had considerable potential, but were, for one reason or another, actively suppressed by the companies that had the license to manufacture them; devices that were put on the market, but never sold well and were soon abandoned. The publications of the Patent Office and the "new patents" columns in technical magazines reveal that the ration of "failed" machines to successful ones is high, although no scholar has yet devised a formula by which it can actually be determined.

Facebook Request from Jailer

One jailer in Oconee County was fired and another resigned earlier this month because they allegedly sent Facebook friend requests to a female inmate under their supervision .
 More

Elderly lady fought off burglar with BBQ fork

73-year old Margaret Jackson stopped by her daughter's house in northeast Houston on Friday afternoon. "I wanted to rest. I was tired, so I sat down on the armchair," Jackson said. Her daughter's Yorkie, Zach, kept running back and forth to the back door, barking.

"So I got up and went to look, but I went to the side window. I looked out and saw this man." He was trying to open the back door with a credit card. "I need to get a strategy," she said. She went into the kitchen and looked about for a weapon. They didn't have any large knives handy, but she found a pair of scissors and a BBQ fork.

"I said this is a weapon. This is sturdy," she said. Rather than wait for him to get in, she changed the game by charging out, moving as quickly as she could on her arthritic knee. "I pushed the door on him and then he pushed it back on me and he took off running and I got him in the back of the neck with this, just bam," she said.



The hapless burglar fled, vaulting over the fence and disappearing into the neighborhood. Houston Police officers searched for the failed burglar with dogs, but couldn't find him. Jackson said they were laughing hysterically and told her that it was the funniest thing they could remember for a long time.

Man tried to shoplift sausage by stuffing it down in his trousers

A 35-year-old man faces charges after State College police said he tried to shoplift a $6 sausage by stuffing it down his trousers. The man’s name has not been released by police because the charges are pending.

He’s going to face a misdemeanor charge instead of a summary because he has a prior retail theft offense, police said. The incident happened late on Thursday night at Giant Foods on East College Avenue in College Township, Pennsylvania.


Police said a store manager saw the man unwrap the sausage and put it down his pants. The man later paid for other merchandise, but when he went to leave, store management confronted him.

The man tried to get away, police said, but he ended up cooperating. The sausage was destroyed because it was taken out of the wrapper.

Bong mistaken for pipe bomb caused road closure

The discovery of a cylinder that resembled a pipe bomb but turned out to be a piece of homemade marijuana paraphernalia prompted a 90-minute road closure and a few evacuations in Sherman Heights, San Diego on Friday.

Some 329 injured, 7 critical in annual stone war between neighboring Indian villages

As many as 329 people were injured, seven of them seriously, on Saturday during the traditional 'Gotmar Mela', a stone war between two neighboring villages at Pandurna in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh. Villagers defied plea by district administration to give up the Gotmar Mela that leaves several injured and even deaths.


Police said the seriously injured have been referred to hospitals in Nagpur in neighboring Maharashtra while all other injured were given first aid at the nearby public health centers. A sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Praveen Shendre also sustained injures when a group of people attacked a police party when they tried to check sale of illicit country liquor near the mela venue. The mob also damaged an ambulance.

Gotmar mela is celebrated every year on the second day to "Bhadrapad' the new moon day on the banks of river Jam. A tree trunk is placed in the middle of the river Jam which flows through this village. A flag is tied on top of this tree. People from neighboring village Savargao and Pandhurna gather on either side of the river banks in the morning and try to pull the flag on the tree top but are prevented by people throwing stones from either side. The village which is able to pull the flag is the winner.



In the wake of injuries, and even deaths, the district administration had tried to impress upon the villagers to use rubber balls instead of stone in 2001 and 2002 but the villagers did not agree. Although the 'gotmar' has been banned for several years, villagers still celebrate the bloody festival every year and the administration makes arrangements to provide timely medical facilities for the injured.

Funny Pictures


The William Wallace Letters

William Wallace Letter

Free exhibition, The Scottish Parliament

  • Wednesday 15 August – Saturday 8 September. 
  • Preview Weekend Friday 10 and Saturday 11 August
  • Opening times between 10am and 5pm
  • Closed Monday 13 and Tuesday 14 August, and on Sundays
William Wallace stirred strong reactions in the years leading to his execution in 1305, and still does today.
This exciting exhibition explores the turbulent times in which he lived, and offers a special chance to see the only two documents with a personal link to him.
Wallace emerged from obscurity in 1297 to play a key role fighting in the Scottish wars of independence.
On display will be the letter issued by Wallace and Sir Andrew Murray after the Battle of Stirling Bridge, in which they plead for the Hanseatic trading port of Lübeck to resume trade with Scotland.
Visitors can also see the letter from King Philip IV of France asking agents to assist Wallace in his business before the Pope in 1300.
Get close to these intriguing fragments of Scotland’s history and discover the story behind the real William Wallace.

The Queen of troubadours goes to England

 
Eleanor of Aquitaine and 12th Century Anglo-Norman Literary Milieu

By Eugenio Manuel Olivares Merino

Into Another’s Skin: selected essays in honor of María Luisa Dañobeitia, edited Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde; María José de la Torre Moreno (ed. lit.), Laura Torres Zúñiga (ed. lit.), 2012

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to cast some light on the role played by Eleanor of Aquitaine in the development of Anglo-Norman literature at the time when she was Queen of England (1155-1204). Although her importance in the growth of courtly love literature in France has been sufficiently stated, little attention has been paid to her patronising activities in England. My contribution provides a new portrait of the Queen of Troubadours, also as a promoter of Anglo-Norman literature: many were the authors, both French and English, who might have written under her royal patronage during the second half of the 12th century. Starting with Rita Lejeune’s seminal work on the Queen’s literary role, I have gathered scattered information from different sources: approaches to Anglo-Norman literature, Eleanor’s biographies and studies in Arthurian Romance. Nevertheless, mine is not a mere systematization of available data, for both in the light of new discoveries and by contrasting existing information, I have enlarged agreed conclusions and proposed new topics for research and discussion.


Introduction: Little do we know about the personality of the queen whose wooden funerary effigy lies under the main dome in the Abbey of Fontevrault. Eleanor of Aquitaine died in 1204, though the exact place where she passed from the world is not known for sure: according to some chroniclers, she ended her life in Poitiers; according to others, she was taken to Fontevrault “where she put on the garb of a nun before closing her eyes”. Her hands are holding a book, most probably a prayer book, the Holy Bible – or, why not, a courtly romance… The granddaughter of William IX of Aquitaine – the first known troubadour –, Eleanor, was born in 1122 or 1124, somewhere in the far south of Aquitaine, probably in Bordeaux or Belin, where she spent her early childhood before moving to Poitiers after 1130. “Charming”, “welcoming” and “lively”, as Geoffroi de Vigeois described her, she exercised an unquestionable influence in the development and popularisation of the new courtly sensibility in France. Highly intelligent and well-educated – she probably knew Latin, Eleanor was the great patron of the two dominant poetic movements of the time: the courtly love tradition, conveyed in the songs of the troubadours, and the historical Matter of Britain, best represented in Chrétien de Troyes’ roman courtois.

Skull Resets Human Migration Clock

Oldest human bones in Asia unearthed
Newfound pieces of human skull from "the Cave of the Monkeys" in Laos are the earliest skeletal evidence yet that humans once had an ancient, rapid migration to Asia.

skull

New poll shows atheism on rise, with Jews found to be least religious

A Gallup poll conducted in 57 countries shows 9% decline in people who consider themselves religious, compared to a similar survey conducted in 2005.

Pakistan president orders probe into christian girl's blasphemy case

President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered his Interior Ministry to check whether local authorities misused Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law in the recent arrest of a young Christian girl accused of desecrating pages from the Koran
President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered his Interior Ministry to look into the recent arrest of a young Christian girl accused of violating Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law by desecrating pages from the Koran.
The case of Ramsha, an 11-year-old girl from an impoverished section of Islamabad, has again cast a spotlight on Pakistan's struggles with intolerance and with the application of its blasphemy law, which makes it a crime to utter any derogatory remarks or to insult in any way the prophet Muhammad, the Koran or the faith of Islam.
The law is often exploited as a means to settle scores against adversaries or persecute minorities -- particularly Christians and Ahmadis, members of a Muslim sect viewed by most Pakistanis as traitors to Islam because they revere another prophet in addition to Muhammad.
Ramsha, whose last name was not given by authorities, was accused of burning pages from the Koran on Thursday, though authorities are also investigating whether she was simply burning discarded papers she pulled from a trash bin as fuel for cooking, according to a statement released by Zardari's office.
News of Ramsha's alleged actions enraged neighbors, who attacked the girl's sister and mother and set ablaze several Christian homes in the area, the statement said. Several Christian families fled the neighborhood, fearing further violence.
"Blasphemy by anyone cannot be condoned, but no one will be allowed to misuse the blasphemy law for settling scores," said Zardari's spokesman, Farhatullah Babar.
Pakistan's most infamous application of its blasphemy law came in 2010, when Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian mother, was sentenced to death for allegedly making disparaging remarks about the prophet Muhammad and the Koran. Bibi has always denied the allegations and remains on death row.
In January 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province who criticized the blasphemy law and championed Bibi's case, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. That officer, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, said he killed Taseer because of Taseer's opposition to the blasphemy law. Qadri was convicted last October and awaits execution in a Pakistani prison.
Two months after Taseer's murder, gunmen assassinated Shahbaz Bhatti, the country's minority affairs minister and Pakistan's only Christian Cabinet member. Like Taseer, Bhatti also had openly criticized the blasphemy law and the death sentence that Bibi had received.

Who's who in China's Bo Xilai political scandal, wife's sentencing for murder

The political scandal surrounding one of China's most high-profile politicians, Bo Xilai, whose wife has been given a suspended death sentence for the murder of a British man, is the messiest to strike the ruling Communist Party in years and exposes divisions just ahead of a crucial leadership transition in the fall.

The Cities of Georgia


Georgia means cool wine, mountains, ancient and modern architecture in harmony, a lot of temples, mountains again ... and huge khachapuri (Georgian cheese pastry) on a skewer. More

Upside Down And Other Weird Houses


Some very creative people have been building homes that aren't just places to hang their hats but instead are wildly whimsical, fantastically fanciful, amazingly awesome, and occasionally brilliantly bizarre.

Retro Photo

tonsofland:

inside my empty bottle.

The Avenue Of The Baobabs

The Avenue or Alley of the Baobabs is a prominent group of baobab trees lining the dirt road between Morondava and Belon'i Tsiribihina in the Menabe region in western Madagascar. Its striking landscape draws travelers from around the world, making it one of the most visited locations in the region.

The Avenue of the Baobabs has been a center of local conservation efforts, and was granted temporary protected status in July 2007 by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests, the first step toward making it Madagascar's first natural monument.

Neighborly dispute involves cockatoo allegedly taught to squawk 'f*cking whore'

Rhode Island residents Kathy Melker and Craig Fontaine are ready to sell their waterfront home and move out of state because of their neighbors and a bird. According to Melker, neighbors Lynne Taylor and Chris Levasseur, residents at 51 Harris Avenue, Warwick, are harassing them extensively. She claims Taylor verbally insults them by yelling obscenities as well as threatening them. Now, says Melker, Taylor has also got her umbrella cockatoo, Willy, involved.


Since June 2011, Melker claims the bird has been calling her a “f*cking whore” for up to sixteen hours a day. This ruffles Melker’s feathers. “It’s directed exactly at me, I’m 53 years old and I’ve never been called a f*cking whore in my life. This woman is a lunatic,” said Melker. She even alleges that Taylor and Levasseur painted an image of a cockatoo on the side of their own house to mock them. “We’ve got to get out of here. The situation is unbelievable,” says Fontaine.

The feud between neighbors and what apparently the bird has been trained to say is known to police and the mayor’s office. They’ve heard the squawking. It’s complex. Fontaine and Taylor used to be married and lived in Fontaine’s home, which he began remodeling shortly after purchasing it. “She was running around while he was busy working on the house,” Melker says. “One day, right after he had just finished the house, she announced that she’s having an affair with Chris Levasseur.



“She literally picked up her belongings and moved next door. Craig had just finished building a half a million dollar house, so what’s he going to do? Just walk away? He’s been living there for six years and she has been harassing him unmercifully.” Ironically, Fontaine bought the bird with Taylor more than 12 years ago. He said when he lived with it, it would say phrases such as “Hello,” “Whatcha’ doing?” and “I love you.” “After she moved out, she trained it to say, ‘F*ck you,’” he said. “When Kathy moved in, she trained it to scream, ‘f*cking whore.’”

CPR


The Ten Weirdest-Named Shark Species

Sharks often have weird names. For example: the Starry Smooth-Hound, the Tasseled Wobbegong ot the Scalloped Bonnethead. Those are real animals. But the weirdest of all is the porbeagle, which doesn't sound like a fish at all. Here are the 10 weirdest-named shark species.

Animal Pictures