Checks, NM, wild goats, growing wangs, plants and fat tax
Man accused of freezing mom, cashing checks
A New York state man has been accused of stashing his 98-year-old mother's dead body in a freezer in their home so he could keep cashing her Social Security checks. State police say they discovered Herta Auslander's body in a freezer chest in October after receiving a tip she had died more than a year earlier. An autopsy concluded she died of natural causes. Police say 69-year-old Roland Auslander eluded capture for months but was arrested Wednesday following a stakeout at his home in the hamlet of Cooks Falls, about 100 miles northwest of New York City. They say he's charged with grand larceny, unlawful disposal of human remains and forgery for faking his mother's signature.
Remains
People are so lovely.
NM adopts 1st state cowboy tune
Cowpokes now have a good reason to gather 'round the campfire and break out the guitar - New Mexico's got an official state cowboy song. Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation Wednesday declaring New Mexico the first state to adopt an official cowboy song: "Under the New Mexico Skies" by Syd Masters, a 42-year-old musician from Edgewood. New Mexico songwriters picked Masters' tune in 2008 from 26 other songs, and he performed it on the state House floor this month. The true-to-tradition tune, with a rolling melody and catchy lyrics, features guitar and acoustic bass with a twangy male voice that breaks into three-part harmony for the chorus. "The song tells about New Mexico, like the beautiful landscape, wildlife, the flowers and the beautiful mountains of New Mexico - the things that we are proudest of. And cowboys and ranchers are also the things we are proudest of," said state Rep. Gloria Vaughn, a Republican from Alamogordo who proposed the idea of an homage to cowhands. "Because we have so many ranchers and cattle people, this is important for New Mexico."
Song
...it's ok. Sigh, I do miss living there.
Carmel women led on a wild goat chase
Hessy Derman once made her boyfriend collect an injured chipmunk from the road, which she placed in a tissue box to convalesce. So, it's understandable that he called her Tuesday morning after seeing two goats on Interstate 684. "He said, 'Would you like me to catch them and bring them home,' " Derman, who owns a horse farm in Carmel, recalled yesterday. She turned down the offer, instead calling various police departments to see what was being done about the livestock wandering on the highway. But after several calls, she and a friend hopped into her Subaru wagon and headed to Bedford. "We decided to get some food and try to catch them," Derman said. The pair grabbed some horse feed to tantalize the goats.
They joined the pursuit on the interstate's northbound side, near the Armonk exit. The goats, by this time, had led a state trooper and concerned motorists on a southbound ramble from near the Mount Kisco exit. Some passing county police officers had also joined the herd of do-gooders. The pygmy goats were in the median and en route to the northbound side when Derman arrived. Alas, Derman had only horse food from her Chessfield Farm to entice the goats. She and her friend, Grace Seholm, chased them for an hour, "into the woods, through pricker bushes, across a golf course, back into the woods," Derman said. Finally, everybody ended up on the deck of an Embassy Court home in North Castle. "We put them in the back of my Subaru. They lay down, and they've been with us ever since," Derman said.
Goats
Awwwwwww.
Balls and Bottoms give way to Wangs in name game
The number of people in Britain with surnames like Cockshott, Balls, Death and Shufflebottom -- likely the source of schoolroom laughter -- has declined by up to 75 percent in the last century. A study found the number of people with the name Cock shrank to 785 last year from 3,211 in 1881, those called Balls fell to 1,299 from 2,904 and the number of Deaths were reduced to 605 from 1,133. People named Smellie decreased by 70 percent, Dafts by 51 percent, Gotobeds by 42 percent, Shufflebottoms by 40 percent, and Cockshotts by 34 percent, said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at King's College, London.Webber also found that between 1996 and 2008, the names Zhang, Wang, and Yang and experienced the fastest growth. Zhang rose by 4719 percent, while Wang grew by 2225 percent.
Cockshott
Oh man I would be so happy to have the last name Death. That would be AWESOME. Also...who is PAID to study these things? ! And HAHAHA @ Wang grew.
Thirsty plants can Twitter for water with new device
Chances are you've never had a conversation with your house plants but if they could talk, what would they say? "Water me." Researchers at New York University's interactive telecommunications program have come up with a device that allows plants to tell owners when they need water or if they've had too much via the social network blogging service Twitter. "Obviously plants can't talk or Twitter directly, so we have to help them along with that," said Rob Faludi, co-creator of the device called Botanicalls. The device is made of soil-moisture sensors that are connected to a circuit board. They measure the level of moisture, and then communicate the information to a microcontroller.
Plants
AJKSHAGDJGH WTF. Soon we won't need to think at all anymore! We'll just wait to be Twittered into doing whatever we should be doing! Yay!
Scottish doctor urges "fat tax" on chocolate
doctors came within a whisker of passing a motion calling for a "fat tax" on chocolate last week, and the doctor behind the move said chocolate was a root cause of increasing obesity. "Certainly the U.S. and the UK are affected by rising levels of obesity," David Walker, a family doctor in Airdrie, western Scotland, who proposed the motion, said. "If the British government is serious, they should tax chocolate in the same way as they tax alcohol," he said in a telephone interview. Walker said on Wednesday that Britain had witnessed almost a doubling of cases of type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, in the past 15 years. In Scotland, nearly one in four people are obese, he added.
Fat
/end dream of going to Scotland and drooling over sexy men in kilts. And for the record, I am completely for a tax being applied on junk food of every kind.
A New York state man has been accused of stashing his 98-year-old mother's dead body in a freezer in their home so he could keep cashing her Social Security checks. State police say they discovered Herta Auslander's body in a freezer chest in October after receiving a tip she had died more than a year earlier. An autopsy concluded she died of natural causes. Police say 69-year-old Roland Auslander eluded capture for months but was arrested Wednesday following a stakeout at his home in the hamlet of Cooks Falls, about 100 miles northwest of New York City. They say he's charged with grand larceny, unlawful disposal of human remains and forgery for faking his mother's signature.
Remains
People are so lovely.
NM adopts 1st state cowboy tune
Cowpokes now have a good reason to gather 'round the campfire and break out the guitar - New Mexico's got an official state cowboy song. Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation Wednesday declaring New Mexico the first state to adopt an official cowboy song: "Under the New Mexico Skies" by Syd Masters, a 42-year-old musician from Edgewood. New Mexico songwriters picked Masters' tune in 2008 from 26 other songs, and he performed it on the state House floor this month. The true-to-tradition tune, with a rolling melody and catchy lyrics, features guitar and acoustic bass with a twangy male voice that breaks into three-part harmony for the chorus. "The song tells about New Mexico, like the beautiful landscape, wildlife, the flowers and the beautiful mountains of New Mexico - the things that we are proudest of. And cowboys and ranchers are also the things we are proudest of," said state Rep. Gloria Vaughn, a Republican from Alamogordo who proposed the idea of an homage to cowhands. "Because we have so many ranchers and cattle people, this is important for New Mexico."
Song
...it's ok. Sigh, I do miss living there.
Carmel women led on a wild goat chase
Hessy Derman once made her boyfriend collect an injured chipmunk from the road, which she placed in a tissue box to convalesce. So, it's understandable that he called her Tuesday morning after seeing two goats on Interstate 684. "He said, 'Would you like me to catch them and bring them home,' " Derman, who owns a horse farm in Carmel, recalled yesterday. She turned down the offer, instead calling various police departments to see what was being done about the livestock wandering on the highway. But after several calls, she and a friend hopped into her Subaru wagon and headed to Bedford. "We decided to get some food and try to catch them," Derman said. The pair grabbed some horse feed to tantalize the goats.
They joined the pursuit on the interstate's northbound side, near the Armonk exit. The goats, by this time, had led a state trooper and concerned motorists on a southbound ramble from near the Mount Kisco exit. Some passing county police officers had also joined the herd of do-gooders. The pygmy goats were in the median and en route to the northbound side when Derman arrived. Alas, Derman had only horse food from her Chessfield Farm to entice the goats. She and her friend, Grace Seholm, chased them for an hour, "into the woods, through pricker bushes, across a golf course, back into the woods," Derman said. Finally, everybody ended up on the deck of an Embassy Court home in North Castle. "We put them in the back of my Subaru. They lay down, and they've been with us ever since," Derman said.
Goats
Awwwwwww.
Balls and Bottoms give way to Wangs in name game
The number of people in Britain with surnames like Cockshott, Balls, Death and Shufflebottom -- likely the source of schoolroom laughter -- has declined by up to 75 percent in the last century. A study found the number of people with the name Cock shrank to 785 last year from 3,211 in 1881, those called Balls fell to 1,299 from 2,904 and the number of Deaths were reduced to 605 from 1,133. People named Smellie decreased by 70 percent, Dafts by 51 percent, Gotobeds by 42 percent, Shufflebottoms by 40 percent, and Cockshotts by 34 percent, said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at King's College, London.Webber also found that between 1996 and 2008, the names Zhang, Wang, and Yang and experienced the fastest growth. Zhang rose by 4719 percent, while Wang grew by 2225 percent.
Cockshott
Oh man I would be so happy to have the last name Death. That would be AWESOME. Also...who is PAID to study these things? ! And HAHAHA @ Wang grew.
Thirsty plants can Twitter for water with new device
Chances are you've never had a conversation with your house plants but if they could talk, what would they say? "Water me." Researchers at New York University's interactive telecommunications program have come up with a device that allows plants to tell owners when they need water or if they've had too much via the social network blogging service Twitter. "Obviously plants can't talk or Twitter directly, so we have to help them along with that," said Rob Faludi, co-creator of the device called Botanicalls. The device is made of soil-moisture sensors that are connected to a circuit board. They measure the level of moisture, and then communicate the information to a microcontroller.
Plants
AJKSHAGDJGH WTF. Soon we won't need to think at all anymore! We'll just wait to be Twittered into doing whatever we should be doing! Yay!
Scottish doctor urges "fat tax" on chocolate
doctors came within a whisker of passing a motion calling for a "fat tax" on chocolate last week, and the doctor behind the move said chocolate was a root cause of increasing obesity. "Certainly the U.S. and the UK are affected by rising levels of obesity," David Walker, a family doctor in Airdrie, western Scotland, who proposed the motion, said. "If the British government is serious, they should tax chocolate in the same way as they tax alcohol," he said in a telephone interview. Walker said on Wednesday that Britain had witnessed almost a doubling of cases of type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, in the past 15 years. In Scotland, nearly one in four people are obese, he added.
Fat
/end dream of going to Scotland and drooling over sexy men in kilts. And for the record, I am completely for a tax being applied on junk food of every kind.