Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code

Iran has warned suntanned women and girls who looked like “walking mannequins” will be arrested as part of a new drive to enforce the Islamic dress code.

Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran’s police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: “The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins.

“We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them.”

Iran’s Islamic leadership has in recent weeks launched a scaremongering campaign to persuade the population that vice is sweeping the streets of the capital. National law stipulates that women wear headscarves and shape shrouding cloaks but many women, particularly in the capital, spend heavily on fashions that barely adhere to the regulations.

The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.

via Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code – Telegraph.

Anyone reading this been to Iran? Is this stuff true? Are people over there really so insanely afraid of sex? It sounds from the Western perspective like Iranian men must all be rabid sex criminals who can not be trusted around any person identifiable as female.

Israel jails man for ‘holy semen’ sex abuse

An Israeli man has been imprisoned for 10 years for tricking women into sexual acts by claiming his semen was holy and had healing powers.

Nissim Aharon, a former employee at the Israeli defence ministry, was convicted of rape, sodomy, indecent acts and aggravated fraudulent acquisition.

Women paid him large sums of money, believing he was a holy rabbi who could heal body and soul, the court said.

Judges called his actions “monstrous”, exploiting “women young and old”.

The sentence was the result of a plea bargain, and was handed down at Petah Tikvah district court.

Under it, Aharon will also have to pay 100,000 Israeli shekels ($26,866) to each of five women who filed the complaint against him.

‘Holy fluid’

Aharon, who was arrested last August, “over many years presented himself as a righteous man, as a saint with healing powers, who exploited the naivity of women and teenage girls, while carrying out appalling sexual acts and obtaining large sums of money by fraud,” the Israeli Justice Ministry said in a statement.

He would claim to be a rabbi, and impersonate figures in authority who would then refer women and teenage girls to himself, the ministry said.

“He would give these people different explanations: among others, that a holy scent comes from him, and that his semen is a holy fluid, which by contact could heal body and soul,” the statement said.

He would also claim that his “holiness” could be passed to those who touched him physically, cleansing their bodies, it said.

Aharon also pretended that he worked in posts in the security establishment, including for the Israeli intelligence services Mossad and Shin Bet, the ministry said.

via BBC News – Israel jails man for ‘holy semen’ sex abuse.

Man jailed after home break in strangeness

An Elizabethton man was arrested Monday after he reportedly entered the house of a Hampton woman without her permission and began acting strangely.

Michael Gordon Vest, 36, 107 Timber Ridge Lane, was arrested by Deputy Jon Frazier on a charge of aggravated burglary.

Penny Williams said she was in the rear of her residence shortly before 6 p.m. when she heard someone enter the front door. When she went to check, she found Vest, who was not known to her, standing in the living room holding a small house plant and reading from Williams’ antique Bible.

Williams ordered the man to leave, but she said he began to come further into the house. She retreated toward the rear of her house and Vest went outside, she said. When he got outside, she said, he attempted to plant several potted plants in the ground. Vest was taken into custody by sheriff’s deputies shortly after that.

Lt. Patrick Johnson said Vest was wearing a pair of boots taken from Williams’ residence and had a pair of her glasses. During the encounter inside the house, the antique Bible Vest was reading was damaged and the front cover was torn off. A pair of household scissors was also fond sticking out of the exterior wall to the left of the front door.

Vest was taken to Sycamore Shoals Hospital for an evaluation, then taken to the Carter County Jail.

via JohnsonCityPress.com – Local News – Johnson City, TN.

Aspiring sailor trying to sail round the UK circles the Isle of Sheppey instead

The aspiring sailor didn’t realise until he ran out of fuel and had to call for assistance.

A lifeboat rescued him after his engine wound down off the Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey, which he had been sailing round all day and night.

In addition to his tour of the 8-mile-wide island, the man, who had set out from Gillingham, had made a number of unfortunate assumptions.

It is understood that he had bought the motor cruiser online and that since it only had a 20-litre fuel tank and a 20 horse power engine it was not suitable for sea use.

The man was also using a road map to navigate and had no provisions on board.

He was making his way to Southampton alone with no navigation equipment.

He told his rescuers that because he could drive in his car to Southampton using a single tank of fuel, he thought only needed one tank of fuel for the vessel.

Although he had a VHF radio he did not know how to use it.

Lifeboat volunteer Tom Ware said: “Because he had no chart and he didn’t even know what navigational charts were, his general principle was to keep the land on his right, except he didn’t realise Sheppey was an Island.

“It took him a day and a half to get from Gillingham to where he ran out of fuel.”

Coastguards, who met the man at Queenborough, advised him that engine sizes and therefore fuel consumption differs and the coast route was longer than the road distance in any case.

Coastguard Ian Goodwin said: “We passed on relevant safety advice and advised him that the best way to Southampton would be by train. However, he said he would get some fuel and get underway but asked us if he went left or right when he came out of the Swale.”

It is unknown whether the man made it to Southampton.

via Aspiring sailor trying to sail round the UK circles the Isle of Sheppey instead – Telegraph.

The smallest horse in the world?

So there you were, pretty confident that the best equine story you were going to read all week was the one about the artist who turns My Little Ponies into slightly sinister film characters. Recalibrate your expectations, people. You’re about to meet Einstein, the world’s smallest horse.

When he was born in New Hampshire on Friday, young Einstein weighed just 6lb (2.7kg) and stood a mere 14-inches (35.5cm) tall. It is traditional to patronise small things by describing them as being pint-sized. Having spent some time cooing over this video of Einstein gambolling around his paddock to a rather charming bluegrass soundtrack, I have concluded he is at least two-litre-sized.

But no matter. His breeders on the Tiz A Miniature horse farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire, in the north-east US, are confident that he is small enough to enter the Guinness Book of World Records.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t Thumbelina officially the world’s smallest horse? You read it in the Daily Mail. So did I. Plus her very own website makes the same bold claim. The 17.5-inch (44.5cm) mare has been milking it pretty much ever since Guinness bestowed on her the honour in 2006. She has even done a US tour.

But Thumbelina weighed a comparatively hefty 8.5lb when she was born in 2000. And she is officially a dwarf and not merely a tiny version of a proper healthy horse like Einstein, says Rachel Wagner, Einstein’s co-owner.

“Most of the ones that are really tiny are what we call dwarves and have some sort of dysmorphic features. This little guy is like all horses — he’s almost all leg,” said Wagner, adding, “He is very perfect looking little boy and not dwarfy looking at all.”

via The smallest horse in the world? | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Man steals electricity with meat hook

German police are investigating a man for theft after he siphoned electricity off a high-voltage overhead transmission line for one month with the help of an ordinary meat hook, authorities said on Tuesday.

Oddly Enough

The 36-year old man from Sibbesse in Lower Saxony concocted the plan to steal electricity after the power company cut him off for failure to pay his bills, police said.

The man attached a cable to the meat hook and tossed it onto an overhead power line. He then drew power from the transmission line to his home, located about 150 meters away.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 34-year-career,” said Friedrich-Wilhelm Lach, chief executive of regional utility Ueberlandwerke Leinetal GmbH, told Reuters. “It’s incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid.”

An employee of the utility noticed the meat hook during a routine check. Lach said the man was lucky he is still alive and warned copycats not to try it: “It will kill you,” he said.

via Man steals electricity with meat hook | Reuters.

Monitor Lizard Discovered with Flame-Colored Head

A distinctly colored species of monitor lizard, a close relative of the Komodo dragon, has been discovered in Indonesia.

The lizard, whose scientific name is Varanus obor, is also called by its popular names, Torch monitor and Sago monitor. It’s called Torch monitor because of its bright orange head with a glossy black body. “Obor” means torch in Indonesian.

The newfound lizard is a close relative of the intimidating Komodo dragon, as well as the fruit-eating monitor lizard recently reported from the Philippines.

The Torch monitor can grow to nearly 4 feet (1.2 meters) in length and 3.5 pounds (1.5 kilograms) in weight, and thrives on a diet of small animals and carrion.

The Torch monitor exists only on the small island of Sanana in the western Moluccan islands of Indonesia. A unique aspect of this geographical region is the lack of mammalian predators, which may have given reptiles the space to evolve as the top terrestrial predators and scavengers.

Several million years ago, this island was situated near New Guinea, and it is possible that the lizard lives on as a relic from that period. It is the only black monitor in its lineage, and the only monitor species anywhere that has evolved red pigmentation.

via Monitor Lizard Discovered with Flame-Colored Head | LiveScience.

Baby son outgrowing smallest mother

Britain’s smallest mother has described the difficulties of caring for a baby son who is almost as tall as her.

Amanda Moore, 25, of Hinckley, Leicestershire, risked her life to give birth to Aidan, now aged 14 months.

She has a rare bone disease which stunted her growth at 3ft 1in (0.9m) and left her unable to stand.

At 2ft 6in (0.7m), Aidan is taller than his mother when she is seated. Ms Moore said: “Now he’s walking he’s more than a handful for someone my size.”

She said she believes Aidan could end up being as tall as his father, Steven Fyfe, 20, who is 6ft 1ins (1.8m).

Ms Moore added: “When I sit on the floor to play with him, he is taller than me already and he’s only 14 months old.

“He’s getting so big and strong that soon we’ll have to tell him to be gentle with Mummy.

“It’s been a struggle because he’s been running rings around me since he was crawling.

“Most boys are bigger than their mums but not after a year.”

Ms Moore suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta – commonly known as brittle bone disorder.

‘Very lucky family’

Born with 14 broken bones herself, she said doctors warned her becoming pregnant could prove fatal.

But Aidan was born in February 2009 weighing 5lbs 5oz and had not inherited his mother’s bone condition.

He now weighs 22lbs (9.9kg) …

via BBC News – Baby son outgrowing smallest mother.

‘Noah’s Ark’ found in Turkey… oh, Nevermind. It’s a Kurdish hoax.

THE remains of Noah’s Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.

They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah’s Ark Ministries International research team, said: “It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.”

He said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000ft in the vicinity, Yeung said.

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Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted.

The biblical story says that God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it was.

He then told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.

After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.

Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants ran aground.

via ‘Noah’s Ark’ found in Turkey | The Sun |News.

This is from Dec 28, 2009:

If Noah’s Ark has been sitting on a mountain somewhere in the Middle East for a few millennia, a few more months of waiting are a small price to pay, at least for Randall Price.

Price, who heads Liberty University’s Center For Judaic Studies, talked in January about his planned two-season expedition into Turkey, with the hopes of finding the Biblical artifact. He arrived in Turkey over the summer.

But Price said since then, he’s faced pressure from a political group in Turkey that is forcing him to keep his excursion very hush-hush. …

“We did penetrate about 18 feet down into the glacier, and we have some evidence that we’re in the right place,” Price said, adding satellite data puts them about 30 feet from their goal.

Price said he’s aware that whatever rests under the glacier might not be the jackpot he has been looking for.

“While we’d like to think it’s Noah’s Ark, we’re not sure what it is, but it’s in the right place,” he said.

Price said whatever there is to be discovered, it should be found when he returns in the coming summer.

“There is negotiation between Turkish authorities and this warring faction,” he said, “and that should enable us to go back without problems next year.” – link

They returned after the ice melted and found the wood. Here’s why an archaeologist and former member of the team says it’s a hoax :

A group of Chinese and Turkish explorers announced this week they are ’99.9 percent’ sure of their discovery on Mt. Ararat. While Noah’s ark found in Turkey would bolster Bible literalists, an American ark-hunter says the latest discovery could be a hoax.

A longtime ark-hunter has serious doubts about this week’s announcement that Noah’s ark was found in eastern Turkey.

A Chinese-Turkish team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International held a press conference April 25 in Hong Kong to present their findings and say they were “99 percent sure” that pieces of wood found at above 12,000-feet elevation and dated as 4,800 years old were from the biblical Noah’s ark.

Such a finding would provide evidence for a literal interpretation of the Bible and boost the evangelical Christian worldview in a relatively young Earth that was formed in seven days and where a wrathful God punishes the wicked.

But Dr. Randall Price, an evangelical Christian and former member of the Chinese-led team that announced this week’s finding, says the latest purported finding may not withstand closer scrutiny.

“If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that’s fine. My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be,” he says.

‘Difficulties with a number of issues’

Dr. Price, who is director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., was the archaeologist on the Chinese-led team in 2008 when this alleged discovery was first made. He says he has “difficulties with a number of issues related to the evidence at hand.”

Price declined to elaborate. However, a leaked email from Price – which he confirms that he wrote – shows that he has reason to believe that a group of local Kurdish men trucked wood up to the mountain and staged an elaborate hoax for the Chinese team.

A group of Kurdish workers “are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area (where the photos were originally taken) at the Mt. Ararat site. … During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film,” Price writes in the email.

Price is a longtime searcher himself for the ark. As a member of Noah’s Ark Search LLC, he had gone on a number of expeditions to Mount Ararat.

Price was not the only member to withdraw from the Chinese-led team over questions about their purported finding.

Not good evidence

Dr. John D. Morris, who is president for Dallas’ Institute for Creation Research and has been a consultant to the team since 2005, says he declined an invitation to be a part of this week’s press conference in Hong Kong.

“I’m a scientist. I need to have good evidence,” says Dr. Morris. “As of right now, there is not.”  – csmonitor

An underlying cause for psychopathic behavior?

Psychopaths are known to be characterized by callousness, diminished capacity for remorse, and lack of empathy. However, the exact cause of these personality traits is an area of scientific debate. The results of a new study, reported in the May 2010 issue of Elsevier’s Cortex (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex), show striking similarities between the mental impairments observed in psychopaths and those seen in patients with frontal lobe damage.

One previous explanation for psychopathic tendencies has been a reduced capacity to make inferences about the mental states of other people, an ability known as Theory of Mind (ToM). On the other hand, psychopaths are also known to be extremely good manipulators and deceivers, which would imply that they have good skills in inferring the knowledge, needs, intentions, and beliefs of other people. Therefore, it has been suggested recently that ToM is made up of different aspects: a cognitive part, which requires inferences about knowledge and beliefs, and another part which requires the understanding of emotions.

Dr Simone Shamay-Tsoory, from the University of Haifa in Israel, along with colleagues from The Shalvata Mental Health Care Center and the Rambam Medical Center, tested the hypothesis that impairment in the emotional aspects of these abilities may account for psychopathic behaviour. Earlier research from the same group had shown that patients with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain lack some of the emotional aspects of Theory of Mind, so they speculated that psychopathy may also be linked to frontal lobe dysfunction.

The emotional and cognitive aspects of Theory of Mind abilities were examined for participants in the new study, which consisted of a number of different groups: criminal offenders, who had been diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder with highly psychopathic tendencies, patients with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain, patients with damage to other areas of the brain, and healthy control subjects. The pattern of impairments in the psychopathic participants showed a remarkable resemblance to those in the participants with frontal lobe damage, suggesting that an underlying cause of the behavioural disturbances observed in psychopathy may be dysfunction in the frontal lobes.

via An underlying cause for psychopathic behavior?.