lifefate12345's blog: "Information for the Bored"

[Atlanta, GA] The United States Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, declared on Friday that the "obesity epidemic" sweeping our nation is now contagious, due, in large part, to a phenomenon knows as EARS. Their recommendation: immediately quarantine the overweight. In a press conference on the steps of their Clifton Road headquarters in Atlanta, CDC spokesman, Dr. Jerry Carmichael, revealed their newest findings in the agency's war against corpulence. "Obesity, and to a lesser extent, morbid obesity, can no longer be defined as a personal problem." Carmichael says, "We now know that these diseases are not only spread, but exacerbated by human contact. This poses a significant threat to the health of the people of the United States, and falls within our purview. We are bound by a presumptive duty to take this out of the hands of the individual. "E.A.R.S., or Externally Affected Rationalization Syndrome, is the process by which one person who may, in fact, be borderline overweight, looks at another who is grossly overweight, and decides that "I'm not all that fat," and makes the decision to have that second donut or the extra cheese on those nachos." said the doctor. "This mentality spreads like wildfire. Our natural tendency to overindulge when combined with EARS has created a healthcare crisis in this nation of unimaginable size. "In the end, there really is only one answer. We can try to fight the fast food restaurants, the junk food manufacturers, and the all of the bakers and confectioners in the world, and it still isn't as effective against obesity as it is be to remove your opportunity to see someone fatter than you." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and several amiable U.S. Senators as yet unnamed, are crafting legislation that would quarantine anyone exceeding the National Average Height to Weight paradigm used by the CDC to determine ideal human body index ratio. Tent camps would be set up in major metropolitan areas, staffed by personal trainers, nutritionists, and motivational speakers. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that original plans included contracting Dr. Phil McGraw to consult and speak, but given that none of the residents of these camps would actually have committed a crime, legal advisers pointed out that this might seem like unwarranted punishment. Citizen groups are outraged, and call into question the science behind the Center's findings. They also point out that these plans offer no criteria for release from confinement, and since no arrest has been made, no right to legal representation, either. "Why don't they just put the fashion industry in charge of it, or the media. They're the ones who don't want heavy people walking around in public." Said Trent Dansen 46, of Atlanta , "That's what this is all about, you know. The beautiful people don't want to look at the chubbies anymore, so they're turning their attack dogs loose. Well, I for one, am going to fight it." Carmichael responds, "I bet it was a fat guy who said that."

By LIZ HULL - More by this author » Last updated at 01:02am on 26th June 2007 As a way of getting yourself a date, it would raise more than a few eyebrows nowadays. But for those desperate to win a lover in Elizabethan Britain, burying a dead frog in an anthill at a cross roads and putting it's bones in a river was apparently a sure fire way to secure a woman's heart. The bizarre spell has been unearthed in a unique handwritten book of 400-year-old magic due to be auctioned next month. Found among the effects of controversial artist Robert Lenkiewicz, who died five years ago aged 60, the "manuscript grimoire" provides an extraordinary number of conjurations, incantations, signs, portents, spells and folk remedies from the late 16th century. The anonymous author describes how to use magic not only to find a lover, but also to help find treasure or even prevent theft and punish robbers. According to the book, the best way to win a woman is for a man to "take a frog and put him in a pot and stop it fast," before advising him to bury the pot in an ant hill at a crossroads. After nine days, two of the frog's bones should then be removed and placed in a stream or river of running water. The extraordinary spell continues: "One of them will float against the stream. "Make thee a ring, and take the part that swum against the stream and set it in the ring, and when you will have any woman put it on her right hand...she shall never rest till she hath been with thee." Written between 1590 and 1620, the 30-page volume also includes illustrations of the planets with angelic seals, coded messages, invocations in Latin and crudely-drawn Christian symbols. It also makes reference to witchcraft, blood rituals and contains a sketch of a reversed pentacle - a symbol of Satanism. The manuscript, which is expected to fetch up to £12,000 when it goes under the hammer at London-based auctioneers Sotheby's on July 13, tells readers how to summon a spirit to one's bed chamber or summon a spirit into a crystal, as well as providing folk remedies for the relief of toothache and labour pains. It also contains instructions on how to draw a "magical eye" to identify and punish thieves and claims robbers could be warned off by a spell in which the reader is required to chant a long list of the names of angels. The book says: "Whoever be afraid of thieves, to be robbed by night or by day in his house, or else that he hath a pond of fish or garden of fruit of a field of sheep or a horse...that he would have kept from all thieves and saved. "Let him say this charm next following like as it standeth written hereafter. They shall have no power to bear away his goods nor rob him but they shall stand as still as amazed men, till they have leave to go. "...And when thou hast said what thou list, then bid him go hence in God's name, and come no more here. And if he will not go, bid him go hence in the devil's name." Dr Gabriel Heaton, manuscripts specialist at Sotheby's, said the spell book offered an interesting insight into early European magic. "This is a richly illustrated Elizabethan anthology and an important and unique source of occult material covering a wide range of spells and conjurations - a sourcebook of practical magic as practised in early modern Europe," he said. "But I wouldn't recommend trying these at home. "Much of the text is set within a Christian framework - but there are also signs of an older and darker tradition in the use of blood rituals and, on one occasion, a reversed pentacle."

Robert Stewart was allegedly caught in the act by two terrified cleaners who walked into his bedroom in a hostel. Stewart has denied the accusation, claiming it was caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink. The 51-year-old bachelor was charged with the bizarre sexual offence after he was disturbed by the cleaner and her colleague in a private hostel in Ayr. The charge alleges he conducted himself in a disorderly manner, simulated sex with a bicycle and continued to do so while naked from the waist down in the presence of two female employees. Stewart had been living in the Aberley House hostel from October 2006 after moving from his council house in Girvan, Ayrshire.