from: Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough

DANVERS, Mass. – Maybe these bees were too tired to fly for themselves. A gang of honeybees landed on the wing of a plane used for flight school training at Beverly Airport. At first, the 10,000 or so bees swarmed over the left side of the aircraft, then landed on top of the left wing. The owner of the flight center called police, who said to call local bee removal expert Al Wilkins.

Wilkins used a specially designed vacuum to suck the bees off the plane, and then relocated them to hives where they will produce honey.

Wilkins guessed that the queen may have stopped to rest on the plane, and the other bees congregated around to protect her.


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from: Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's top judges are to get a new outfit, doing away with their traditional wigs and introducing colour-coded robes which one critic likened to costumes from the hit sci-fi series Star Trek.

The new robes, to be worn by Appeal Court and High Court judges hearing civil cases from October, incorporate coloured bands to identify seniority, with the most senior judges sporting gold bands and High Court judges in red.

The Guardian's deputy fashion editor Hadley Freeman said the new outfit would make the wearer look like an "evil pastor" or a "cut-price Cruella de Vil", the villain in the Disney cartoon "One Hundred and One Dalmatians".

Helpfully, it juxtaposed a picture of judge Nicholas Phillips, head of the judiciary in England and Wales, with a snap of the actor Patrick Stewart dressed up in full stellar gear as Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

"Look at this poor man: instead of appearing imperious, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, now just looks like the man who sells you tickets for the Star Trek Experience at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas," she added.


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from: Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough

Budapest Zoo provides its monkeys and apes with 55 litres of wine a year to help boost their red blood cells.

A zoo spokesman, Zoltan Hanga, said : "Obviously, they do not have it all at once and get drunk, but they get it in small amounts mixed in their tea.

"And it's not Eger Bulls Blood or some expensive wine that they are getting, but simple table wine, as it's mainly good for their blood cells."


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AP Sept 8 10:18 PM ET
PONZA, Italy - Two scuba divers spent Thursday underwater off Italy, starting what they hope will be a record 10 days submerged — aided by a special dry chamber where they can change masks and eat.
Stefano Barbaresi, 37, and Stefania Mensa, 29, completed the first day living 26 feet under water off the island of Ponza.
They have nine days to go to reach their goal of 240 hours — doubling the 120 hours set by Jerry Hall of Bluff City, Tenn., in eastern Tennessee's Watauga Lake, according to the Guinness world records.
"It's a unique opportunity to understand the limits of mankind under the sea," project organizer Pierfranco Bozzi said, according to the Milan daily Corriere della Sera.
The divers' new home has beds, exercise machines, table and chairs and even a television — all anchored to the sea floor.
Every five to six hours, the two will be able to enter a dry chamber where they can do such things as dine and change masks as well as undergo examinations by researchers, from several Italian hospitals and Rome's Sapienza University.
Scientists will monitor the divers' heart rates and ear drums, Corriere reported.

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from: BBC Cult News

A police box has been discovered embedded in a brick wall in Glasgow's east end.

The Mark Two cast-iron box dates back to 1912, and is the oldest known example in the city.

According to the Evening Times, a curious worker found the box earlier this year. Glasgow Police Museum plan to rescue it, restore it to its former glory and put it on display from next spring.

Alastair Dinsmor, of the police museum, said: "It was undisturbed until we opened it for the first time in 70 years, finding an Oxo tin and a spoon inside."

Meanwhile, new hi-tech police boxes are being introduced to Glasgow. They will be equipped with three computers, touch-screen technology and CCTV cameras. however, they won't look like traditional TARDIS boxes, as the BBC now owns the copyright to the classic design.


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from: Yahoo! News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA successfully launched space shuttle Discovery on Tuesday after a 2-1/2 year struggle to rebuild the shuttle program following the fatal Columbia disaster.

The shuttle, carrying seven crew members, soared into slightly hazy skies, leaving behind a trail of smoke and flames, while the roar of its booster rockets rattled windows and shook the ground across Cape Canaveral in Florida.

"I want to ask you all to take note of what you saw here today," said NASA's new administrator Michael Griffin, basking in a palpable sense of relief that swept through the launch management team after Discovery safely reached orbit.

"The power and the majesty of the launch, of course, but also the competence and the professionalism, the sheer gall, the pluckiness, the grittiness of this team that pulled this program out of the depths of despair two years ago and made it fly."


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from: Freestar Media Press Release

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.


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from: Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough

A former Royal Marine who last year braved 14 arrests and five months in jail to walk the length of Britain in only a pair of boots set out on Thursday to repeat the naked trek -- this time with his girlfriend.

Stephen Gough, 46, and hairdresser Melanie Roberts, 33, stripped off and set out from Land's End in Cornwall, at the southwestern tip of England, on an 874-mile nude trek to John O'Groats in Scotland.

"It's not raining and it's warm," Gough told Reuters by mobile phone shortly after the trek began.

During Gough's first naked walk across Britain in 2003-4, he was arrested 14 times for breach of the peace -- on one occasion he was held for being a traffic hazard -- and spent five months in jail in Inverness, Scotland.

"Why do it with no clothes on? To celebrate the fact that I'm a human being and that there is nothing shameful in being a human being. There's nothing wrong with a naked body," Gough, dubbed the "naked rambler", he told Reuters earlier.

"There are no laws in this country saying you can't walk naked," Gough said. "All it says is that if you are naked and you have an intent to harm, that's a crime."

"I have no intent to harm. I'm just going to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats."


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from: Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough

Two kittens picked the wrong place to relieve themselves when they urinated on a fax machine, sparking a fire that extensively damaged their Japanese owner's house.

Investigators in the western city of Kobe have concluded that the fire in January was caused by a spark generated when the urine soaked the machine's electrical printing mechanism.

The fire damaged the kitchen and living room before it was put out by the house's owner, who was treated for mild smoke inhalation, said Masahito Oyabu, a fireman at the Nagata fire station in central Kobe.

The kittens quickly ran to safety, he added.

"If you have a cat, or a dog for that matter, be careful where they urinate," Oyabu said. "Especially keep them away from electrical appliances and wires."


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“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was made into a song, but can you Haiku it?