ROSIE SWALE POPE HAS NEARLY RUN AROUND THE WORLD!
Are you ready for an adventure. It’s gratifying to know that there are those out there that can still find it in this modern world. Most of this article was taken directly from the London Times article. I didn’t feel I could improve on it. Enjoy: After making her way alone across some of the world’s most inhospitable terrain, suffering frostbite, double pneumonia and a breast cancer scare, Rosie Swale-Pope, 61, is now believed to be on the verge of becoming the first person both to sail and run around the world. She confirmed last night that she had checked with Guinness World Records, which had said it had no record of anyone having achieved the double feat. As Rosie Swale, she achieved fame in the 1970s as a round-the-world yachtswoman, causing a stir by sailing through the Tropics in the nude. On her latest venture she was nearly swept to her death in a river in Siberia, and almost froze at minus 62C (-79F) in Alaska. On one night she was confronted by a man wielding an axe; on another she was taught by two convicted murderers how to light fires in the rain. But after wearing out 45 pairs of shoes in more than 240 weeks of running, Ms Swale-Pope was delighted to be home. “It’s fantastic to be back on British soil,” she said, adding that she hopes to be back in Tenby, West Wales, on August 25, 1,789 days after she set out in October 2003. “The most important priority now is to run the last 700 or 800 miles, and then to keep honour with this journey by writing a book.” Her latest adventure began on her 57th birthday after the death of her husband from prostate cancer, in an attempt to raise awareness of the disease. After running across Europe, spending two winters in Siberia and crossing the United States, Canada, Greenland and Iceland, she caught a ferry to Scrabster in Scotland that arrived at 5am yesterday. Ms Swale-Pope, who has two children and two grandchildren, carries all her possessions, either in a backpack or a cart, which she pulls by a harness around her waist. Her many marriage proposals were probably from men who fancied the cart, not me, she joked. “I think most of them were simply because I looked strong and handy for hauling logs and things. I had nine in Poland alone.” In the US, where she found a lump in her breast but a biopsy gave her a clean bill of health, her trek caught the public imagination and she received an invitation to speak on The Martha Stewart Show. But her most memorable experiences included seeing the Northern Lights after several days of snow blindness, and being run at by an axe-man one night in Siberia. She recalled: “Suddenly there was a crashing noise and a wild-eyed man burst through the trees running towards me. I decided to stand my ground and before I could do anything he had grabbed me by the shoulder and I was enveloped in a vodka-smelling bear hug. It turned out that he was a woodsman and he was having a vodka party. He turned out to be quite OK, just a little worse for wear.” In Russia, where the Siberian cold cracked all her fillings, she discovered that she had double pneumonia when she was taken to hospital after being hit by a bus. In eastern Siberia a pack of wolves followed her for a week. “I just behaved as if I was the boss. In the end I was grateful for their company.” Despite her arduous journey, Ms Swale-Pope said that she needed no time off and would head for Wales without delay. “The purpose of my journey has been to highlight the preciousness of life,” she said. “I had to do something and this was a small thing really… just putting one foot in front of the other.”
This was a feat I felt that deserved recognition. This is amazing at any age. Congratulations Rosie. Learn more about Rosie at: www.rosiearoundtheworld.co.uk
FIANCEE SWALLOWS ENGAGEMENT RING
OK, here’s another bad idea from the chapter on “what I shouldn’t do when I propose.” Chen Lee proposed to his fiancee with a ring hidden in a cake. He thought it would be romantic, original, clever. Not. But Wang Lu, 26, stole a nibble when he wasn’t looking and ate the ring. Oops, fortunately diamonds, don’t digest. “She was quite angry at first and said I was stupid,” said Chen, of Fujian province in China. “But once the doctors had taken the ring out she forgave me and said she would marry me.” Nothing like a little emergency room treatment to up the romance level. Alls well that doesn’t have to be digested.
MAN REPORTS TO PAROLE OFFICER IN STOLEN CAR
Picture this, you’re out on parole and you have to report to your parole officer. How do you get there? Walk? take a bus? How about a stolen car? Well, that’s what Marcus George of Pine Bluff, Arkansas did. He was released on parole last week on, yep, you guessed it, burglary and theft convictions. George and a friend went to a Pine Bluff dealership, where they took a Toyota on a test drive and didn’t return it. i wonder how long the salesman stood there before he realized he’d been duped? The pair also reportedly stole a Dodge Charger from a dealership in Sherwood, which incidentally was the car George was driving when he showed up to meet with his parole officer in Pine Bluff. At least he had good taste in cars. A charger, cool. George was immediately arrested at the parole office. Not so cool. Oh well, it’s better to keep people that stupid off the streets anyway.
PROTOTYPE FOR A TERMINATOR?
You almost have to wonder, which comes first the chicken or the egg. Particularly in this case. Does science fiction spawn the ideas that become science fact or would we have gotten there anyway and the fiction writer was able to envision the future. It’s an interesting premise, but right now a company called IRobot, famous for having created the household robot sweeper has teamed up with a company called Metal Storm, known for their creation of the million rounds per minute gun, to create a robot that will go in ahead of soldiers and robotically clean out the enemy. The as yet unnamed war bot is being marketed for “border patrol” and “crowd control” scenarios, although other military situations are also under consideration. Using these things for crowd control is a frightening application. “We want our soldiers to have the option of controlling a robot that could go ahead and investigate, engage or deter an enemy and not put human soldiers at risk,” said a spokesman for Metal Storm who wished to remain anonymous. The Metal Storm/iRobot robot can be equipped with a variety of weapons, from non-lethal rubber bullets to grenade launchers. As many as 12 different Metal Storm weapons can be put onto the iRobot platform at the same time, said a Metal Storm spokesman. Does it say “I’ll be back?” or “Hasta la viesta, baby?” This new war bot will likely soon join the existing ranks of military robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military has used various war bots, from both iRobot and its competitor Foster-Miller, for years, primarily to diffuse bombs and other unexploded ordinances. Next thing you know we’ll be hearing about a new computer system called Skynet. Why am I getting a shiver up my spine?
To see this creation click this link: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/19/terminator-zoom.html
THE GREAT OFFICE WAR
CAPTAIN CALAMITY INDEPENDENCE, MY INTERVIEW, COPS CRAZY RIDE, SOCCER PLAYER BITES REFEREE, AND DWARF SOCCER TEAM
Posted in Art, Books, celebrities, Culture, Entertainment, Events, Ezine, Family, Food, Humor, Life, Love, Media, Movies, Music, News, Personal, Photography, Poetry, Politics, Random, Religion, Sports, Technology, Thoughts, Travel, Uncategorized, video, Writing with tags AARP, Art, Baby Boomer, bites, blog, blogging, brazil, Brazilian, Britain, Calamity, Captain, comedy, commentary, conversations, cop, Delaware, digg, driver, drunk, Dwarf, E-zine, editorial, England, Ezine, Family, fark.com, Forvik, funny, Giants, Google, hill, history, Humor, Independence, interview, Island, islands, Jones, Khabarovsk, Kingdom, Life, literature, Love, mclassen, Michigan, Mikel. Classen, Music, Navarro, News, North, nude women, nudity, odd, oil, opinion, Pakistan, Pakistani, Politics, porn, random thoughts, Rannord, referee, revenues, ruminations, Russia, Scotland, sea, sex, Shetland, soccer, Spectator, strange, Stuart, Team, Technology, theonion.com, Thoughts, Trinidad, TV, United, video, viral, Vladivostok, weird, women, wordpress.com, wordpress.org, Writing, Yahoo, youtube, zine on June 22, 2008 by mclassenSTUART HILL DECLARES SHETLAND ISLAND INDEPENDENCE
The Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland are part of the United Kingdom. Or are they. Stuart Hill doesn’t believe they are and is moving to set up his 2.5 acre Forvik Island, he’s the only resident, as an independent dependency. I know this sounds crazy but, it may just be crazy like a fox. Follow me here for a minute. Captain Calamity, as he’s also known, because he shipwrecked on the island and never left, has been doing some research. Hill’s claim dates back to a 15th century arrangement between the Norwegian King Christian and King James III of Scotland when the Shetland Islands were effectively pawned to King James in lieu of a marriage dowry. According to Hill’s studies of the history of the island, in 1669 King Charles II re-confirmed Shetland’s status at the time of the pawning, meaning the islands remained directly answerable to the crown — represented today by the Queen. “The monarchs and governments of Scotland, and Great Britain and the United Kingdom have for many years assumed powers over these islands of Shetland to which they were not entitled,” he wrote. “By declaring Forvik a crown dependency I am simply re-establishing the correct legal relationship between this part of Shetland and the crown.” Now, here’s the crazy like a fox part of the deal. You see, there’s oil in them there waters. North sea oil and it’s in the Shetland’s boundary waters. If Hill can get the rest of the Shetland’s to join with him and they succeed, all of those oil revenues would go into the independent coffers of the islands and not Britain! Mr Hill said Shetland would reap all the benefits from North Sea oil if the 22,000 strong island community follow his example. “If the oil revenues would go straight into a Shetland bank, the isles would be in a totally different position. Once we have established the ownership of the seabed around Shetland, we can go to the oil companies and tell them where to bring the oil ashore. It is our oil.The worst thing that could happen is that people just ignore me. But I think I am sufficiently abrasive from this position for people to take note and to realise that the advantages of what I am doing could be very attractive to Shetland as a whole. Soon after I arrived in Shetland I started researching the isles’ constitutional position. It is the kind of job Shetlanders simply are not interested in, but I am hopeful they will be interested when they see the advantages that it can bring.” He says on his website that he plans to create Forvik’s own currency, the “gulde” print his own stamps and raise his own flag. “There will be no income tax, VAT (value added tax), council tax, corporation tax, or any of the other taxes instituted by the British government,” Hill wrote. Crazy Idea? I’m not so sure. You say you want a revolution? You may just have one. http://www.forvik.com
TOOTING MY OWN HORN
I was tagged for an interview request as a blogger. I’ve been interviewed before as a writer but this is the first time for blogging. I was sent a comment through this blog requesting the interview from the Pakistani Spectator who was doing a series on bloggers and blogging. They sent me a list of questions to which they printed the answers unedited! Being a writer I’m more used to being edited than not and I’m always a bit surprised when things appear untouched. The interview can be found here: http://www.pakspectator.com/interview-with-blogger-mclassen/ for those that might be interested. There are also several other interviews with bloggers here as well, each with some interesting perspectives on blogging. Check it out and find out a little more about who’s behind the blogs.
DRUNK DRIVER TAKES COP FOR RIDE OF HIS LIFE
This sounds like something you would see in a bad action movie. Picture this, a drunk Russian driver is careening down the street. He hits a traffic cop clipping him on the arm. Not a good idea. The cop somehow grabs onto the car and clings onto the car roof. They continue on down the street like this. Now, this must have been one together cop because he managed to get out his gun, fire off eight shots and still hang onto the car. Now that’s talent baby. The driver stopped finally after the cop fired off the rounds. They had driven a little over a half-mile like this. Of course the driver has been arrested. The cop sustained only minor injuries to his arm.
SOCCER PLAYER BITES REFEREE
It appears that some people take their game play way too seriously. Rannord A. Jones who plays for a Newark, Delaware soccer team was red flagged by a referee. The two got into a name calling altercation which resulted in Jones attacking the Ref. He bit him on the chin causing considerable injury. Shades of Mike Tyson. There’s nothing like a little good sportsmanship. Police charged Jones with several offenses, including assault and terroristic threatening. Said Police Cpl. Trinidad Navarro, “The player was so enraged that he just savagely attacked the official, biting him almost in an animal manner about the chin.” I hope Jones has had his rabies shots. Hopefully we won’t be seeing him playing in any more games.
GIANTS OF THE NORTH, BRAZILIAN DWARF SOCCER TEAM
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