Joey Buttafuoco, who gained notoriety in 1992 when his affair with a teenager led to his wife's shooting, was arrested Wednesday and charged with insurance fraud after making phony repair estimates at his auto body shop. Buttafuoco, co-owner of California Collision of Chatsworth, allegedly told undercover investigators how to file phony insurance claims for undamaged cars. Prosecutors charged him with three counts of insurance fraud and one count of grand
theft. He was being held on $50,000 bail. A separate action was also filed by the state to suspend or revoke the body shop's license, alleging the shop charged customers over $12,000 for repair work that was not done.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A hefty California prostitute turned the tables on an abusive, small client with his own knife and paraded him naked in front of other streetwalkers. The Bakersfield Californian said the man drove up to the unidentified woman and asked to pay for sex. He ignored her directions on where to park, and went to a field where he allegedly pulled a knife. The man stands 5-foot-5 and weighs 140 pounds and the woman stands 5-foot-7 and weighs 245 pounds.
She soon had the knife away from him and ordered him to strip. She then drove back to where other prostitutes were and asked if anyone recognized him. Police did and charged 45-year-old Adrian Ramirez with committing forcible sex acts on the 24-year-old woman. Police said Ramirez has a lengthy criminal record including four counts of rape. He is free on $250,000 bond awaiting his Dec. 30 hearing.

TORTILLA FLATS, Ariz. - An entire Old West Arizona town has
been put on eBay with an asking price of $5.5 million. Tortilla Flat, a historic tourist town of splintered-wood buildings and dust is posted on the site, and its listing has logged more than 6,500 hits. Nestled in the Superstition Mountains about 18 miles northeast of Apache Junction, the 1904 town offers prickly pear cactus ice cream, half-pound cowboy burgers and saddle seating at the bar. Dave Levi, 54, who has co-owned the town for five years with his sister and brother-in-law, Pam and Alvin Ross, said he is "getting
too old for this stuff." The land on which the town sits is leased from the Tonto National Forest Service. The 20-year, renewable and transferable land lease, now in its third year, is included in the sale.

WESTON, Fla. - A woman got a lot more than she asked for at
a McDonald's drive-thru. Janice Meissner ordered a bagel and a Diet Coke for breakfast, but her bag of food seemed unusually heavy. She soon discovered the bag was loaded with hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in a sealed plastic bag.
The money turned out to be the restaurant's bank deposit.
Officials for McDonald's said the deposit was put in a food bag to make it less obvious before it was taken to the bank.
It was accidentally left too close to the drive-thru window and the employee didn't check twice before sending it out the window. Meissner did a double take after opening the bag before backing up her minivan to the window to return the money. McDonald's officials said they will send Meissner a thank-you letter and $50 in gift certificates.

After beating 1000 rivals in a 500-mile race, Percy the racing pigeon flopped down exhausted in a Sheffield loft and was promptly eaten by a cat.

In preparation for the 1992 New York Golden Gloves Championships, boxer Daniel Caruso psyched himself up by pounding his gloves into his face. In doing so, he broke his nose and was disqualified from the match.

While waving to the crowd after finishing fourth in the 500cc US Motor Cycle Championship in 1989, Kevin Magee fell off the machine and broke his leg.

During a cricket game in Kalgoorlie, Australia, Stan Dawson was hit by a delivery which ignited a box of matches in his pocket. As he tried to beat down the flames, he was tagged out.

Russian athlete Ivanon Vyacheslav was so thrilled to win a medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics that he threw the medal high into the air. It landed in Lake Wendouree, and was never found.

A producer is very hands-on at all stages of production. The producer is involved in casting, script development, hiring the crew, managing the film's budget, dealing with day-to-day issues that arise during shooting etc. While the director oversees all creative aspects of the production, a producer supervises the business/logistical side of things.

An executive producer on the other hand is often an investor who has made a financial contribution to the film but does not become involved in the day-to-day running of the production. The title executive producer may also be more honorary than real. Sometimes it is bestowed on the film's stars as part of their contract. A production company or studio executive that had some initial involvement in the project might also be given the title of executive producer as a kind of thanks.

CONTEST: Get Initiative - The Writing Initiative's 1st Annual
Prizes: Top Ten will be marketed to agents, managers, and studios
Deadline: December 31, 2003
Website: http://www.writinginitiative.com/

CONTEST: 3rd Annual American Gem Short Script Contest
Prizes: FilmMakers.com will produce the winning script
Deadline: February 2, 2004
Website: http://www.filmmakers.com/contests/short/

CONTEST: Maverick Blueprint Screenplay Contest
Prizes: over $18,000 in prizes, guaranteed options and representation
Deadline: February 29, 2004
Website: http://www.maverickblueprint.com

CONTEST: Hollywood's Next Success Screenwriting Contest
Prizes: guaranteed requests for the winning script from agents,
studios,
producers, etc.
Deadline: April 28, 2004
Website: http://www.hollywoodsnextsuccess.com

CONTEST: Hollywood Gateway Screenwriting Contest
Prizes: $5,000 cash, 12-month option, trip to Hollywood, among others
Deadline: April 30, 2004
Website: http://www.hollywoodgateway.com

CONTEST: Script P.I.M.P. Screenwriting Competition
Prizes: $10,000 in cash. $8,000 in prizes
Deadline: May 1, 2004
Website: http://www.scriptpimp.com/writing_competition

CONTEST: Nicholls
Prizes: Potentially 5 fellowships
Deadline: May 1st, 2004
Website: http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/index.html

by Randy Cassingham

Mark Edmonson, 18, was doing pretty well at Northwest Guilford High
School in Greensboro, N.C. Early in his senior year, he had a 3.8
grade-
point average, scored a perfect 1,600 on his Scholastic Achievement
Test,
was a National Merit finalist and, outside school, had incorporated his
own Internet company. Combined, that made him a shoe-in at the college
of
his choice, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

UNC sent him a letter of acceptance in April, 2003. However, the
letter warned, "your enrollment will depend upon your successful
completion of your current academic year." Further, it said, "We expect
you to continue to achieve at the same level that enabled us to provide
this offer of admission; we also expect you to graduate on time."

Edmonson graduated on time, but that's about all -- in his final
semester he earned only C and D grades, and failed one class entirely,
crashing his overall GPA to 3.5. Not surprisingly, UNC was unhappy, but
rather than rescinding Edmonson's admission it "temporarily suspended"
it
and asked him to come in for an interview to discuss the matter.
Apparently unsatisfied with the answers, after the interview UNC did
rescind Edmonson's acceptance, though it suggest he might consider
"transferring to Carolina after you have established a record of
success
at another college or university."

But Edmonson only wanted to go to UNC. Once he got their April
acceptance he not only slacked off in high school, he didn't bother to
apply anywhere else. "If they say he can't come, I don't know what
we'll
do," said his mother, Barbara. "We're kind of stuck."

Edmonson wasn't satisfied with "stuck": he called Marshall Hurley, an
attorney. In a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court in
Hillsborough, Hurley argues the university's admission letter was a
binding contract both parties agreed to. Thus UNC's rescinding the
offer
is an unjustified "breach of contract". It asks the court to order UNC
to
allow him to start classes immediately.

The suit claims the university didn't give Edmonson a chance to
explain what happened in his in-person interview, but admissions
director
Herb Davis differs. "He looked at his transcript and responded to my
question of what happened to him with philosophical quotes but nothing
directly related to my questions," Davis wrote in a formal affidavit in
response to the suit.

Attorney Hurley sees it differently: "I frankly think that his 1,600
[SAT] score was being held against him, that even with his lofty score,
they can teach him a lesson," he said. "I just think there's some
arrogance going on here, some bureaucratic arrogance."

Beyond the rather laughable claim that an institution of higher
learning would hold academic achievement against a student, would
Hurley
also consider it "arrogance" to accept the terms of a "contract" and
then
fail to live up to them? The acceptance letter made it clear what his
client had to do to be admitted to UNC -- the "terms" of the so-called
"contract" -- but he didn't do it. If there's a "breach of contract"
here, Edmonson is the one who breached it. By failing to have any sort
of
back-up plan to implement as he saw his grades slipping, and by putting
all his energy into a lawsuit rather than applying at other schools,
Edmonson only proved one thing: he's not the sort of scholar a
university
like UNC allows into its halls.

Apparently Edmonson's case wasn't strong enough for an injunction --
the judge refused to grant a court order forcing the school to admit
him.
However, the judge didn't throw out the suit, so it will be heard in
due
time. Meanwhile, Edmonson won't be going to school, he mother says.
"The
general feeling is just so negative that I'm not sure what he can do or
where he can go," she said. "I can't imagine any admissions person in
the
area, at N.C. State or Duke or anywhere, even looking at him." He'll
never know unless he tries, but it looks like Edmonson gave up long
ago.
And isn't that the entire problem?


SOURCES:

1) "UNC Admission Rescission Sparks Suit", Durham Herald-Sun, 19 August
2003.
http://StellaAwards.com/cgi-bin/redirect3.pl?39a

2) "Rejected Student Ponders Future", Durham Herald-Sun, 22 August 2003
http://StellaAwards.com/cgi-bin/redirect3.pl?39b

"Saudi Takes Four Wives in One Night to Spite His Ex"}
-- AFP headline
gefunden auf http://www.thisistrue.com/

Librarians are protesting a new "action figure" being released by Archie McPhee and Co. of Seattle, Wash. The $8.95 doll, complete with "amazing push-button shushing action!", is "a lovely idea
and a lovely tribute to my chosen profession," says librarian Nancy
Pearl, 58, whom the doll is modeled after. But other librarians don't like it one bit. "The shushing thing just put me right over the
edge," says Diane DuBois of the Caribou (Me.) Public Library. "It's so stereotypical I could scream." (AP) ...Hey! What part of "shush"
don't you understand?
gefunden auf http://www.thisistrue.com/

Mayor Stephen P. Laffey of Cranston, R.I., says he did nothing improper when he hired a private detective to make videos of
city employees sleeping on the job. "That's a public building and
there's not a reasonable expectation to privacy there," the mayor
said after being criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union. "There is no civil liberty to sleep on the job." (Providence Journal) ...Well that's certainly going to be a surprise to a lot of people.
gefunden auf http://www.thisistrue.com/

A judge in Beaver County, Penn., has thrown out an appeal of a school expulsion. The appeal, filed by the mother of a 13- year-old girl, argued that the girl should not have been disciplined since school rules don't specifically prohibit girls from performing oral sex on boys on the school bus. She apparently did not dispute that
her daughter committed the offense, which was witnessed by several other students. The 13-year-old boy who was the recipient of her attentions was also expelled. (Beaver County Times) ...But, he says, it was worth it.
gefunden auf http://www.thisistrue.com/

Schools in Rapides Parish, La.,
have a new policy: students may not be drunk or under the influence of illegal drugs at school. The policy was instituted since the old policy only prohibited "possession" of drugs which, argued the parents of a middle school student who sued, did not include drugs inside the body.
Their child had been expelled for testing positive for marijuana. The School Board settled with the parents and instituted the new rule to avoid further lawsuits. (Alexandria Town Talk) ...Yet thanks to "Zero Tolerance" they expel kids for having asthma inhalers.
gefunden auf http://www.thisistrue.com/

There are 318,979,564,000 possible ways of playing just the
first four moves on each side in a game of chess.

In the 1970 Census, the U.S. had 2,983 men who were already
widowers at the age of fourteen and 289 women, also at four-
teen, who had already been widowed or divorced.

Mollusks, soft bodied animals with hard shells, are the sec-
ond largest population of living things.

The total population of the Earth at the time of Julius Cae-
sar was 150 million. The total population increase in two
years on Earth today is 150 million.

People who have never married are 7.5 times more likely to
be hospitalized in a state or community psychiatric facility
than those who married.

Barnum's Fiji Mermaid, an ugly, dried-up, black object about
three-feet (one-meter) long, was promoted as being half-
monkey and half-fish. It was eventually found to be a hoax.

Poet Edgar Allan Poe ran a long-running hoax promotion of a
manned balloon flight across the Atlantic.

Tourists flocked to Palisade, Nevada when the city boasted
its regular gunfights and street brawls. However, what the
visitors didn't know was that all the fights were staged.

A report in The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856
claimed that a living pterodactyl (an extinct flying rep-
tile) had been discovered in France.

A hotel operator hoaxed tourists to visit his city by crea-
ting a "Silver Lake Serpent" that lured many people to the
area.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the first Hummer manufac-
tured for civilian use in 1992. The vehicle weighed in at
6,300 lbs and was 7 feet wide.

Americans consume 42 tons of aspirin per day.

Bayer was advertising cough medicine containing heroin in
1898.

Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and las-
er printers were all invented by women.

Cocaine was sold to cure sore throat, neuralgia, nervous-
ness, headache, colds and sleeplessness in the 1880s.

For two years, during the 1970s, Mattel marketed a doll
called "Growing Up Skipper." Her breasts grew when her arm
was turned.

Es ist schon ein paar tage her und es ist einfach in den anderen meldungen untergegangen.
Aber ich glaube das diese entscheidung große veränderungen mit sich bringen wird. Nie wieder muß irgend jemand "angst" haben wegen irgend welcher kriegsverbrechen vor gericht gestellt zu werden.
Ich finde es traurig das sich Belgien so von den USA hat einschüchtern lassen das sie so gar ihr einzigartigstes (mußte einfach sein) gesetzt ändern.

in google "weapons of mass destruction" eingeben und dann "auf gut glück" (i'm lucky) suchen.
und ergebniss genau lesen.