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Man Builds Chair That Tweets His Farts Screenshot-sm 3

Randy Sarafan is committed to share his everyday life, so much so that he has built a chair that tweets his farts. Randy decided to make the office chair to help "accurately document and share [his] life as it happens." A natural gas sensor, an Arduino, and a Squidbee wireless module combine to make this monument to excessive free time.
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Titanic Cruise to Mark Anniversary Of Ship's Fateful Voyage Screenshot-sm 3

Since it went so smashingly the first time, a cruise line will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a cruise that will follow the ship's original route. The Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, whose parent company Harland and Wolff built the Titanic, will set sail early April, 2012, but you can start booking your seat now. The cruise will carry 1,309 passengers — the same number that sailed on the fateful voyage — on the same route as the Titanic, leaving Southmapton in early April 2012 before docking at the Irish port of Cobh (formerly Queenstown), where the Titanic made its final call on April 11, 1912. The cruise will continue to tempt fate and irony by following the route of the Titanic and, on April 14, it will arrive at the exact location the vessel sank some 100 years before, where there will be a special memorial ceremony between 11:40pm (when the ship hit the iceberg) and 2:20am on April 15 (when the ship sank).
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Couple Take Gravestones To Build Patio Screenshot-sm 3

The two Nevada state employees, Tami and Kevin Jenicke, who took 77 gravestones from the Southern Nevada Veterans Cemetery to build a patio aren't overzealous Marilyn Manson fans, or really into Halloween, they just have extraordinarily poor judgement. The Attorney General's Office is now investigating the incident and trying to decide if taking the stones is considered a crime. Tami Jenicke is a spokesperson for the state veterans home. Kevin Jenicke works at the cemetery. A veteran and their spouses can be buried together and that requires replacing the current headstone. Tami and Kevin took these stones which are usually destroyed. "We have to step back and say, 'How have we failed?' Our veterans deserve a respectful, peaceful final resting place," said Carole Turner with the Nevada Office of Veterans Services.
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Man Burgled After Being Banned From Using Giant Ballista Screenshot-sm 12

A man who had a 30ft dung-firing ballista on his land to deter intruders has been burgled after police told him that it would be illegal for him to use it. Joe Weston-Webb, a former traveling showman who also owns a human cannon and an "exploding coffin," decided to use the siege weapon to scare off intruders after a series of break-ins and an arson attack last year. He fixed the old ballista and equipped it to fire bags of chicken droppings at intruders if an alarm was triggered. Nottinghamshire Police put an end to his defense plan when they told him that using the giant catapult would be illegal as it did not constitute "reasonable force." Burglars broke into his workshop this week and stole or damaged £10,000 worth of goods and equipment. "It is ridiculous that we are in this situation now in which we can't defend ourselves," Joe said. I don't want to live in a world where an honest, hard-working man can't use a classical Roman weapon of mass destruction to defend himself.
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Steaming Man Screenshot-sm 2

Staying at least fifty degrees warmer than his environment is the secret to Joe's longevity.
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Russian Doctors Find Tree Growing In Man's Lung Screenshot-sm 8

Russian Surgeons have found a 5-centimeter high spruce growing inside a man's lung. Artyom Sidorkin, 28, had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Instead of cancer surgeon Vladimir Kamashev found the sprout. "I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," Vladimir said. Medical staff believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted inside his lung. That theory seems much more likely than an evil pharmaceutical company treepacolypse, which was discussed during a smoke break this morning.
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Passenger Lands Plane After Pilot Dies Screenshot-sm 4

A passenger who landed a twin-engine plane at Southwest Florida International Airport after the pilot died in flight, saved four lives and is being called a hero. Federal Aviation Administration officials say the pilot died after takeoff from Marco Island Executive Airport on Sunday. The plane was on autopilot and climbing past 10,000 feet when the pilot died. The passenger who took the controls is licensed to fly single-engine planes but isn't certified to fly the two-engined King Air plane. An air traffic controller called a friend in Connecticut who picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, and is rated to fly the aircraft. The pair talked the new pilot to a safe landing.
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Atheist Wins Right To Have Baptism Removed Screenshot-sm 7

John Hunt, an atheist, has won the right to have his baptism removed from Church of England records after arguing that he was too young to give his consent to the ceremony. John was baptised at the age of five months but by the time he was eleven the oppressive nature of elementary school, and the inherit unfairness that comes along with picking soccer teams had convinced him that there was no god. After the church told him that his baptism could not be deleted because it is a matter of historical record, John secured a "de-baptism" certificate produced by the National Secular Society (NSS), rejecting "superstitions" or the idea of original sin. The certificate reads: "I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin." This week the church finally agreed to remove the record saying the entry would be "corrected."
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Schools Hiring Bouncers To Ensure Pupils Behave

More and more schools in the UK are turning to bouncers to watch over classes when teachers are not available. One London school went to a doormen's agency for "cover supervisors," who watch over lessons when teachers are away, and gave jobs to two bouncers, one of whom is still at the school. Andrew Baisley, a mathematics teacher, said, "The idea is that it's about crowd control and childminding. If they're stern and loud, that's what is necessary to do the job." At least the kids get to watch Road House instead of old National Geographic specials when the teacher decides not to show up.
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Spokane Parks To Detonate Squirrels Screenshot-sm 3

The Finch Arboretum is being overrun by ground squirrels. Their plan is to do what any slightly disturbed and high assistant groundskeeper would do: blow them up. The Spokane Parks and Recreation agency is using a machine called the Rodenator Pro to detonate some of the estimated 100 to 150 squirrels tearing up the grounds. The Rodenator Pro pumps propane and oxygen into the tunnels of squirrels, then sends an electric spark that causes an explosion. The shock waves kill the squirrels, collapses their tunnels and decides the winner of the $20,000 golf match. In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, "Au revoir, squirrel."
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iTunes Prohibits Terrorism Screenshot-sm 124

Afforess writes "A recent closer look at the oft-skimmed EULA agreement for iTunes has an interesting paragraph in it, Gizmodo reports. 'You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.' Although humorous, some readers suggested that this may be a defense measure to previously discussed price changes in the iTunes music store."
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Woman Unable To See Dying Mother Because Ticket Agent Needs to Go On Break Screenshot-sm 16

A man who rushed his girlfriend to the airport to catch a flight to see her dying mother, watched her miss the flight because a United Airline's ticketing agent refused to help because "it was time for her to go on her break." His girlfriend finally reached the gate in time to watch her flight depart, and the gate agent defended his colleague's lack of sympathy, saying "management really makes us work some unreasonable schedules." To be fair, breaks are serious business.
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Vermont Considers Legalizing Teen Sexting Screenshot-sm 2

The Vermont Legislature is considering making sexting between teenagers legal. Under current laws, participants can be charged with child pornography, but lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize the consensual exchange of graphic images between people 13 to 18 years old. The bill passed the state Senate earlier this month. Hiding in the bushes and peering through windows will remain a crime.
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Politician Angry Over "Gay" Elephant In Zoo Screenshot-sm 3

A Polish politician is upset with his local zoo for acquiring a "gay" elephant named Ninio who prefers male companions and will probably not make little elephants. Michal Grzes, a conservative councillor in the city of Poznan in western Poland, said, "We didn't pay 37 million zlotys (7.6 million pounds) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there. We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?" It is unlikely that zoo officials will be able to teach or counsel Ninio out of his alternative lifestyle because a gay elephant, like his straight counterpart, never forgets.
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Sidecar Lion Screenshot-sm 1

Old carnivals really did have the best attractions.
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Brazilian Author Serializes Novel On Twitter Screenshot-sm 2

cottagetrees writes "Claudio Soares, a Brazilian author and literary blogger, has launched an online publishing experiment involving Twitter, CommentPress, videos, music and eventually, the ebook self-publishing service, Smashwords. Soares has broken his novel into pieces, and is serializing it from the unique perspectives of each of the eight characters, each of whom has their own Twitter account. In an interesting twist, the characters will interact with their Twitter followers. This has the potential to create an immersive experience, not just for the community of readers that congregates around the book and its characters as the story unfolds, but for the author as well. The book, Santos Dumont Número 8, is written in Portuguese."
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Somali Women Flocking To Port In Hope of Marrying Pirates Screenshot-sm 5

The large sums of ransom money being paid out to pirates has led some Somali women to venture to the port town of Bosaso in hopes of finding a treasure map to their heart. Kaj Larsen, a former US Navy SEAL says, "One of the interesting demographic things that's happening right now is that single Somali women are flocking to the port town Bosaso where these pirates come out of in the hopes of marrying a pirate. So you can see that it really is — the root conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in Somalia are really what are breeding this problem."
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Court Fines Mother For Phoning Son Too Much Screenshot-sm 7

An Austrian man was forced to take his mom to court for stalking after she called him incessantly over a two-and-a-half year period. The 73-year-old woman, who would phone her son up to 49 times a day, was fined 360 euros ($478) by the court in the southern city of Klagenfurt. "I just wanted to talk to him. I can't talk to my son, nor my daughter. I've never seen my grandchild — who is already 15 years old," she told the court.
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Russia Holds First Top Shaman Elections Screenshot-sm 1

Shamanstvo, an online shamanist magazine, reports that Russia will stage the first ever 'Top Shaman' elections this year. 188 candidates from all over the country are in the running. Most are of course enhancement or elemental because even in real life going restoration is no fun. The elections will be held in two stages, with only 12 shortlisted shamans participating in the second stage. Each of the stages will last three months to allow the most far-off regions to cast their ballots.

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