Bizarre News

[Panda Tar]

Ok, something bizarre here:

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/PopArte/0, ... REAIS.html

Di Caprio will be producing a new version for that anime called Akira, with real actors and such. Geez...

[winterfate]

And if I read that correctly...it's going to have TWO parts?

You know...I've never seen Akira...but I'm not sure I want to see an anime remade as a live action movie.

[Muszka]

Anime & Action movies

[winterfate]

@Muszka: I mean live action as in real actors (not animated).

Just wanted to clarify that, because it seems like I confused you there.

[asandir]

Ghana unveils George Bush Motorway

US President George W Bush says US-African relations should be a two-way street but Ghana's President John Kufuor has done him one better, naming a future six-lane highway after his guest.

Mr Kufuor says the highway is being named after the American President to immortalise his good will to act.

"In appreciation of your many kind gestures towards Ghana, and other parts of Africa... my government has decided to name this road, this very strategic road, after you," Mr Kufuor said.

"Henceforth, it will be called the George Bush Motorway."

The announcement was made during an exchange of toasts at an official dinner capping the US President's visit to Ghana, the second-to-last stop on a week-long tour of Africa.

The 14-kilometre road is set to be upgraded with $US101 million and turned into what Kufuor calls "a first class" highway to support heavy traffic and speed shipments of agricultural goods to Accra's port for export.

"I really appreciate the George Bush Motorway. The next time I come and ride on the George Bush motorway, I promise that we will not shut the highway down," Mr Bush said.

"I have a feeling, a very strong feeling that on your impeding retirement, successful retirement, from office, you'll come back to see this road," Mr Kufuor said.

[Muszka]

@Muszka: I mean live action as in real actors (not animated).

Just wanted to clarify that, because it seems like I confused you there.

Not at all. Though I don't like anime, nor I watch, still I saw a couple of seconds between two channels. And anime seems an action based cartoon, with strange animations, like characters flying forever and such... I don't know, how good movie they can make.

P.S.: somewhere deep inside I'm ager to see DiCaprio flying forever....

[ThunderTitan]

let me guess... you're an ex SRI member.

ex-SRI members... right...


http://www.10news.com/news/15274005/detail.html

Retired Teacher Reveals He Was Illiterate Until Age 48
By: Charisse Yu

OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- John Corcoran graduated from college and taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell.

Corcoran's life of secrecy started at a young age. He said his teachers moved him up from grade to grade. Often placed in what he calls the "dumb row," the images of his tribulations in the classroom are still vividly clear.

"I can remember when I was eight years old saying my prayers at night saying, 'please, God, tomorrow when it's my turn to read please let me read.' You just pretend that you are invisible and when the teacher says, 'Johnnie read,' you just wait the teacher out because you know the teacher has to go away at some point," said Corcoran.

Click here to find out more!

Corcoran eventually started acting up to hide his illiteracy. From fifth through seventh grade he was expelled, suspended and spent most of his days at the principal's office.

The former teacher said he came from a loving family that always supported him.

"My parents came to school and it no longer was a problem for me reading because this boy Johnnie -- the native alien, I call him -- he didn't have a reading problem as far as the teachers were concerned. He had an emotional problem. He had a psychological problem. He had a behavioral problem," said Corcoran.

Corcoran later attended Palo Verde High School in Blythe, Calif. He cheated his way through high school, receiving his diploma in June 1956.

"When I was a child I was just sort of just moved along. When I got to high school I wanted to participate in athletics. At that time in high school I went underground. I decided to behave myself and do what it took. I started cheating by turning in other peoples' paper, dated the valedictorian and ran around with college prep kids," said Corcoran.

"I couldn't read words but I could read the system and I could read people," adds Corcoran.

He stole tests and persuaded friends to complete his assignments. Corcoran earned an athletic scholarship to Texas Western College. He said his cheating intensified, claiming he cheated in every class.

"I passed a bluebook out the window to a friend I painstakingly copied four essay questions off the board in U.S. government class that was required, and hoped my friend would get it back to me with the right answers," Corcoran said.

In 1961, Corcoran graduated with a bachelor's degree in education, while still illiterate he contends. He then went on to become a teacher during a teacher shortage.

"When I graduated from the university, the school district in El Paso, where I went to school, gave almost all the college education graduates a job," said Corcoran.

For 17 years Corcoran taught high school for the Oceanside School District. Relying on teacher's assistants for help and oral lesson plans, he said he did a great job at teaching his students.

"What I did was I created an oral and visual environment. There wasn't the written word in there. I always had two or three teacher's assistants in each class to do board work or read the bulletin," said Corcoran.

In retrospect, Corcoran said, his deceit took him a long time to accept.

"As a teacher it really made me sick to think that I was a teacher who couldn't read. It is embarrassing for me, and it's embarrassing for this nation and it's embarrassing for schools that we're failing to teach our children how to read, write and spell!"

[Corribus]

This probably would be better put in the "violence" thread, but since that thread turned into the "America sucks" thread, and had to be closed, I'll put it here. This is a very sad story that appeared on the local Philadelphia news this morning. I'm not sure what the hell is going on in Philadelphia these days, but it certainly is earning its new nickname: Killadelphia.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/ ... geId=1.1.1


Story summed up in two sentences: A 15 yo boy, on his birthday, was outside having a snowball fight with some friends, when one of the snowballs accidentically hit a passerby in the face. The passerby pulled out a gun and shot the boy in the head, killing him (actually, he's not dead yet, but doctors think it's only a matter of time).

My thought: Man, if your anger management skills are so bad that you feel that being hit with a snowball is a justification for an execution style murder, you are not human. You belong in a zoo.

[Muszka]

This probably would be better put in the "violence" thread, but since that thread turned into the "America sucks" thread, and had to be closed

I think the mods should reopen it with the agreement that there won't be political fights and debates in there.

As for the gunner... That is stupidity, I don't care too much for people in general, but shooting a 15 year old kid is something must be punished with death... funny, years ago I thought sentencing to death is futile. Not now.

[Jolly Joker]

This probably would be better put in the "violence" thread, but since that thread turned into the "America sucks" thread, and had to be closed, I'll put it here. This is a very sad story that appeared on the local Philadelphia news this morning. I'm not sure what the hell is going on in Philadelphia these days, but it certainly is earning its new nickname: Killadelphia.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/ ... geId=1.1.1


Story summed up in two sentences: A 15 yo boy, on his birthday, was outside having a snowball fight with some friends, when one of the snowballs accidentically hit a passerby in the face. The passerby pulled out a gun and shot the boy in the head, killing him (actually, he's not dead yet, but doctors think it's only a matter of time).

My thought: Man, if your anger management skills are so bad that you feel that being hit with a snowball is a justification for an execution style murder, you are not human. You belong in a zoo.

A couple of things:
1) For the violence thread. That thread did not turn into an "America sucks" thread. Instead some people dared to voice the opinion that the Bush administration - by no means America - are following a very aggressive and ruthless course making the world a much more dangerous place. It's not true either, that it HAD to be closed.
2) For the case at hand: for the shooter the snowball in the face may actually have been only the last (seemingly insignificant) in a row of events letting him lose it completely. He would have been dead or impriseoned long ago, if indeed a snowball in the face was all it took to let him shoot the "offender". More likely he was on the brink of exploding, maybe underway to do something stupid anyway, and that snowball did it for him.

[Muszka]

2) For the case at hand: for the shooter the snowball in the face may actually have been only the last (seemingly insignificant) in a row of events letting him lose it completely. He would have been dead or impriseoned long ago, if indeed a snowball in the face was all it took to let him shoot the "offender". More likely he was on the brink of exploding, maybe underway to do something stupid anyway, and that snowball did it for him.

I understand what are you telling. Still that's not an excuse to shoot a playing 15 year old boy.

P.S. I don't have anything with your argument. I see that you were just explaining the shooter's 'motive'.

[Corribus]

2) For the case at hand: for the shooter the snowball in the face may actually have been only the last (seemingly insignificant) in a row of events letting him lose it completely. He would have been dead or impriseoned long ago, if indeed a snowball in the face was all it took to let him shoot the "offender". More likely he was on the brink of exploding, maybe underway to do something stupid anyway, and that snowball did it for him.

You obviously don't know Philadelphia. This is not an isolated incident. It's not a "straw that broke the camel's back" thing at all (and even if it was, it certainly doesn't justify anything). It's an sociological epidemic of wanton violence in the streets of Philadelphia (and inner city neighborhoods everywhere). It's a general phenomenon that has its roots in bad parenting and bad role models.

I heard a statistic on the radio recently that in Philadelphia, if you commit a murder, you have only a 50% chance of being caught (let alone punished). Typically there is more than 1 murder per day here in Philadelphia, and that doesn't count the number of people who are shot - just the number who die. Cops are not respected - too many of them get gunned down before they know what even is happening. Too often do we here reports of kids (and I mean babies and toddlers) killed in their beds at night or in the back seats of cars, their brains punctured by stray bullets as people shoot at each other for no reason in the streets. Over 75% of Philadelphia murders are committed with firearms. It's sad.

[Jolly Joker]

Right. I don't want to excuse it or anything; I just want to suggest, that the snowball might just have been the end of a chain of events letting him explode, that - for him - it was only the last drop that let the barrel overflow.
Certainly no excuse for shooting at someone. But it might be interesting to reconstruct the last, well, 2 days or so of the shooter.

Edit: Hm, just say your last post, Corribus. Statistics say that Philly has the highest poverty rate of all big cities in the US. Officials cite poverty, lax weapon law handling and reduced police force as mjor reasons for the rise in killings. That and lots of illegal weapons. Which makes it actually look more like a case in MY point.

[Muszka]

I heard a statistic on the radio recently that in Philadelphia, if you commit a murder, you have only a 50% chance of being caught (let alone punished). Typically there is more than 1 murder per day here in Philadelphia, and that doesn't count the number of people who are shot - just the number who die. Cops are not respected - too many of them get gunned down before they know what even is happening. Too often do we here reports of kids (and I mean babies and toddlers) killed in their beds at night or in the back seats of cars, their brains punctured by stray bullets as people shoot at each other for no reason in the streets. Over 75% of Philadelphia murders are committed with firearms. It's sad.

I didn't know that in Philadelphia the situation is so bad. It's like in some semi-futuristic "gray-movie".

[Corribus]

I didn't know that in Philadelphia the situation is so bad. It's like in some semi-futuristic "gray-movie".

Yes, it's very bad. My city has a lot of problems.But, we just finally got rid of one of the worst mayors in the history of mayors, so hopefully the new guy will improve the situation. Unfortunately, the last guy left such a mess in his wake, that I'm not sure if the new guy is going to be able to get anywhere before he is criticized for not turning things around immediately.

[Corribus]

And on a less serious news note:

Wiener Poopie

[Muszka]

I saw a case tonight in news, it's a bit bizarre on it's own, yet it's even more interesting when taking in count the 'Philadelphia case'.

A 47 year old mother shoot in head his 25 year old boy in their house after a heavy debate, with the father's hunting rifle. The boy died instantly of course.

[Milla aka. the Slayer]

People are insane
And mothers are even more insane..

[Muszka]

And mothers are even more insane..

You'll be one... He-He He-He...

[Milla aka. the Slayer]

If everyone else is I don't wanna stand out