Strange things in the NEWS

[prariepunk]

6-Foot Snake Found In N.J. Family's Toilet

POSTED: 7:28 am EDT October 21, 2005
UPDATED: 7:35 am EDT October 21, 2005

A blocked drain at a home in North Plainfield, N.J., led to the discovery of a 6-foot snake in a family's toilet, according to a Local 6 News report.

Pete and Debbie Bias suspected there was a problem with their home's plumbing system after nearly a week of messy backups.

The blockage moved mysteriously from the toilet in the basement to the second-floor bathroom, according to the report.

The couple decided to move the toilet off its base to investigate the problem and found a 6-foot Brazilian Rainbow Boa named "Freddy."

"I called my wife over, she took a look at it and she said, 'Yeah, it looks like we have a snake in the drain,'" Pete Bias said.

Police called in a local pet store owner Craig Ost to remove the reptile.

"Luckily I grabbed it by the head," Ost said. "If I grabbed it by the tail, the thing probably would have scurried down the drain."

It was not determined how Freddy wound up in the toilet but the Bias family suspects it entered the home through the sewer system.

 

[prariepunk]

Some body must have "DUMPED" it off

Police: 93-Year-Old Drives Through Toll With Body On Windshield

POSTED: 6:10 pm EDT October 20, 2005
UPDATED: 7:46 am EDT October 21, 2005

A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian, then continued driving through a toll booth with the man's body on his windshield, police said.

Investigators said Ralph Parker hit the man on 34th Street in St. Petersburg Wednesday night, according to a report.

Ralph Parker of Pinellas Park drove for 3 miles Wednesday night after striking the 52-year-old pedestrian with his gold 2002 Chevrolet Malibu, severing the man's right leg, police said.

A toll taker on the Sunshine Skyway saw the body stuck through Parker's windshield and notified police, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said.

Authorities did not identify the pedestrian.

Parker was hospitalized overnight with minor scrapes, and was expected to be taken to an elder care facility, Jockers said.

Charges were not likely to be filed, because Parker did not appear to know what had happened, where he was nor the correct date, said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant in the Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney's Office.

"He may have somewhere in his mind have realized it was a crash, but immediately forgot about it," Jockers said.

Police took Parker's license, which he renewed in 2003. "That was the one thing he had, to get in his car and just drive for the sheer enjoyment of driving," Jockers said. Parker lived alone after his wife died in 1998, according to authorities.

A spokesman for the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said the agency would conduct its own inquiry into whether Parker, who otherwise had a clean driving record, should have had a license.

Seniors age 80 or older must pass only a vision test when renewing a Florida driver's license.

 

[prariepunk]

Um....... Check it out

N.B. student calls oldest spruce tree discovery 'magical'
Last Updated Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:47:23 EDT
CBC News

A third-year university student has found the world's oldest-known red spruce tree – and he's not telling where it is.

Mount Allison student Ben Phillips found the tree while walking along the Bay of Fundy coast last summer. He took a core sample, and then counted all the rings under a high-powered microscope.
A close-up view of the world's oldest documented red spruce tree rings.

Phillips describes his latest discovery as magical. "The tree itself just has this glow about it. You can tell it's significant when you approach it."

The tree is so old, it predates European colonization in North America. It's at least 445 years old and the oldest documented red spruce tree on the planet.

Most red spruce trees have a lifespan of about 400 years. The previous record was held by a 405-year-old tree in New Hampshire.

Climate record
Phillips said the record-holding tree is small, only approximately 30 centimetres in diameter, and scraggly looking.

He's keeping its location secret because he's worried gawkers might trample on its roots, or someone might cut it down. He said it's healthy and could live many more years.

"The last time I was in there I kind of apologized to the tree for taking the core, and just told it how important I think it is," said Phillips. "I don't want other people to go in there and trample it down. The human impact that it's escaped is the reason why it's still there."

Phillips is studying dendochronology, or tree-ring analysis.
Ben Phillips takes a core sample.

His supervisor, Colin Laroque, said this discovery will open a world of knowlege for many in the scientific community because tree rings hold valuable information about climate patterns.

"We were hoping that Ben's searching might produce a tree up to 300 years old, which would have been impressive enough, but we never dreamed he'd find a 400-plus-year-old tree. This is a truly spectacular find," said Laroque.

"Ben has delivered to us a single, unbroken record of growth conditions in the region, a record that all other data can now be checked against."

Phillips received a grant from the Royal Canadian Geographic Society to look at how weather changes affect trees in the lowland-fog forest of the Fundy Basin, compared to those growing above the fog zone in the Caledonia Highlands.

He is using samples from red spruce trees to figure out what the weather was like at both lower and upper-elevation locations during the last few hundred years.

 

[prariepunk]

He's got Old Wood

Detroit Man Wakes After EMS Declares Him Dead
Doctors Say Diabetic Man Suffered Sugar Attack

POSTED: 12:01 pm EDT October 20, 2005

DETROIT -- A Detroit man woke after being declared dead at about noon on Wednesday, Local 4 reported.

Louis Golson, 51, was pronounced dead by EMS crews that responded to the home on the 13000 block of Mapleridge on Detroit's east side, where he lives with his sister, Lisa McCloud, and her husband.

McCloud's husband went downstairs to Golson's basement bedroom to check on him and found that he wasn't moving and was unresponsive.

A short time after EMS arrived at the home, they came upstairs to tell the family that Golson was dead. The crew apparently claimed the 116 pound man had died in his bed overnight and rigormortis had begun to set in.

"They told me to call the doctor, to sign the death certificate (and) they will not have to take him to the morgue, that the funeral home can come and get him," said Golson's niece, Kimberly Golson.

McCloud said she started notifying family members that he had passed while EMS waited at the scene for police.

At about 2 p.m., when Golson's other sister, Deborah Golson, went downstairs to check on his body, he opened his eyes and moved his arms, the station reported.

Police responding to the scene also confirmed that the 51-year-old was not dead.

"When the police came, the police took the light, flashed the light into his eyes and the police realized he was alive," McCloud said.

Golson was rushed to St. John Hospital, where doctors determined that the diabetic had suffered a sugar attack.

He was treated and is recuperating in a hospital bed, the station reported.

Deborah Golson told Local 4 that she believes the incident is part miracle and part mistake.

A captain with the Detroit EMS squad said the case is under investigation and a report was being prepared to hand over to the chief's desk to determine if the EMS workers will face any punishment.

 

[Utah_jeepster]

Another strange one

Posted in the Salt Lake Trib 11/4/05

Cracking the code: All four of the Seminole County, Fla. (suburban Orlando), judges who hear drunken-driving cases have routinely tossed out all challenged breath-alcohol readings since January (a total of more than 700), according to a September Orlando Sentinel story, because
the judges say the defendants should be given access to the machines' computer code. (Without the readings as evidence, about half the DUI defendants go free.) The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says the machines are accurate and that, anyway, manufacturers protect the codes as trade secrets.
- Compiled
by Chuck Shepherd

Ok we have four idiots and 700 happy DUI's out there getting ready to do it all over again! Ewww I dont want to be driving in Seminole county myself.