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Pope's Mobile to Fetch Millions

THE 1975 powder-blue Ford Escort once owned and driven by Pope John Paul II will go up for auction later this month in Las Vegas after a father-son ownership spat was resolved.

The "humble" four-door sedan purchased a decade ago from the pontiff by Illinois restauranteur Jim Rich for $US102,000 ($134,000) could fetch between $US2 million ($2.6 million) and $US5 million ($6.5 million), auction house Kruse International said. Jim Rich, who is in bankruptcy, began a court fight four months ago with his father, Jerome Rich, over a $US1.7 million ($2.2 million) debt the father said the son owed, delaying the car's auction.

A federal judge ordered the car given to Jerome for safekeeping.

But Kruse spokeswoman Michelle Kuhlhorst said the father and son had since settled their differences.

Proceeds from the auction will be distributed by Jim Rich's bankruptcy trustee.

Before the auction, the Escort will be on view at the American Heritage Museum in Auburn, Indiana, which also houses one of the Batmobiles from the Batman television show and a General Lee (1969 Dodge Charger) from the Dukes of Hazzard. The car, which was driven by John Paul himself while he was pope, will be sold as part of a two-day auction on October 28 and 29.

It's crazy what people will waste their millions on...

www.news.com.au

• 3.41/5
• 1466
• 5
• 10/5/2005
• by Anathema

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'Historic Toilet' to Cost $24,000

A multi-million dollar restoration project will expend $24,000 to reconstruct a "historic toilet" on the first floor of a 1912 courthouse, authorities said.

Cameron County commissioners voted Tuesday to allocate the money for the restroom, which will be constructed in its original location and style. The room was removed during a previous renovation to allow the installation of an elevator.

Renovation began in 1994 on the building, which is a historical site overseen by the Texas Historical Commission. The commission gave the county a $3.1 million grant for renovations and all construction must comply with specifications set forward by the group.

The $24,000 will pay for a toilet, fixtures, plumbing, plaster and mosaic tile that are true to the original style of the 1912 lavatory, The Brownsville Herald reported in its Wednesday editions.

The project is about 80 percent complete and should be completed by March, authorities said.

What a good use for $24,000, yeah right....

Phillyburbs

• 3.68/5
• 1435
• 4
• 10/5/2005
• by Anathema

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Accused Nude Burglar Asks for Shorts

A man accused of trying to burglarize a home while naked Tuesday stopped in mid-escape to ask the victim for a pair of shorts, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

The victim threw the shorts to the accused burglar, who then fled, said Susan Quayle, a spokeswoman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Department. Nickos George Kopsaftis was later arrested next door, apparently while trying to steal a car, Quayle said. "He was wearing the shorts that were donated to him," she said.

Quayle said a man house-sitting for his father found Kopsaftis standing naked in an upstairs room holding two rifles belonging to the homeowner. The victim told sheriff's deputies that he got the rifles away from the man, who ran away, but not before stopping outside to ask for clothes, Quayle said.

When deputies arrived, they found a pair of wet socks and a pair of wet pants with Kopsaftis' wallet and ID inside, Quayle said. A banging sound from next door led deputies to a car which Kopsaftis appeared to be trying to hot-wire, she said.

Kopsaftis was booked into the county jail on two counts of burglary and two counts of attempted theft. She said shed didn't know how Kopsaftis' pants got wet.

This is either one funny dude, or the biggest weirdo in the world.

• 3.63/5
• 3207
• 7
• 10/5/2005
• by Anathema

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Man Lives With Dead Mothers Corpse For 20 Years

In a situation reminiscent of Norman Bates and the old Alfred Hitchcock movie “psycho”, a southern Indian man housed the preserved corpse of his dead mother in his home for 20 years until his death last week.

Syed Abdul Gafoor, a professor of English literature, had the body of his mother embalmed upon death and placed the unrotting corpse on display in his home in the state of Andhra Pradesh in 1985.

It seems then the eccentric Professor kept the embalmed body in a glass case in one room of his ancestral family home while he lived in another. To make weird things weirder, family members reported how extremely protective he was of his dead mother.

“He was so eccentric that he would not allow anybody to even look at the glass casket in which the body was kept.” said Syed Noor, the nephew of the nutty professor.

The case only gets stranger. "Before doing anything important, he would write 'yes' or 'no' on two pieces of paper. Then sitting near the embalmed body, he would draw lots and decide." stated the distraught nephew.

A local said neighbors were not happy about the corpse hording. "There were several protests. But he remained adamant that the body would remain with him till his last breath," said local revenue officer M Prabhakar Reddy.

Mr. Gafoor had degrees in English literature from Cambridge and Madras University’s, and was the head of the department at a college in Tamil Nadu, until he took voluntary retirement in 1987 so that he would not have to spend so much time away from his mother's body.

Despite his preoccupation with his mothers’ body, Neighbors were quoted as saying Mr. Gafoor was a "highly respected man of letters".

very strange indeed...

BBC

• 3.87/5
• 2159
• 7
• 10/5/2005
• by xxoozero

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American Idol Winner Illiterate

"American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino reveals in her memoirs that she is functionally illiterate and had to fake her way through some scripted portions of the televised talent show that she won in 2004. So, we're guessing that she didn't literally write her own memoirs ... anyway, I digress.

"You're illiterate to just about everything. You don't want to misspell," Fantasia told ABC's "20/20." "So that, for me, kept me in a box and I didn't, wouldn't come out."

The Associated Press reports that Barrino, 21, says she's signed record deals and contracts that she didn't read and couldn't understand. But the hardest part, she said, is not being able to read to Zion, her 4-year-old daughter. "That hurts really bad," she said, adding that she is now learning to read with tutors. You go, girl! Way to be an “American Idol”.

God, help us all

Seattle PI

• 3.91/5
• 2143
• 18
• 10/4/2005
• by xxoozero

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Mystery Ocean-Glow Confirmed

The Mystery Begins

Mariners have long told of rare nighttime events in which the ocean glows intensely as far as the eye can see in all directions.

Fictionally, such a "milky sea" is encountered by the Nautilus in Jules Verne classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Scientists don't have a good handle what's going on. But satellite sensors have now provided the first pictures of a milky sea and given new hope to learning more about the elusive events.

The newly released images show a vast region of the Indian Ocean, about the size of Connecticut, glowing three nights in a row. The luminescence was also spotted from a ship in the area.

"The circumstances under which milky seas form is almost entirely unknown," says Steven Miller, a Naval Research Laboratory scientist who led the space-based discovery. "Even the source for the light emission is under debate."

The Leading Idea

Scientists suspect bioluminescent bacteria are behind the phenomenon. Such creatures produce a continuous glow, in contrast to the brief, bright flashes of light produced by "dinoflagellate" bioluminescent organisms that are seen more commonly lighting up ship wakes and breaking waves.

"The problem with the bacteria hypothesis is that an extremely high concentration of bacteria must exist before they begin to produce light," Miller told LiveScience. "But what could possibly support the occurrence of such a large population?"

One idea, put forward by the lone research vessel to ever encounter a milky sea, is that the bacteria are not free-living, but instead are living off some local supporting "substrate."

"This previous excursion reported the presence of bioluminescent bacteria, which were found to be living in association with an algal bloom," Miller explained.

"So, our best working hypothesis is that we are witnessing bioluminescence produced by bacteria that are colonizing some kind of organic material present in the water," he said. "Satellite detection will hopefully allow us to target milky seas with properly equipped research vessels that will then be able to answer all these questions definitively."

The Mysterious Seas

The event occurred in 1995 and was finally analyzed and reported last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The mystery highlights how little scientists know about the ocean. Milky seas appear to be most prevalent in the Indian Ocean, where there are many trade routes, and near Indonesia.

"But there could be other areas we simply don't know about yet," Miller said. "In fact, we're already beginning to receive feedback from additional witnesses of milky seas. Some of these accounts occurred in regions we had not thought to look before, and we're currently working to find matches with the satellite data."

You can view the satellite image here

This is out of this world. Any thoughts on the matter?