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If there is one thing that you can find wherever you go in the Middle East - Jerusalem, Gaza, Beirut or Cairo - it is hummus, that mashed-up festival of chickpeas, olive oil, sesame paste, lemon juice and garlic. It should be touching - a food that unites. But the Middle East is a place where passions are quick to ignite. And so, where there is hummus, there is also intense rivalry - over who has the best recipe, over who invented it, and over who can make the biggest bowl of it. Last year, Israeli chefs came up with...

UP to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism. Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal. A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig. The crowd...

ATLANTA -- One celebrity chef is showing what it means lend a hand this holiday season. Savannah's own Paula Deen is helping to deliver more than 25,000 lbs. of protein to Hosea Feed the Hungry. Although the focus was on giving back, things took a quick turn when Deen got a serving of ham in a rather unique way. While tossing hams and turkeys, a misguided thrown ham hit Deen in the face, but that didn’t sideline her from the topic at hand. "I think it might have hit maybe just right where, I thought it busted my lip, but...

Check this out if your stomach can handle it.

Artist Jens Werner Andersen from Norway painted his house in Burberry check pattern. He said he woke up one day and thought it would be a fun idea. The 33-year-old decided to turn his home, a former public lavatory building in Larvik, Norway, into a "gathering place for happy people". We wonder if his neighbours were quite so happy

Italy's beleaguered prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, will face fresh embarrassment on Tuesday with the publication of a book written by the call girl who claims to have slept with him at his mansion in Rome. Patrizia D'Addario said the 73-year-old premier changed into white silk pyjamas and dressing gown after asking her to spend the night with him at the end of a lavish party at his palatial residence. She felt as though she had entered a "harem" when she attended the soirée, with 20 glamorous young models and starlets competing for the favours of the prime minister, who she...

OTTAWA — A lesbian soldier who deserted the U.S. army won a key court victory Friday when a judge ordered the refugee board to reconsider her failed asylum claim and take into account compelling evidence that she was persecuted and that her sexual orientation could mean stiffer punishment for going AWOL. Federal Court Justice Yves de Montigny's order for the board to consider a gay U.S. soldier as a credible refugee candidate is believed to be a first, said a spokesman for the U.S. military. "I have never heard of anybody attempting to do that before," said army spokesman Lt.-Col....

November 20, 2009 (DURANGO, Colo.) -- A person in a chicken costume ruffled the feathers of Durango's city council as its members discussed rules for backyard fowl. At a council meeting Tuesday, someone in a chicken costume quietly entered the council chambers just as the mayor was discussing a recently-passed backyard hen ordinance. The costumed chicken took a few turns, flapped its arms, then took a seat in the nearly empty gallery. Several minutes later, the big bird left -- without identifying itself -- after laying an egg on the floor. [snip]

A man was left seriously wounded after climbing into a bear enclosure in a Swiss zoo yesterday. The 25-year-man climbed onto a wall surrounding the BärenPark (Bear Park) in the city of Bern, Switzerland, before falling 13ft into the enclosure, police said. The unnamed man, who had learning difficulties, was then attacked by four-year-old bear Finn, who caused severe injuries to the man's head and one of his legs, before a nearby policeman shot the creature - injuring it and forcing it to retreat into a cave.

Dad spoke to son in Klingon   By VIRGINIA WHEELER Published: Today         A DAD spoke only KLINGON to his son for the first three years of his life to see if he could pick up the alien language. Linguist Dr d'Armond Speers came up with the idea after watching an episode of Star Trek. He spent days translating phrases into Klingon - hoping his toddler's first word would be "vav" rather than "dad". Dr Speers, of Minnesota, US, battled on with commands like "find the USS Enterprise", - but his wife only spoke English to...

The gardens were built when the Abbey of Cernes was transformed into a country mansion in the mid-16th century after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. One resident who may have been responsible for the gardens was Denzil Holles, a characterful MP who fought for the Parliamentarians but was a Royalist at heart and who occupied the house from 1642-66. The Rev John Hutchins, a local historian writing in 1774, claimed that he was told that the giant was "a modern thing" cut by Lord Holles. The National Trust, which owns the field where the giant is carved, suggests that the...

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing around 60 people to sell their fat on the blackmarket for cosmetic use in Europe, authorities say. Three suspects who were arrested in central Peru this month have confessed to killing five people for their fat, according to Colonel Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police. A search is now underway for seven others, including two Italians, lead prosecutor Jorge Sans Quiroz said. The fat was purchased "to be commercialised in European [cosmetic medicine] laboratories," he said. The prosecutor's indictment said that the gang allegedly targeted farmers and indigenous...

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult...

The Arts Council has given a epileptic dancer £14,000 to stop taking her medication and have a seizure on stage. Rita Marcalo’s 24-hour performance, involving strobe lights and sleep deprivation, is billed as a study of the “conceptual and physical interfaces between dance, movement and epilepsy”. Epilepsy charities said that the event turned a much misunderstood condition into a freak show and warned of the potentially severe dangers of coming off epilepsy drugs. Marcalo said that she wanted to raise awareness of epilepsy as “an invisible disability” and would use next month’s adults-only show at Bradford Playhouse to explore “my...

We Love Russia!!

A new gîte in Nantes offers guests the chance to live as a rodent for the night - complete with fur costumes and a romantic hamster wheel for two...

The Vatican has just completed a five day conference on astrobiology where scientists convened to discuss the detection and implications of extraterrestrial life. A major driving force behind the conference was the Director of the Vatican Observatory, the Jesuit priest Father Jose Gabriel Funes. In May 2008, Funes gave an interview to the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper saying that the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials posed no problems to Catholic theology. The conference itself was officially convened by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, chaired by its religious leader Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, and was held on private Vatican grounds from...

MOIRA, N.Y. -- A northern New York man is recovering after being attacked by a 10-point buck while he was loading firewood. Authorities said 56-year-old Gerald Dabiew was cut and bruised from head to toe by the buck outside his house in Moira, 200 miles north of Albany. Dabiew's house is surrounded by woods, so he didn't think twice when he saw the buck crossing the road -- until the animal charged and knocked him down. Dabiew -- who said he doesn't hunt -- wrapped his legs around the animal's neck and held onto its antlers as it battered him....

What a cat-astrophe! A ferocious feline turned her owners into a pair of scaredy cats in their Midtown apartment yesterday, holding them hostage at claw-point until the cops came to their rescue. Rosa Davila and her son, Victor Marte, 27, cowered behind a bedroom door at their pad on West 42nd Street about a half an hour while the raging Russian blue held them at bay.

Police arrested a mail carrier after she was found drunk inside a residence while on the job in Marion earlier this month, authorities said Tuesday. Kristine A. Pflughaupt, 46, of Marion, was charged with public intoxication Nov. 3 after she was found sitting on the kitchen floor of a house at 260 Sixth Avenue, eating leftover noodles from Marie O’Kelly’s refrigerator. Marion police Lt. Steve Etzel said Pflughaupt entered the home through an unlocked front door. She apparently was intoxicated when she was dropped off to complete her route, he said. “She was in uniform and had mail and a...

Drunkest Guy Ever Blaster Battle

Hilarious dashcam video from Taylor, TX. :^)

It's no secret to students that coed dorms are more fun than same-sex dorms. But they can also fuel very unhealthy behavior that might otherwise be moderated. A new study finds university students in coed housing are 2.5 times more likely to binge drink every week. And no surprise, they're also likely to have more sexual partners, the study found. Also, pornography use was higher among students in coed dorms. Some 90 percent of U.S. college dorms are now coed.

A drug that failed to fight the blues could be the female answer to the little blue pill Viagra, the lead North American investigator analysing tests of the drug said Tuesday. Women who took the drug flibanserin when it was being tested as an anti-depressant said it didn't help them beat the glums, but did give them "an increase in libido that they liked," John Thorp, one of the investigators analyzing data from three clinical trials of the drug, told AFP.

Police Say Alcohol Likely Played Role SEATTLE -- Seattle police say a man who thought he was ninja was impaled on a metal fence when he tried to leap over it. An officer who was looking for an assault victim nearby Monday night heard the man screaming for help. Police supported him to prevent further injuries until medics arrived and took him to a hospital, where he was in serious condition in intensive care on Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Renee Witt wrote in a department Web site posting that officers thought the man might have been involved in the reported assault,...

Washington, D.C., had the dubious distinction of beating all 50 states to post the highest rates in the nation for the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. The District of Columbia had a Chlamydia rate of 1,177 cases per 100,000 people--almost three times the rate of its neighbors, Virginia (405) and Maryland (439). Mississippi was a distant second, at 728 cases per 100,000 people. By comparison, California’s rate was 407 cases per 100,000; New York came in at 458; New Mexico...

The annual Darwin Awards are due soon. Here are some serious contenders, and a likely winner. The glorious winner? When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked. And now, the honorable mentions: The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence,...

Gay newspapers in several U.S. cities, including the Washington Blade, shut down on Monday, as the company that owned them, Window Media, abruptly went out of business. Window Media had been in serious financial trouble, but employees said they had expected a reorganization or sale, not a liquidation. “We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, a 40-year-old paper that was one of the most important publications written for a gay audience. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it...

During a speech today in Bejing, many young women and men were staring at 0bama like he was nothing more than a feminized action figure. The looks on their faces were priceless.

OTTAWA — Canada’s newly armed border guards have claimed their first victim: a hapless moose. The creature was felled by the duty sidearm of a border officer in late August, newly disclosed documents show. The incident — marking the first time a border-guard sidearm has been discharged on duty — occurred about 25 kilometres west of Creston, B.C., as an unidentified intelligence officer with the Canada Border Services Agency was driving on official business to Nelson, B.C. The officer was behind an RCMP vehicle when both drivers spotted an injured moose struggling in the westbound lane of Highway 3. The...

What could be the only footage of an actual human headshrinking ceremony in South America--which shows heads being boiled and dried--may be real, says an explorer in a new documentary. Warning Video contains graphic images In its special, author and explorer Piers Gibbon set out to find out if the film is genuine. The film was made in 1961 by Polish Explorer Edmundo Bielawski, who, with a team of seven, set out to explore and document the worlds largest rain forest: The Amazon. Head-shrinking was only practiced by one portion of the Amazon jungle-dwelling population- the Shuar. Headshrinking was a...

SUSPECTED cannibals killed a young man, ATE part of him and then sold other bits to a KEBAB house. Cops also believe the 25-year-old victim's body parts may have been used to fill PIES too. The trio of homeless men were arrested in Russia - accused of murdering the man with knives and a hammer. Prosecutors revealed: "After carrying out the crime, the corpse was divided up - part of it was eaten and part of it was sold to a kiosk selling kebabs and pies." Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2730715/Butchered-man-used-for-kebabs.html#ixzz0WxueLNEc

Two women trying to avoid arrest after allegedly stealing goods from a local Wal-Mart store head-butted, urinated on and drove off with a security guard. ...security guard attempted to stop the women from getting away with $45 in stolen merchandise. Marilyn Cole, 35,...was arraigned Tuesday. Cole was on parole for bank robbery at the time. Cole was released from prison April 3. ...she was ordered not to have any contact with Wal-Mart stores, the victim or the co-defendant, Rashieka Lariena Stewart. Stewart, 23...was arraigned Tuesday on one count of unarmed robbery The two women were stopped inside the Wal-Mart on...

A Swedish man who saved a woman from assault has been sentenced to prison rather than being applauded for performing a civic duty. In a case which has provoked outrage across the country, Per-Anders Pettersson was found guilty of aggravated assault despite the would-be Samaritan’s claims he was acting in self-defence on behalf of 66-year-old Gard Forsgren who was being attacked in her car. Forsgren, now 69, was assailed in 2006 while inside her vehicle near Nas in the central Swedish county of Dalarna when Pettersson intervened. He dragged the woman’s attacker from the car and hit him two times...

TAMPA, Fla. — Florida police say a man arrested for repeatedly calling 911 looking for sex claimed it was the only number he could dial after running out of cell phone minutes.

A HENPECKED husband took drastic action when his wife nailed him over his boozing. Sozzled Lin Ma's disapproving spouse Su, 60, did his head in when he returned from a drinking binge — so he took an eight inch NAIL and knocked it in to his own skull. The 66-year-old, of Yuyi, southern China, was rushed to hospital with the head wound.

I realize we're in the middle of a depression, and we have a socialist as a president- but that's no excuse not to have a sense of humor. Here are a collection of some of the funniest videos/sites I've ever found on the internet- please post your own and let's all have a good laugh.

This undated photo courtesy of the Food Network shows chef Bobby Flay, from left, and White House chef Cristeta Comerford, Alton Brown, first lady Michelle Obama, chef Mario Batali and chef Emeril Lagasse. An episode of 'Iron Chef America' will be taped at the White House pitting Flay and Comerford against Batali and Lagasse. The episode aris Jan. 3, 2010. Condoms are displayed at an international "family-planning" expo in Beijing in April 2009. A Chinese collector of Olympic memorabilia will put some of his mementos on the auction block later this month, including a batch of 5,000 condoms given to...

Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a "shocking" lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says. Research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology also questions the very notion of aesthetically pleasing genitals. Operations to improve the appearance of the sex organs for both psychological and physical reasons are on the rise. But surgeons said the report overplayed the risks of an established procedure. Researchers from University College London reviewed all the existing studies on cosmetic labial surgery - which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from...

Brits are among the ugliest people in the world... according to an exclusive website which only allows 'beautiful' people to join. Less than one in eight UK men (12 per cent) and just three in 20 women (15 per cent) who have applied to BeautifulPeople.com have been accepted as members. Existing members of the website rate how attractive potential members are over a 48-hour provisional period, when applicants upload a recent photograph and a short personal profile. They are rated by members of the opposite sex, who have four options to describe how attractive they think the hopeful is -...

A prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations, cops said yesterday. Police busted Lionel McIntyre, 59, for assault yesterday after his bruised victim, Camille Davis, filed charges. McIntyre and Davis, who works as a production manager in the school's theater department, are both regulars at Toast, a popular university bar on Broadway and 125th Street, sources said. The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also...

A British man who got 12 women pregnant after meeting them on Facebook has been dubbed "The Sperminator" by the UK press and his victims. Dominic Baronet had been wooing young women for years with his smooth internet chatter, the News of the World reports. Five women are now mothers to his children, another five have had abortions and two are expecting. Adding to Baronet's shady past is a criminal record for supplying ecstasy and cocaine. Kerry Martin, 24, told the News of the World she discovered Baronet's cheating ways by keeping a watch on his Facebook page after he...

TAMPA, Fla. – The driver and the child in her lap survived when a pickup truck slammed into a 1,500-gallon aquarium at Tampa International Airport. The tropical fish were not so lucky. Airport officials said 36-year-old Yamile Campuzano-Martine lost control of her truck and drove into the saltwater tank outside the American Airlines baggage claim Monday night. Airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said the driver had an unrestrained 6-year-old boy in her lap. About 90 percent of the 30 to 40 saltwater fish in the tank were killed. The aquarium was part of a public art program. The airport spent $200,000...

A cannibal who killed and ate parts of his mother had his sentence reduced by a judge who said 'he needed to eat'. Sergey Gavrilov secured reduced time in jail after confessing: 'I did not like the meat very much. It was too fatty. But I was so hungry, I had to eat it.' The 27-year-old was given a lenient prison sentence because the judge said he was starving and needed to eat after spending all his money on vodka and gambling machines. The Russian man hit his mother Lyubov, 55, over the head with a brick and then strangled...

Rabbit recipients of artificially grown penises are eager to copulate with female partners We've seen all sorts of tissue engineering examples -- from bone, to brain tissue, to nerves, to vascular tissue, and even muscles -- but a new study from the Wake Forest University’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine has surpassed all of these in pure strangeness. The study used advanced tissue regrowth techniques to create and endow lab rabbits with fully functional replacement penises. The research was led by the institute's director, Anthony Atala, M.D., who is most famous for devising a cell seeding technique that involves spraying cells...

FORT WALTON BEACH – A 59-year-old Fort Walton Beach man was arrested for indecent exposure after a neighbor saw him Tuesday wearing only a G-string. A woman reported seeing her Tanager Road neighbor sunbathing, wearing only a pink G-string. She told deputies the man stood up two times and she clearly saw his exposed buttocks, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s report. The man’s yard also is not enclosed by any fence and is visible from the road, to neighbors and a school bus stop, the report said. The deputy pulled up to the man’s house. When the man saw...

A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua, Wis. Bucks often fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut. Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparring with subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death of one or both deer, but usually end with the biggest buck winning and the smaller buck high-tailing it out to another area. Mark Brye, who owns Brye Plumbing in Viroqua,...

Pale and snub-nosed with long arms and curving claws, an "alien" discovered in September had five teenagers thinking they'd had a close encounter in a Panama creek. "I was in the river and I felt something grabbing my legs," one of the boys told the local television program Telemetro Reporta a few days after the sighting in the Cerro Azul region of Panama City. "We took it out of the water and started throwing rocks and sticks at it. We had never seen anything like that." After beating the creature until they thought it was dead, the teenagers threw it...

Jane Fonda Says Sex Is Better Than Ever At 71... Despite Her Metal Hip [Pic in URL] By BEN TODD 10th November 2009 She might not be offering workout tips in a leotard now, but Jane Fonda still has a pointer for ladies keen to stay young - an active love life. At 71, the fitness guru who recently had spinal surgery and boasts an artificial knee and titanium hip said her looks are partly down to having the best sex of her life. Miss Fonda, who became a Hollywood sex symbol in the 1968 film Barbarella, said: 'How do...