Le monstre du lac terrorise l'Ukraine.

A huge monster with the head of a serpent and the body of a crocodile is rumored to lurk at the bottom of a lake in Western Ukraine.

The monster has been frightening residents of a nearby village for more than one hundred years. Now and again the gruesome creature comes ashore and attacks domestic animals. At times it harms humans too. As a rule, locals steer clear of the lake. Researchers keep gathering information in an attempt to unravel the lake mystery.

Quite a few bloodcurdling stories about the monster of the lake circulate through the village. It is said to attack animals and humans. The hideous monster is also said to moan and wheeze at night. The local elderly say that the “lizard” was last seen on the lake shore some 30 years ago.

“The monster assaulted Stepan, a groom. He was tending horses near the lake on that day. Actually, Stepan had too much of a drink so he stretched himself out on the grass and fell asleep. A crocodile-like creature crept on to the bank out of the water, moved up to the guy, and sniffed at him. Mushroom pickers came from the wood at the very moment.

They saw that thing and started shouting out loud to scare it off. The monster reportedly opened its month and there wasn’t a single tooth inside,” said the 84-year-old Ivan Kovalchuk, a resident of the village.

It is believed that the first stories about the monster hiding in Lake Somin near the village of Lukiv appeared at the turn of the 19th century. The reference to the monster can be found in a report sent by a village chairman to Warsaw. He wrote that the villagers had not paid a tax on fishing because of a “serpent” which lived in the lake, eating the fishes. The unknown predator also harassed the livestock and locals, said the letter. The authorities had plans to dispatch an expedition to the area to investigate the case. But those plans fell through due the outbreak of World War I.

The German military made an attempt to solve the mystery of Lake Somin duringWorld War II. The Germans used diving equipment and nets for exploring the bottom of the lake. However, their efforts to capture the creature ended in failure, reports Gazeta Po-ukrainski.

Some researchers believe that the lake monster is a huge cat fish. Lots of cat fishes can be found in numerous lakes and ponds located in the area. “Cat fishes can use their big strong fins for dragging themselves ashore. Several cat fishes caught around here were really big. They weighed about 100 kilos each, measuring up to two meters in length,” said Valentin Lyupa, a researcher of “the Somin Monster.”

Other scientists claim that the creature could be a prehistoric freshwater shark which somehow survived the Ice Age. “The archeological finds discovered in the area can back up this version. There’re many reports on fossilized teeth and bones of ancient fishes dug out by locals in their gardens,” said Valentin Volontai, an adviser with the Institute of Archeology under the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Lake Somin is located in Polessie lowlands, which formed at the bottom of an ancient freshwater sea. About 300 lakes scattered around the area are the remainders of the sea. Those karst lakes interconnect by means of underground passages and rives.

Lake Somin is 56 meters deep. A number of karst caves lie at its bottom. That is where the monster lies in wait, according to locals. The Polish researchers are reportedly going to give it another try and solve the lake mystery. A special research party is expected to commence work on location in the near future.

Source : Pravda.ru (25 Juin 2007).

Diane Edwards II.

To catch a killer.

While investigating that case, detectives stumbled across a link to the Huling murders, which had occurred five months earlier and 150 miles away.

In December 1978 someone walked into the Huling family's secluded home in St. Cloud, Minn. First the intruder shot Alice Huling and killed her.

Then the killer went after Alice Huling's four children, who were in bed upstairs. "My brother said, 'Who are you?'" Bill remembered.

"The person raised the gun up toward him and shot. And at that point, I became very scared and just pulled the cover over my head and (lay) in bed," he added.

Bill's 13-year-old brother Wayne was dead. Next the intruder shot and killed Bill's older sisters, Suzy and Patty. Then the man returned to Bill's bedroom and shot at him twice at point-blank range. Both shots missed.

After the killer left, Bill, then 11, ran almost two miles to the neighbors for help.

Although there were several suspects, no one was charged with the murders because there was not enough evidence. Two decades after the crime, a determined band of detectives decided to try to crack the case. Erin Moriarty reports on what happened.

In 1978, four days after the Huling murders, police stopped Joe Ture in a stolen car. Inside, they found a list with hundreds of women's names, along with license tags and telephone numbers.

"He'd have a description of what she wore, looks like; he had over 100, close to 200 waitresses, where they worked, what they wore, what they drove," Doolittle said. But this wasn't enough evidence to hold Ture. He was released and remained free - at least for a while.

In 1980, Ture raped and killed a 19-year-old waitress, Diane Edwards. Three weeks after that, Ture raped another woman. Instead of killing her afterward, he dropped her off in an alley.

In 1981, he was charged with the murder of Edwards, convicted and sent to prison.

In 1996, the cold case unit of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reopened another case, the murder of 18-year-old Marlys Wohlenhaus, who had been beaten to death in June 1979, also in rural Minnesota. No one had ever been arrested in the Wohlenhaus case. While investigating that case, detectives stumbled across a link to the Huling murders, which had occurred five months earlier and 150 miles away.

When the cold case unit decided to reinvestigate the Wohlenhaus case, one of the suspects was already in prison for killing a young girl. That man was Joe Ture.

In 1981, Ture had allegedly confessed to his cellmate that he had killed Marlys Wohlenhaus. He also confessed to the Huling murders. In the confession, Ture said that he had found Wohlenhaus at home alone and had asked her to have sex with him. When she refused, he attacked her with a hatchet. Investigators said that some of the details he gave in the confession were not known to the public.

But even with these confessions, Ture wasn't charged in either case. For one thing, he denied dictating the confession. He said he had signed blank sheets of paper on which his cellmate had written lies.

The only persn who said that Ture did indeed dictate the confessions was his cellmate.

Ture had an alibi for the day Wohlenhaus was killed, Ture said. He was signed in at his job with Ford Motors, he said.

Investigators believed that for almost 20 years - until Everett Doolittle, the head of the cold case unit, decided to double check. It turned out the Joe Ture at work that day was actually Joe Ture Sr., his father.

At that point, Ture became the chief suspect in the Wohlenhaus and Huling murders. But when 48 Hours first aired its story in 1996, Doolittle didn't have enough evidence to convict him. That changed after the broadcast.

Among those watching was Lavonne Engesether. She - and dozens of other women - recognized Ture as the man who had attacked them years earlier. Many were waitresses, including Engesether.

Engesether and another victim both say at the time police urged them to forget about the incidents. "It was a 'boys will be boys' mentality," Nancy said. "You know, 'So he got a little out of control. Nothing happened; you're OK.'"

Find out what happened this time when they approached police after seeing the broadcast, in A Cold Case Heats Up.

Source : CBS (27 Septembre 2000).

A 20-year nightmare ends.

"As you go from room to room and find the bodies of these children laying in their beds, dead, it really affects you emotionally. It's something you that you never forget." Officer Jim Kostreba.

(CBS) Bill Huling was only 11 years old when the sound of a single shotgun blast jolted him out of a child’s dream world and into a living nightmare.

In December 1978, someone walked into the Huling’s secluded home in Saint Cloud, Minn., and shot and killed his mother and three siblings.

Huling says he heard footsteps entering his bedroom, and then a shot. “It went right next to my head. I had my arms right over my head,” he says. “Didn’t hit me or anything, and as the person poked me, I think I probably breathed a little bit and moved.”

The killer fired a second time, but somehow missed again. “I guess I didn’t move that time, cause then footsteps started walking away,” recalls Huling, who ran nearly two miles to get help after the killer left.

Jim Kostreba was the first officer on the scene. “As you go from room to room and find the bodies of these children laying in their beds, dead, it really affects you emotionally,” recalls Kostreba. “It’s something that you never forget.”

There were plenty of suspects, but no one was charged with the murders. Huling, now 32, might have spent the rest of his life haunted by this mystery -- if not for a determined band of detectives. Correspondent Erin Moriarty reports on this 48 Hours Mystery.

While investigating another unsolved homicide, detectives stumbled across a link between that case and the Huling family murders. It was 1996 when detectives reopened the case of 18-year-old Marlys Wohlenhaus – and 48 Hours was there to report on the murder.

At that time, there didn’t appear to be any link between Wohlenhaus’ murder and the Huling family shootings – which occurred five months earlier and 150 miles apart.

Wohlenhaus was struck on the back of the head. “An hour later, mother finds her child, head smashed in, mother calls for assistance,” recalls Everett Doolittle, who heads Minnesota’s Cold Case Unit, a division of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. “She’s taken to the hospital and pronounced dead two days later.”

There was a list of nearly a dozen murder suspects in the Wohlenhaus murder, but over the last 17 years, there wasn’t enough evidence to indict or eliminate any of them.

One of the suspects was a neighbor, Tom Cartony, who was just a teenager when Wohlenhaus was murdered. Although Cartony has never been charged, the ordeal has taken its toll. “So many people to this day still feel I had some involvement in it,” he says.

Another suspect, Joe Ture, was already in prison for the brutal murder of a young girl, Diane Edwards. Ture, a drifter, allegedly confessed to a cellmate three years after the murder that he killed Wohlenhaus. He also confessed to the Huling family murders.

Police had confession letters signed by Ture, but even with these confessions, Ture wasn’t charged with murdering Wohlenhaus or the Hulings. In fact, the only person who says Ture confessed was his cellmate, who asked 48 Hours to conceal his identity.

Ture denied dictating the confession letters and quickly changed his story. He also said that he had an alibi – his job with Ford Motors – on the day of Wohlenhaus’ murder. This is what investigators believed for almost 20 years, until they decided to check out his alibi. They discovered that there was a Joe Ture at work that day – but it was Ture’s father, who had the same name.

Ture then became the chief suspect in the Wohlenhaus and Huling family murders. When 48 Hours first aired this story in 1996, investigators still didn’t have enough to convict Ture. This drastically changed, however, when a viewer saw that broadcast.

Ture denies murdering Wohlenhaus in 1979, but he admitted in a 1996 interview with 48 Hours that he would track down someone he wanted to meet through their automobile license tags.

That night, one viewer, Lavonne, was watching 48 Hours. “As we were watching it, I started shaking and I said, ‘Oh my God, I think that’s my guy,” recalls Lavonne, who along with dozens of other women, recognized Ture as the man who attacked her.

Doolittle received numerous responses from viewers, and 48 Hours spoke with three of them, Lavonne, Nancy and Sheryl, all waitresses who knew Ture.

According to Lavonne, Ture was her last customer in 1974 before she was attacked: “He was on top of me and I was realizing that nobody was gonna save me and that I had to get away from him.”

Five years later, Ture forced Nancy, also a waitress at the time, into the back of his van. “I just started screaming and trying to fight him,” recalls Nancy, who stopped fighting, in a move that may have saved her life. “He just immediately stopped and he looked at me and he got up.”

At the time, both women say police urged them to forget about the incidents. Then, in 1980, another waitress, 19-year-old Diane Edwards was attacked and killed. And just weeks after that, another waitress, Sheryl, said she was attacked by Ture, who also try to force her into the back of his van.

“I started screaming and that’s when he started smashing my head up against the side of the window,” says Sheryl, who was raped by Ture and forced to perform oral sex before being released.

In Sheryl’s case, Ture was charged with rape, but he never went to trial. “They had already by this time gotten the Diane Edwards thing pinned on him,” recalls Sheryl. “So at the time, they figured, we’ll have this guy locked up forever. So rather than putting you through the emotional trauma of another trial -- so I said that’s fine.”

Many of the assaults, however, might have been prevented before any of these women were attacked.

Why? Police had stopped Ture in a stolen car and discovered hundreds of names, license tags and telephone numbers of women in the car. But it wasn’t enough to hold him, so Ture was released. He was free until 1981, when he was finally charged and convicted of the murder of Edwards, one of the women he had targeted.

The women who came forward convinced Doolittle that Ture killed Wohlenhaus, also a waitress. But he still didn’t have enough to convince a jury, until another witness came forward after watching 48 Hours.

The word, ‘Then I killed her’ ring in my ears today,” recalls Dave Hofstad, who was an investigator on the Edwards case.

Hofstad called Doolittle because he says he can never forget what Ture told him back in 1981. Acting on a hunch that Ture might be behind Wohlenhaus’ murder, Hofstad asked Ture if he knew her.

“He said that she worked at a restaurant, that he knew her, and he wanted to date her,” says Hofstad. “He said that he had gone to her home and wanted to talk to her. He was in the house and he was waiting for her when she came home, and they argued and then his statement was ‘I killed her.’”

Hofstad was largely ignored, as detectives focused on another suspect. But when he called Doolittle 15 years later, his testimony was just what Doolittle needed to back up the confession letters he already had from Ture.

Almost 20 years after Wohlenhaus’ death, Ture was charged and convicted of her murder. Doolittle was left with one more mystery to solve – one that could finally eliminate Ture’s chances for parole. Could he prove that Ture also killed the Hulings?

When police found the names and addresses of women in Ture’s car – right after the Huling murders – they also found a ski mask, a club wrapped in leather that had little circles in it, and a little toy Batmobile car.

What was a toy car doing in Ture’s vehicle? Ture told investigators the car belonged to his granddaughter, even though he was only 27 at the time he was questioned.

Doolittle asked Billy Huling what the detectives 20 years ago had failed to do. He asked Huling if it was his car. “And his answer was, ‘Why, did you find my Batmobile,’” recalls Doolittle. “He said the last time he saw it was on his kitchen table the night of the murder.”

Not only had investigators failed to ask Huling about his toy car, they never bothered to show him Ture’s 1981 confession to the murders, which included many details that could only have been known by the killer.

After the murders, Huling spent the next few years under the care of psychologists and social workers, while living in a foster home. “Basically, I think that’s what helped the most – talking about it,” says Huling.

Almost 22 years later, Ture stands trial for the murder of Huling’s family.

“I still have feelings of anger, madness, disappointment that it took so long, but I’m just glad the day has come to put an end to all this, and hopefully we can get the conviction,” says Huling.

Now a first class petty officer in the Navy, Huling is about to testify against the man he believes killed his mother, his brother and two sisters.

What matters now is what the jurors think, after Huling takes the stand. “It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” says Huling. “I didn’t think it was going to bother me as much as it did.”

The jury finds Ture guilty of killing Huling’s family, and he is sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

Finally, Huling can move on with his life. “I chose to go on with my life, move on with my life and do the best I can do with what basically God gave me -- another chance,” says Huling.

This past June, Joe Ture lost his last chance to appeal for a new trial in any of these murders.

Source : CBS (10 Juillet 2004).

Diane Edwards.

We can cruise down Rober Street all night long
but i think i'll just rape you and kill you instead...

Version originale : Husker Du.

Source : Therapy? (Infernal Love 1995).

Exception culturelle.

En Amérique c’est : « to protect and to serve ».
En France c’est : « Assister, Servir, Protéger ».
Quelle imagination ! On a quand même trouvé le moyen de faire presque pareil… juste un peu plus nase.

En Amérique, c’est inscrit sur de belles plaques dorées qui brillent au soleil.
En France, c’est marqué autour d’un logo pourri, sur des autocollants délavés au bout de cinq jours.

La police nationale française, si prompte à sanctionner ses plus fidèles lanciers, va-t-elle tirer l’oreille au responsable de cette pitrerie ?

Source : Myrest.

Sobriété.

Plus de teinture capillaire contre nature, de bijoux tape-à-l'oeil ou de tabac en public: les agents des forces de police chinoises sont appelés à faire preuve de retenue lorsqu'ils sont en uniforme.

Chine nouvelle a précisé jeudi que les récidivistes qui contreviendraient à ces instructions et dont le "comportement aurait un impact préjudiciable" seraient renvoyés conformément aux nouvelles règles édictées par le ministère de la Sécurité publique.

D'après l'agence officielle, il est interdit aux policiers qui portent l'uniforme de se teindre les cheveux avec des couleurs non naturelles, de porter des bijoux ou de fumer en public. Ils ne pourront pas non plus "boire" ou "se rendre dans des salles de spectacle pour des raisons personnelles". De plus, les femmes policiers ne pourront plus se coiffer d'un foulard et se vernir les ongles des mains.

A un an des JO de Pékin, ces consignes s'ajoutent à celles déjà communiquées aux habitants de la capitale chinoises, qui doivent cesser de cracher dans les rues et se montrer calmes dans les files d'attente. Il en va de l'image de la Chine.

Source : AP (22 Juin 2007).

Source : Directe (photo).

Où est passé le lac chilien ?

A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.
One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

Source : Reuters (20 Juin 2007).

Qui a vidé la baignoire ?
Arsène Lupin est de retour, toujours plus audacieux : après la montre de Bush, un lac dans les Andes ! Pas mal !

Rastaquère !

Encore une bavure policière ! Il faut que ça cesse, ça ne peut plus durer !

Source : RastaquereTV.

Quelle musique ?

Fête ultime de la gauchisterie primaire illuminée.
Sortez les tam-tams !

Ce soir, comme tous les ans, des « musiciens » shitomanes, moins qu’amateurs, blonds, à coiffures crado-afro-rasta vont tambouriner jusqu’à plus soif dans les rues de nos cités. Ca va sentir bon la merguez illégale et mal cuite qui fait faire caca-mou-qui-pique-les-fesses.

Pour le malfaisant de base, la fiesta a des allures de grand soir : foire aux sacs de bobos, festival international du vol avec violence avec tentative de record du monde. On partagera le butin dans les caves et Jack Lang n’aura même pas sa part : comme la racaille est ingrate !

Le bon gaucho dépouillé, la gueule défoncée, la tête en sang, se jettera sur des policiers assez cons pour le défendre. Investi d’une mission divine, il tentera par tous moyens (injonctions verbales, insultes, incitation à l’émeute) de les empêcher de brutaliser ces chérubins en souffrance, victimes de l’injustice sociale.

Rien de nouveau sous le soleil. Ce soir c’est l’été.

Messieurs, cirons nos triques et vive la France.

Source :Myrest.

Sonya : la veuve noire.

Sonya Thomas. Alias Lee Sun-Kyung. Alias Black Widow. 38 ans. 45 kilos. Signe particulier : ogresse.

Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas (born Lee Sun-kyung in 1969 is a top-ranked Korean-born American competitive eater from Alexandria, Virginia. Thomas joined the International Federation of Competitive Eating in 2003 and quickly rose to the top of the ranks, beating eating greats such as Cookie Jarvis and Eric Booker.

The 105-pound Thomas is the number three competitive eater in the United States, and ranked fourth in the world , with 29 world titles. Her nickname "The Black Widow" refers to her ability to regularly defeat men four to five times her size.

While the size of her stomach is only slightly larger than normal, her skinny build is perhaps her biggest advantage, allowing her stomach to expand more readily since it is not surrounded by the ring of fat common in other heavy eaters. She holds records in over 25 eating competitions, though none of her wins have come in competitions versus top-ranked eater Takeru Kobayashi.

Her most famous result is 37 hot dogs in 12 minutes (July 4, 2005 at Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest), setting a record for American competitors. This record was broken by Joey Chestnut on May 18, 2006 at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest qualifier in Las Vegas.[4] The all-time record of 53¾ frankfurters was set in 2006 by Kobayashi. Another Japanese entrant consumed 38 hot dogs that year.

Her 2005 contest result made Sonya Thomas the world's greatest eater pound-for-pound, as her ratio of hot dogs eaten to body mass (37 / 105 lb. = 0.352) was greater than Kobayashi's (49 / 144 lb. = 0.340). On August 8, 2005, she consumed 35 bratwursts in 10 minutes, beating the previous 10-minute record of 19.5 bratwursts, although her record was beaten in 2006 by Kobayashi.

Beginnings.
Thomas was born in Kunsan, South Korea to parents of modest means who had difficulty keeping up with their ravenous daughter's grocery bills. She worked her way through college as a typist, and obtained a degree in hotel management. Having difficulty finding a job commensurate with her degree, she emigrated to the United States with her family in 1997, where she was hired as a manager at the Burger King on Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Thomas amazed her co-workers with the amount of fast food she could eat.

Fitness and training regime.
To stay in shape, Sonya has one big meal a day, with lots of green vegetables and fresh fruit, and always avoids junk food. She exercises by walking on an inclined treadmill for two hours, five times per week. She also regularly visits all-you-can-eat buffets at restaurants. The night before a contest, she fasts all night in order to put an edge on her appetite.

Rookie year.
After seeing Kobayashi (approximately 145 pounds) win the 2002 Nathan's contest, Thomas realized size was not an impediment to being a world-class eater, and entered the competitive eating circuit. In her first contest, the June 2003 Nathan's qualifier held at the Molly Pitcher rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, her tally of 18 hot dogs took first place and enabled her to compete in the July 4th competition held at Coney Island. Her total of 25 hot dogs there broke the women's record set three years earlier by Takako Akasaka, the dominant female in Japanese competitive eating. Thomas had several strong performances in the remainder of 2003, including record setting victories in turducken and fruitcake competitions. At a single-person exhibition in a rock festival in Indianapolis, she ate 65 hard-boiled eggs in under 7 minutes, setting a record and amazing the skeptical concertgoers. Though Thomas had only competed for half of 2003, the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) named her Rookie of the Year.

Champion.
Thomas' victory in the 2004 Wing Bowl helped establish her as the premier American "gurgitator" of both genders. Her tally of 32 hot dogs in the 2004 Nathan's Hot Dog contest was the most ever eaten by a male or female American competitor at the time. The only eaters besides Kobayashi to defeat Thomas between the 2004 and 2005 Nathan's contests were Bill "El Wingador" Simmons in the controversial 2005 Wing Bowl, and Dale Boone, who won a contest eating overheated baked beans after he doused the beans in water to cool them down.

Challenge and Response.
When Thomas undertook a challenging schedule of three contests in three cities on Labor Day weekend 2005, she had not lost a contest to anyone besides Kobayashi since the Wing Bowl in early February. Several last-minute victories foreshadowed that her streak would not last forever. At the Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, NY, Ms. Thomas lost to Eric "Badlands" Booker in a chicken wing contest and then lost a waffle eating contest in Atlanta the next day to the fast-rising rookie Joey Chestnut, giving her a two event losing streak to replace her winning streak. Thomas' waffle defeat was avenged on Labor Day, however, when she out-ate Chestnut in the Chattanooga, TN Krystal Square Off qualifier. Thomas ate 57 Krystal Burgers to Chestnut's 56.

Before the GoldenPalace.com turkey eating contest in New York City Thanksgiving Eve, Sonya Thomas had gone three months without winning a non-qualifying contest, although she did have two impressive victories in qualifiers during that span. It appeared that Joey Chestnut would soon claim the title of the leading American eater from Thomas. The civil engineering student from San Jose State had defeated Thomas in three of their last four match-ups and was the first eater to lead Kobayashi for the majority of a contest at the Krystal Square Off in Chattanooga the previous week. Although Thomas came in third, the silver lining was her domination of Kobayashi on a pound for pound basis: Thomas 56 burgers / 100 lb. = 0.56, Kobayashi 67 burgers / 170 lb. = 0.39.

At the turkey contest, Sonya Thomas was able to dramatically reverse her recent slump and defeat Joey Chestnut without last second heroics, which she had not been able to do since Nathan's hot dog contest on July 4. Thomas' momentum continued the following week at a meatball contest in Atlantic City. Her total of 10 lb. 3 oz. beat Chestnut by two pounds and almost doubled her total from the previous year's meatball contest. Thomas' continued improvement, along with Chestnut's rapid ascent appears to give Kobayashi more to worry about in 2006 than at any time in his dominant career.

On August 13th of 2006, Thomas won her Asian debut competition in Hong Kong while setting her 28th eating record, by consuming 17 Chinese-style lotus seed buns in 12 minutes.

In the Media.
She was featured in a Mastercard Paypass commercial. By accident, she meets Takeru Kobayashi, a male competitor, in a convenience store. Their eyes flash, and they begin a hot dog eating duel, which they pay for using the Paypass card.

Future.
In 2005, Thomas earned more than $50,000 in prize money and made extensive media appearances.[10] She is unclear how long she will continue eating competitively, but she hopes to own a fast-food franchise one day. She would like to compete in Japanese eating contests, which pay more but last longer than she prefers. She intends to continue eating competitively until she either loses her desire, or falls out of the ranks of the elite eaters.

Training and competition notes.
Thomas exercises up to two hours a day on an incline treadmill, and has maintained her weight since she started competing in 2003, down from 135 pounds when she worked as a typist in Korea. Her lowest weight has been 99 lb. at Wing Bowl XII in 2004.

She only eats one very large meal a day, which takes several hours for her to complete. A typical post-work meal for her would be three large orders of fries, a chicken Whopper, 20 chicken tenders, and two 32-ounce diet soft drinks.
She does not practice eating at maximum speed for more than a two-minute period.
Her favorite foods to eat in competitions are hard-boiled eggs, oysters and chicken wings.

She claims to have had remaining stomach capacity after all her contests, except after eating the nine pound Barrick burger, which took her 48 minutes to finish. She ate enough oysters to set the untimed record for oyster eating after the 2005 oyster competition was officially over.

She believes that the combined weight of the Barrick burger, bun and water she drank was probably 17 or 18 pounds, and that this is approximately her current gastronomic maximum.

She believes her best chance of beating Kobayashi would be in an 8–10 minute contest, in which superior technique could be a deciding factor. In a longer contest she feels that Kobayashi's advantage in stomach capacity (he can eat over 20 pounds) would be too much to overcome.

She had difficulty eating a hot dog in under a minute when she first started training for her first contest, the 2003 Nathan's qualifier. After practicing, she was able to consume 18 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

She out-ate Randy Thomas, a pro football player noted for his appetite, consuming 6.5 pounds of shrimp in 10 minutes to his 1.5 pounds.

Records.
Asparagus : 5.75 pounds of tempura deep fried asparagus spears in 10 minutes.
Cheesecakes : 11 pounds of downtown Atlantic cheesecake in 9 minutes.
Chicken nuggets : 80 chicken nuggets in 5 minutes.
Chicken wings : 167 chicken wings in 32 minutes.
Crabcakes : 46 three ounce crabcakes in 10 minutes.
Eggs : 65 hard boiled eggs in 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
Fruitcakes : 4 pounds, 14 1/4 ounces of Wegman's Fruitcake in 10 minutes.
Hamburgers : 7 burgers (3/4 pound) "Thickburgers" in 10 minutes.
Jambalaya : 9 pounds of crawfish jambalaya in 10 minutes.
Lobster : 44 lobsters totaling 11.3 pounds of lobster meat in 12 minutes.
Oysters : 46 dozen Acme Oysters in 10 minutes.
Pizza : 6 extra large Baci pizza slices in 15 minutes.
Pulled pork : 23 pulled pork sandwiches in 10 minutes.
Tacos : 43 soft tacos in 11 minutes.
Tater tots : 250 tater tots in 5 minutes.
Turducken : 7 3/4 pounds Turducken.com Thanksgiving Dinner in 12 minutes.

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest results.

2003 Qualifier.
18 Hot Dogs.
held at Molly Pitcher Rest Area, New Jersey.

2003 Contest.
25 Hot Dogs.
5th place, & female record.

2004 Qualifier.
26.5 Hot Dogs.
held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

2004 Contest.
32 Hot Dogs.
3rd place, female record, & U.S. record.

2005 Qualifier.
32 Hot Dogs.
tied female & US record; held at Norfolk, Virginia.

2005 Contest.
37 Hot Dogs.
2nd place, US record, & female record.

2006 Contest.
37 Hot Dogs.
3rd place, tied female record.

Source : Wikipedia.

Site officiel de Sonya

Hasta la vista !

Source : MadTV.

BAC S2 : encore !

Une fillette et sa nourrice renversées par un chauffard.

Avenue de Flandre, on a frôlé le drame. Sur cette artère particulièrement fréquentée du XIXe arrondissement, une femme de 50 ans, nourrice d’origine chinoise, et la petite fille de 6 ans dont elle avait la garde, ont été violemment percutées par un automobiliste qui a pris la fuite en direction de la porte de la Villette.

La nourrice et l’enfant traversaient, mardi soir vers 18 heures, sur le passage piéton qui fait face au numéro 130 de l’avenue lorsqu’une Clio blanche, lancée à vive allure, a surgi.

« La voiture les a heurtées toutes les deux et elles ont été projetées au sol : la petite fille sur la droite et la femme de l’autre côté. C’est l’adulte qui nous a le plus inquiétés. Elle ne se relevait pas… Elle avait l’air très mal, confie un témoin de la scène. Touts s’est passé avec une telle violence, une telle rapidité, que nous avons à peine eu le temps de réaliser que le conducteur avait disparu ! »

Sur place, les secours et les agents de la police urbaine de proximité (PUP) constatent que l’enfant est indemne alors que la nourrice semble grièvement blessée. Le chauffard est repéré quelques minutes plus tard non loin de là, avenue Corentin Cariou, où il était affairé à regarder les dégâts sur sa voiture et tentait de faire disparaître, en la grattant avec une clé, le logo « A »-jeune conducteur- sur la lunette arrière de la Clio.

Interpellé par les policiers, le jeune homme, un habitant de l’arrondissement âgé de 22 ans, a expliqué qu’il avait préféré prendre la fuite parce qu’il était dépourvu d’assurance. Les examens qui ont été pratiqués sur lui au cours de sa garde à vue ont en outre révélé qu’il avait fumé du cannabis.

Les jours de la nourrice, hospitalisée à Lariboisière, ne semblent plus en danger, amis elle souffre notamment d’une fracture du bassin. Quant au jeune homme, il était toujours hier soir entre les mains du service central des accidents de la préfecture de police, saisi de l’enquête, dans l’attente de son défèrement au parquet de Paris.

Source : le Parisien (CB, le 14 juin 2007).


Ben mince... "les agents de la police urbaine de proximité". Encore un oubli ? Même brigade, même équipe, ça devient lassant.

Encore un malfaisant qui devra rendre des compte à notre très sévère justice (mais si mais si) grâce aux excellents bacmen du secteur 2.

L'actualité c'est nous qui la vivons, c'est eux qui en vivent : c'est clair !

Source : très directe.

BAC S2 : gay friendly !

Un homosexuel victime d’un guet-apens.

Un « plan » rencontre classique qui tourne au cauchemar. Dans la nuit de lundi à mardi, un homosexuel de 52 ans est tombé dans le terrible piège que lui ont tendu six hommes dans le parking souterrain d’un immeuble de la rue de Romainville (XIXe).

Le quinquagénaire avait noué contact dans la journée de lundi avec un jeune homme via un site Internet de rencontre destiné à la communauté homosexuelle. Rendez-vous est pris pour le soir même. Et lorsque l’homme arrive sur les lieux, au volant d’une puissante berline qu’il gare rue de Romainville, il ne se doute pas un instant de ce qui l’attend.

Sur place, le quinquagénaire rencontre son ami d’un soir, qui l’invite à descendre avec lui dans le parking souterrain. Mais à peine sont-ils arrivés au premier sous-sol que cinq hommes encagoulés surgissent dans la pénombre, se jettent sur la victime et, lui assénant gifles et coups de poing, arrachent ses clefs de voiture.

Deux jeunes de 16 et 19 ans arrêtés.

Un traquenard, qui n’est fort heureusement pas passé inaperçu. En effet, la scène, d’une violence extrême, met en émoi certains habitants de l’immeuble qui, entendant des cris étouffés et des bruits suspects dans le parking, téléphonent immédiatement aux secours. Très vite, la police urbaine de proximité (PUP) est sur place et parvient à interpeller deux des six agresseurs du quinquagénaire qui gît au sol, blessé. Leurs complices, quant à eux, munis des clefs de voiture de leur victime un portefeuille et deux téléphones portables avant de s’évanouir dans la nature.
Hier soir, les deux jeunes gens interpellés, âgés de 16 et 19 ans, étaient toujours en garde à vue et ne semblaient guère loquaces quant au rôle qui leur était réservé dans le traquenard.

« La communauté homosexuelle est particulièrement fragile face aux guet-apens comme celui-ci, soutient un enquêteur de police rompu à ce type d’affaires. Il faudrait une prise de conscience des intéressés et beaucoup plus de méfiance car ces agressions se multiplient ces dernières années, notamment par le biais d’Internet. Et ceux qui commettent ces agressions, généralement ultraviolentes, prennent souvent pour cible des hommes mûrs qu’ils pensent fortunés. »

Dans le quartier du Marais, en 2006, un quinquagénaire avait été passé à tabac dans des conditions très similaires par deux jeunes gens qui l’avaient dépouillé de sa carte bancaire, le laissant sans connaissance sur le trottoir. L’association SOS Homophobie avait alors diffusé des messages appelant à la vigilance sur leur site Internet.

Source : Le Parisien (Cécile Beaulieu, 13 juin 2007).

Ah... les journalistes ! Quelle approximation ! J’aimerais avoir le don de supporter ce manque de rigueur ! « PUP », certes mais j’aurais préférer lire « BAC S2 » avec, il faut le dire, un sérieux coup de main des effectifs du 19ème arrondissement (SPQ). Il y a des services pour lesquels on fait un peu plus de publicité…

Quid de la cavalcade dans les caves de notre belle équipe de vainqueurs (Pim, Papy, Juju et Teddy) derrière ces crapules sans morale ? Nos héros ont-ils eu droit à un tendre baiser de la princesse qu’ils avaient délivrée ?

Source : directe ! (Elle ne pourrait l’être plus)

Super Communs.

La TNT c'est du télé-achat, des séries allemandes, des débats pourris...
Mais c'est aussi ça.

Source : NRJ12 (Super Communs)

"Comme par hasard" (le grand complot).

La bombe "gay": quand le Pentagone pensait utiliser la puissance de l'amour.

Une bombe "gay" transformant des soldats ennemis en homosexuels préférant faire l'amour à la guerre, l'idée saugrenue avait été proposée en 1994 par un laboratoire militaire au Pentagone, qui n'a pas donné suite.Le laboratoire Wright de l'armée de l'air à Dayton (Ohio) réclamait 7,5 millions de dollars pour développer cette bombe contenant un produit chimique au puissant effet aphrodisiaque qui entraînerait "un comportement homosexuel" censé affecter "le moral et la discipline des unités ennemies".

Le document, déniché en décembre 2004 par le Sunshine Project, une association basée au Texas (sud) et en Allemagne qui milite contre les armes biologiques, agite depuis quelques jours la blogosphère et des médias américains.

Le Pentagone a confirmé l'existence de cette proposition mais en a minimisé la portée. "Le ministère de la Défense n'a jamais creusé un tel concept (...) et aucun financement n'a été fourni par le Pentagone", a affirmé un porte-parole militaire, le lieutenant-colonel Brian Maka. Il rappelle que l'idée faisait partie d'une série de propositions sur des armes non-mortelles, dont un produit chimique rendant les ennemis très sensibles à la lumière du soleil ou un autre rendant des abeilles agressives et les poussant à attaquer des humains.

Edward Hammond, du Sunshine Project, conteste toutefois les affirmations du Pentagone. "La proposition n'a pas été rejetée sur le champ. Elle a été examinée par la suite", a-t-il écrit sur le site internet de l'association.

Il affirme ainsi que l'idée a été insérée en 2000 dans un CD-ROM promotionnel sur les armes non-mortelles par un organisme du Pentagone, basé à Quantico (Virginie), qui avait à nouveau repris l'idée en 2001 dans une étude soumise à l'Académie nationale des sciences.

Cette histoire de bombe "gay" suscite en tout cas des commentaires moqueurs de bloggeurs. "Si nous avions une bombe gay sous la main, pourquoi ne pas la balancer dans les montagnes d'Afghanistan", s'interroge republicoft.com, qui s'identifie comme noir et homosexuel vivant à Washington.

"Les imbéciles qui ont eu cette idée devraient être giflés et contraints à écouter les disques de Judy Garland pour le reste de leur vie", écrit un autre bloggeur, Ed Brayton, sur le site Huffington Post.

Les experts de la question homosexuelle trouvent cela moins drôle. "Cette histoire montre les idées dépassées du Pentagone sur la sexualité et sur la relation entre la sexualité et la notion d'être un bon soldat", estime Aaron Belkin, professeur à l'Université de Californie (ouest) à Santa Barbara.

"Imaginer que vaporiser un produit chimique sur quelqu'un puisse le rendre homosexuel est grotesque, et imaginer que cet individu transformé en homosexuel devienne alors un mauvais soldat est également grotesque", dit-il à l'AFP.

Source : AFP (15 Juin 2007).

La cause occulte d'une défaite évitable.

Une rumeur circule avec insistance dans un cercle d’initiés qui se sont engagés au silence (enfin, presque…). Elle explique la défaite de la France à Singapour et l’homérique colère piquée, quatre jours après s’être proclamé Londoniennement solidaire, par Bertrand Delanoë, président du Groupement d’Intérêt Public (G.I.P.) « Paris - Ile-de-France 2012 », chargé de présenter la candidature de Paris à l’organisation des Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques de 2012.

Selon ces bruits, des lobbyistes mal intentionnés auraient fait tenir à des délégués musulmans de pays musulmans, des photos du maire de Paris en tête de la Marche des Fiertés (ex-Gay Pride), accompagnés d’autres photos de la Marche elle-même. On y voyait, paraît-il, les plus grotesquement obscènes des Artabans du défilé. Ce qui aurait eu un effet dévastateur sur quelques délégués dont les votes ont finalement manqué à la candidature française.

La colère de Bertrand Delanoë aurait été d’autant plus violente qu’il ne pouvait pas invoquer les causes réelles de l’échec. C’aurait été reconnaître qu’en dépit de ce qu’il se passe dans quelques pays de l’hémisphère nord, il reste pénalisant d’être homosexuel dans le monde d’aujourd’hui. Et les médias qui sont censés nous informer, pratiquement tous acquis au mariage homosexuel et à l’homoparentalité, auraient été condamnés au même silence pour les mêmes motifs.

Se non è vero, è ben trovato. Et le coup fait tellement “perfide Albion” qu’on en vient en souhaiter sa confirmation officielle…

Mais au-delà de son aspect anecdotique, l’éviction de la France conduit à s’interroger quant à l’opportunité de la désignation d’un homosexuel avéré et ostensible en tant que président du G.I.P. « Paris - Ile-de-France 2012 ».

Alors que chaque voix devait compter, pouvait-on raisonnablement renoncer à toute forme de considération pour la sensibilité particulière de délégués de pays dans lesquels l’inversion sexuelle constitue un délit, voire un crime et, dans tous les cas, une offense majeure à Dieu ? D’aucuns objecteront que ce n’est pas à la France, Etat laïc, à s’adapter aux pratiques, coutumes et usages des musulmans, mais là n’est pas le vrai problème.

Il est le suivant : quand on aspire à organiser les J.O. ne doit-on pas mettre tous les atouts dans son jeu et veiller minutieusement à en exclure les mauvaises cartes ? Toutes les mauvaises cartes ? Y compris la carte Delanoë, dès lors qu’on en peut craindre un impact dommageable, si limité soit-il ?

Si la réponse est négative, alors il faut présenter la candidature de Paris à « Cité universelle de la Tolérance » [photo] et certainement pas à l’organisation de la plus grande manifestation sportive du monde, dans l’attribution de laquelle les musulmans occupent une place non négligeable.

Les délégués que les moeurs du maire de Paris pouvaient indisposer étaient au nombre de treize : Nawaf Faisal Fahd Abdulaziz (Arabie Saoudite), Shadid Ali (Pakistan), Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah (Koweit), Lamine Diack (Sénégal), Alpha Ibrahim Diallo (Guinée), Hicham El Guerrouj (Maroc), Rania Elwani (Egypte), Mustapha Larfaoui (Algérie), Samih Moudallal (Syrie), Sabet Mounir (Egypte), Nawal El Moutawakel (Maroc), Mohammed Mzali (Tunisie), Youssoupha Ndiaye (Sénégal).

Le cas de Mme Elwani est exemplaire. Il représente cet Islam “modéré”, avec lequel nous sommes invités à frayer. Née en 1978, de nationalité égyptienne, licenciée en biologie, multimédaillée (or, argent et bronze) aux Jeux Africains, Méditerranéens et Panarabes, Mme Elwani représente la jeune femme arabe moderne telle qu’on l’imagine, émancipée au point de paraître en (suggestive) tenue de nageuse devant des milliers de spectateurs et des millions de téléspectateurs. Or, elle n’en est pas moins strictement voilée jusqu’à la racine des cheveux, sur sa photographie officielle de membre du CIO !

Voilà le genre de personne qu’il s’agissait de séduire…
M. Bertrand Delanoë n’était assurément pas le mieux placé pour le faire. Il serait bon de tirer les conséquences de son échec, toutes les conséquences. Mais aussi de se préoccuper de l’image désastreuse que l’Europe du mariage homosexuel et de l’homoparentalité est en train d’offrir au Tiers Monde.

Source : altermedia.info (15 juillet 2005).

Les américains auraient-ils lancé une bombe gay sur la Mairie de Paris pour garantir les J.O. à leurs alliés anglais et faire payer aux français leur désengagement en Irak ? La Ligue enquête...

Travailler plus pour gagner pareil.

Manifestation de policiers devant Bercy pour leurs heures supplémentaires .

Cinq cents policiers se sont rassemblés jeudi après-midi devant le ministère des Finances à Paris, à l'appel du Syndicat national des officiers de police (Snop, majoritaire), pour demander le paiement de leurs heures supplémentaires, a constaté un journaliste de l'AFP.

Une délégation, dirigée par le secrétaire général du Snop Dominique Achispon, a été reçue au ministère.

Les policiers se sont ensuite dirigés vers le Palais omnisports de Paris-Bercy derrière une banderole "Heures supplémentaires, les policiers en colère", pour attendre le compte-rendu du secrétaire général du Snop.

Le secrétaire général du Snop, Dominique Achispon, a indiqué qu'une manifestation de rue "n'est pas à exclure".

Il a précisé à l'AFP que, le même jour, le Snop appelle à des "rassemblements" devant les préfectures de Lyon, Rennes, Nice, Toulouse, Marseille, Lille ou Saint-Denis de La Réunion.
Michèle Alliot-Marie, ministre de l'Intérieur, a indiqué mercredi qu'"aucune décision n'a à ce jour été prise" concernant les heures supplémentaires, non payées, réclamées par les officiers de police qui sont appelés à manifester jeudi.

Dans une lettre aux deux syndicats d'officiers, parvenue à l'AFP de source syndicale policière, la ministre écrit: "aucune décision n'a à ce jour été prise, ni aucun principe strictement arrêté sur les modalités de paiement" de ces heures dues.

"Toutes les pistes sont et restent envisageables", ajoute-t-elle, "qu'il s'agisse d'approches financières, de temps récupéré (...) ou d'autres solutions originales que les échanges permettraient de dégager".

"Nous nous invitons, à notre façon, dans le débat actuel sur les heures sups", a expliqué M. Achispon à l'AFP. "D'un côté, le gouvernement veut les défiscaliser", selon lui, "de l'autre, le problème n'est pas réglé pour les quelque 12.000 officiers de police".

Le Snop estime qu'entre six à sept millions d'heures supplémentaires sont dues, depuis 1998, soit quelque 160 millions d'euros.

"C'est un scandale", a dénoncé M. Achispon, et la raison pour laquelle son organisation a saisi le Comité européen des droits sociaux (CEDS) qui dépend du Conseil de l'Europe. En mars 2007, le CEDS lui a donné raison et a tancé la France.

Pour cette raison, un rassemblement est également prévu jeudi, par le Snop, devant le parlement européen à Strasbourg.

La colère du Snop est née d'une note du directeur général de la police nationale, en date du 21 mai, marquant la volonté de l'administration de régler le problème en 2008 en vertu d'un protocole d'accord datant de juin 2004.

Ce protocole prévoit le passage des officiers en cadre A de la fonction publique et le réglement du dossier des heures supplémentaires, les officiers passant à un nouveau mode de calcul de celles-ci.

L'administration, selon cette note, propose de rémunérer partiellement ces heures supplémentaires dont elle demande qu'elles soient recensées. Elle suggère que 60% soient prises en compte et payées 9,25 euros brut de l'heure.

L'autre syndicat d'officiers, Synergie, a le premier eu accès à cette note et a rapidement mobilisé ses militants en distribuant des tracts. Synergie n'a cependant pas appelé à des manifestations estimant que "c'est inopportun en pleine campagne des législatives". Il espère parvenir à un accord dans le cadre de la future loi d'orientation de la police (Lopsi) que concocte le ministère de l'Intérieur.

Selon M. Achispon, "l'enveloppe programmée par l'administration, son mode et son outil de calcul, sont loin du compte".

Pour les deux syndicats, le problème des heures sups est un "casse-tête", les officiers cumulant entre 300 et 3.000 heures selon les services et les activités. Un officier qui traque les hooligans, par exemple, selon eux, affiche 5.000 heures "au compteur".

M. Achispon se défend de vouloir s'en prendre à la nouvelle ministre de l'Intérieur, Michèle Alliot-Marie, qui, dit-il, "découvre le problème" et vise Bercy "qui doit débloquer l'argent".

La direction générale de la police nationale (DGPN) a affirmé, le 30 mai, que les documents sur lesquels se fondent les syndicats sont "non définitifs". Ils "ne constituent pas les propositions finales qui seront faites lors de l'ouverture des négociations prévues" par le protocole de 2004.

Source : Yahoo.fr, AFP

Synergie : "c'est inopportun en pleine campagne des législatives". Ben voyons.

Ratatouille.

The world's largest restaurant chain, McDonald's Corp., has been ordered to pay a student some 2,200 yuan ($290) after a rat bit her at one of its outlets in northeastern China, media reported on Sunday.

A local court in Shenyang city in Liaoning province ordered the payment -- covering costs that included $130 for psychological injury -- for the incident last year, the China Merchant Morning Post said.

The woman, whose name was not disclosed, said a rat had climbed up her leg and bit her on the thigh while she was eating a meal at the restaurant.

The woman had sought 20,000 yuan (about $2,600) in compensation. She said the incident caused her to become frightened by white mice and rabbits.

McDonald's rejected other demands raised by the student, including follow-up medical charges and other fees, saying she lacked proof.

The court ruled that McDonald's was responsible for maintaining proper hygiene at its restaurants, in line with relevant hygiene standards of China, and should compensate the woman for failing to protect customer safety.

Source : Reuters.

Spéciale dédicace ! Ca se passe comme ça...

Foire au boudin.

Un millionnaire sud-coréen cherche à marier sa fille "trop âgée et petite" .

Un millionnaire sud-coréen a reçu 200 candidatures en quatre jours pour épouser sa fille pourtant dépeinte dans son annonce comme "un peu trop âgée et petite".

Le père, un sexagénaire dont l'identité n'a pas été divulguée, possède une fortune de quelque 100 milliards de wons (107 millions de dollars) et "recherche un jeune homme pour épouser sa fille", a indiqué à l'AFP l'agence matrimoniale Sunoo chargée du dossier.

"Il souhaite un père qui dirige sa famille, dépourvue d'héritier mâle", explique l'agence sur son site internet.

La future épouse est une chrétienne de 38 ans éduquée aux Etats-Unis.

"En dépit de ses défauts, un âge un peu trop avancé et une taille trop petite, elle a tout bon par ailleurs", est-il également spécifié.

Les soupirants n'ont pas manqué d'affluer, visiblement peu émus par les disgrâces prêtées à leur promise potentielle.

Source : AFP.

Ben quoi les gars ?
Courage les bachelors !

GAV Mineur.

Vidéo de garde à vue mineur. Merci les lois Guigou !

Méthode américaine actuellement enseignée à l'ENSOP.

Source : Elie Semoun.

Red Hot Chili Bungle... la suite !

Source : Mister Bungle.

Red Hot Chili Bungle...

Comment ça le son est mauvais ?

Source : Mister Bungle.

Mel's hole IV

There’s a weird story that’s been going around on the Internet for a few years now, of Mel’s Hole, an 8 mile (or more) deep chasm in the ground outside of Ellensburg, Wash. Since the story began its garnered around it shades of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, Spielberg’s Close Encounters, and even Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones.

The tale began on Art Bell’s nationally syndicated “Coast to Coast” radio program on February 21, 1997 when Art’s guest that evening was Washington state resident Mel Waters, who told a fantastic story of a large hole on his property which for generations had been used as an unofficial community dump.

One day Mel, an ex-shark fisherman, wondered just how deep it was and rigged up a line and weights over the center of the hole and began winching down a 5,000 yard spool of shark line and went through 80,000 yards of line (16 spools!) without hitting bottom.

A neighbor of Mel’s claims to have thrown the body of his dead canine down the hole and a few days later the animal returned home, none the worse for wear. Other puzzling aspects of the hole are said to be ancient retaining walls of worked stone placed the first 30 feet down the sides, and a large number of dead cow and animal bones around the periphery.

A local Indian named Red Elk was featured on MTV’s “Urban Legends” segment and claimed to have visited the site many times as a youngster, when he was told it was a “gateway to the underworld.”

Some geologists think, if its there, its must be an exceptionally deep lava vent tube, though all insist that a fishing line, however strong, would melt long before the reported depth of eight miles.

Mel insists his story is true. Skeptics aren’t so sure. So where does the search for Mel’s Hole stand now?

For all the reports of people who claim to have seen the hole or experienced mysterious goings-on, no one seems to agree on its exact location. A number of researchers and reporters have combed the hills around Mel’s former ranch and have come up empty-handed every time. Even Red Elk now speaks ominously that the underground “lizard people” don’t want the location discovered. In my own estimate, I’d file this one under “Urban Legend.”

Source : RiverJournal.com (Jody Forrest, 12 Juillet 2005).

Mel's hole III.

Search for clues about mysterious pit comes up empty

There's an eerie pit, 80,000 feet deep, near Yakima that the Army desperately wants to keep secret.

Don't believe it?

Just ask the folks who are spreading the story.

If you can find them.

The tale first emerged about a month ago, when someone calling himself "Mel Waters" called a national radio talk show that often boasts its affinity with those entirely normal folks who stay up all night.

The story reached the Mid-Columbia last week when a Tri-City disc jockey started talking about the hole.

Other than that, facts about the pit are harder to find than personal decorum at a Star Trek convention.

"What I understand is, this Ellensburg guy said he had some property on Manastash Ridge, and he was going up there to visit it and was stopped by soldiers," said Ken Cooper, spokesman for the Army's Yakima Training Center.

Then comes the good part of the story, a narrative element that echoes back a half-century to the crash of a mysterious saucerlike machine near Roswell, N.M.

"The soldiers said he couldn't go on his land because there was a plane crash up there," Cooper said.

This obviously disappointed Mel - plunging him so deep in despair that he could find solace only with a radio talk show - because he wanted to visit the 80,000-foot-deep sink hole he had found earlier on his land.

And how did he know it was 80,000 feet deep?

"He said he used his fishing pole and got his line down 80,000 feet," Cooper said. That's 15 miles.

"But you got to understand, this is all thirdhand information," Cooper said.

The search for firsthand information led to a Tri-City radio station now called Thunder Country.
The woman who answered the telephone said, yes, disc jockey John Travis had been discussing the hole on the air, but, no, Travis was not available to speak with the Herald on Monday.

She took a message, saying she would ask Travis to return the call.

He didn't.

Nor did Art Bell, the guy who aired Waters' first call. Nightly, Bell broadcasts a strange alchemy of UFO information and conspiracy politics from his isolated outpost in the Nevada desert.

But the closest the Herald got to Bell was a radio marketing company in Central Point, Ore.
The woman who answered the phone Monday said she'd try to get a message to Bell - but didn't sound too confident the Dean of the Dark would return the call.

Even the Time Out Saloon of Kittitas - which had been mentioned as a rich source of information concerning the pit - proved to be a dry hole.

"No one who knows anything is here right now. Better call back later," said the woman who answered the phone at the Time Out.

How much later?

"The end of the week."

With all experts on the paranormal not talking - or perhaps mysteriously abducted - that left the usual cast of experts.

Mel Waters wasn't listed in Kittitas County telephone directories, nor did the county assessor have him on taxpayer rolls.

But was Waters merely lying low in Ellensburg?

"No, sir. He's not here," said Jerry Shuart, a sheriff's detective who has fielded several such requests in the past few weeks.

There hasn't been an airplane crash in the past

two months in the area, said Mitch Barker of the Federal Aviation Administration in Seattle.
The Army's not hiding an aviation accident, nor an 80,000-foot-deep pit, Cooper said. "We're just training, just like we always do."

Even the Ellensburg Daily Record newspaper - which milked three stories out of the mystery, announced its disbelief with this headline: "Mel's story full of holes."

But perhaps the most damning evidence against Mel and his pit was found in the Tri-Cities, within the mind of Bill Chambliss of Bill's Fishing Hole.

Chambliss, who bills himself as "The World's Greatest Fisherman," seemed the perfect person to ask about Mel's claim he plumbed the 80,000-foot depths of his pit with a fishing pole.
"The average reel holds only about 600 feet of line," Chambliss sniffed.

And would a fisherman lie?

Source : Tri-City Herald (1997, Don McManman).

Mel's hole : la suite.

ELLENSBURG — A topographic map spread on the hood of a car showed where the search party would start. There is a hole out there, they believe, a hole that not only appears to be bottomless but has, on at least one occasion, brought an animal back to life.

The hole, the story goes, exists outside of town on land once owned by a man who calls himself Mel Waters. For years, he said, it was used as the neighborhood dump for trash, old appliances, dead cattle. When the hole never filled up, Waters measured its depth by lowering weighted fishing line into it. After 80,000 feet, he gave up. Amazed by this odd place (which dogs and birds avoided), Waters called radio host Art Bell, whose late-night show on conspiracies and the paranormal attracts a huge national audience.

The hole is now lost. Waters — himself a mystery — said he sold the property and won't say where it is. Few people know who he really is. So far, Waters exists only on radio waves, with a story many think is bunk. But tales of a deep hole in Ellensburg have circulated for years. Hoax or not, Waters' appearances before Bell's 10 million listeners have elevated an old local legend into a national paranormal mystery.

Ever since Waters first called Bell's show in 1997, listeners have followed the story closely, posting each new clue on their chat page, melshole.com. They believe the hole is about 10 miles west of town on a place called Manastash Ridge.

Before the search party headed out the other day from its staging area at the Copper Kettle on Eighth Street, member Brian Christ of Ellensburg, who would wait at the base camp, warned the others they were in danger.

"People know you're out here, right?" he asked.

Christ was clearly nervous. He'd heard what Waters said happened after he went public — that soldiers in yellow gear cordoned off his property and threatened to "find" a drug lab on it if he didn't cooperate. He also knew other details Waters told Bell: how one neighbor claimed to have thrown a dead dog in the hole, only to see it later frolicking in the woods; how another saw a black beam emanating from the hole; how transistor radios brought to the hole play programs from the past.

Charlette LeFevre, a search coordinator, had another concern: lining up 30 people for an expedition photo. "On the count of three," she said, "everybody say 'Mel's Hole.' "

Search party strikes out

The quest for Mel's Hole is in its sixth year. A recent appearance by Waters on Bell's Coast to Coast AM show (heard in Seattle on KOMO-AM), convinced many it could be found. Bundled up for cold weather were, among other searchers, a physicist, a father and son from Seattle, three Los Angeles amateur filmmakers, a family from Enumclaw, members of a Vancouver, B.C.-based paranormal investigation team and a shaman.

The group struck out from the Copper Kettle toward Manastash Ridge, the site Waters had mentioned on the radio. Mel's Hole, they believe, could be a massive lava tube or what LeFevre calls a Mount Rainier blowhole.

But Pat Pringle, a geologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said the area's landscape, formed more than 12 million years ago by a volcanic lahar, makes a hole of such depth unlikely. He admitted that odd things exist in nature, but doubts a hole like Mel's is possible in the brittle volcanic rock near here. Even if it is, he's sure the heat of the Earth would snap a fishing line long before it reached 80,000 feet.

LeFevre, though, remained convinced that Mel's Hole would be a great find — and possibly a sign of great danger. "Every geologist in the world should be here," she said. "They need to pay attention to this."

The searchers came prepared, carrying maps and metal detectors. One had a Global Positioning System reader. As they hiked up the trail, Red Elk, the shaman, assumed the lead. He said he'd seen the hole in 1961.

Betsy Wise of California walked with a metal detector slung on her back. She suffers from migraines and hoped to find an answer to the headaches out here. Others were drawn by a more spiritual impulse, viewing the hole as a clue to how the universe is ordered.

After 10 minutes, the group reached a cattle gate, where slash piles and clear-cut ridges defined the landscape.

Red Elk (or Gerald Osborne) wore a pouch around his neck that contained a half-dollar-sized piece of what looked like squashed pewter. He said the object, found in the middle of a road, was from a UFO.

The place to search, he said, was a jumble of tree limbs and stumps off to the right. "Dig in," he said. "I'm going to take a break."

A few people scrambled over to the pile. Others milled about. They discussed how to measure gases leaking from the Earth through the hole. They argued over whether a mass spectrometer, a frightfully expensive machine that measures ions, would help. They lamented not bringing a Geiger counter.

Sean Kennedy of the Paranormal Amateur Research Association in Vancouver, B.C., checked the coordinates on his GPS receiver. Inspired by "Ghostbusters" to plumb the unexplained, he considers searches like this just another kind of (serious) hobby. "Some people play golf," he said.

A searcher tripped over a snow-covered log. "Be careful of the logs," Kennedy yelled. "We were on a sasquatch expedition and someone snapped a leg."

Talk of the town

Long before anyone heard of Mel Waters, people in Ellensburg were talking about a hole so deep it wouldn't fill up.

Jay Nickell, 34, who grew up in Ellensburg, remembers a hole about seven miles from Manastash Ridge where, as a teenager, he and his buddies rode dirt bikes. On a few occasions, they came across a hole that sounds like Mel's: too deep to see bottom, and rocks hurled down it made no sound.

Among snowmobilers, talk is of a hole up on Manastash Ridge. Trish Swanson, who works at Central Washington University, recently drove past a hole that some friends joked was Mel's.

Rodney, who works at a snowmobile dealership in town and wouldn't give his last name, said a hole on the ridge — or at least the story of one — has been common knowledge in town for decades. "Lots of people talk about it," he said. "Could be something out there — but I've never seen it."

Skeptics traipse along

Up on the ridge, the search was bogging down. Red Elk had long since given up, preferring instead to lecture on a world called Inner Earth beneath the surface. With giant lizards that make sex slaves of humans, the place sounded a bit like the 1980s mini-series "V."

Many searchers know each other only through the Mel's Hole chat page. The expedition offered a chance to meet face to face. With no sign of the hole or trouble, the search turned into a social occasion.

Tim Withee of Auburn, the resident skeptic on the expedition, doubts there is a Mel's Hole. The others, he said, are too quick to accept Waters' story. "I don't think I'd call this search very scientific," he said. "It's like adult cartoons, that's what it is."

The Davis family, too, wasn't too keen on stories of giant lizards or black beams. But the Enumclaw residents, here for 17-year-old Nick's high-school project, agreed a super-deep hole was possible. The father, Kevin, grew up across the street from a coal mine. As a kid, he'd tossed rocks into the shaft, often never hearing them hit bottom.

"But we didn't drop cows or refrigerators," he said.

At base camp, Christ had big news. An offshoot of the party drove farther up the road to see if anything stood out. They stopped at an old driveway with a chain strung between two sagging posts. The area seemed promising.

"That's exactly the area where the hole would be," Christ explained. It became obvious there would be another search. People talked excitedly about what would be a truly great discovery.

Ask a scientist about Mel's Hole and you'll likely be laughed at. Tell a date you want to traipse around in the snow with a guy who believes in lizard people and you shouldn't expect a nightcap.

But the people searching for Mel's Hole don't expect everyone to believe them. They're used to being called crazy. For Los Angeles filmmaker Buddy Bolton, at least, what the public thinks is hardly the point.

"It's an exploration of faith," he said. "But there's an essence of reality to it that I think is undeniable.

"We heard Mel's voice."

Source : The Seattle Times (John Zebrowski14 Avril 2002)

Je vous demande pardon.

Va dans la cabine et enlève ton pantalon !

Source : Canal + (Monsieur Manatane).

Mel's hole.

Mel's Hole is the name given to a geographic anomaly that is said to have been discovered near Ellensburg, Washington, on land belonging to local resident Mel Waters. According to Water's hole has paranormal properties, including an infinite depth and the ability to restore dead animals to life.

The first references to the hole were made in a series of interviews with Waters, made by Art Bell on the radio show Coast to Coast AM. Waters initially appeared on Coast to Coast on February 21st, 1997. He since appeared on February 24, 1997; April of 2000; and January 29, 2002. His last appearance on the show was on December 20, 2002.

Description

Mel claimed to have expended 15 spools of fishing line in a attempt to divine the bottom of the hole. Making it in excess of 15 miles (80,000 feet) deep. 12.6 miles deeper that the world's deepest mine shaft. Mel discussed plans for lowering a man into the hole and speculated that it might be tied into cosmological events.

Location
The exact location of the hole was never revealed by Waters. It is said to be located in a region which has been removed from publicly available satellite images due to the presence of nearby Yakima Training Center. Several attempts have been made to find it, but none have been successful.

Prior to the 10 year anniversary of Mel's first appearance on Coast to Coast, the moderator of the Mel's Hole website posted that the search for the hole had reached a dead end, and that it would likely never be proven to exist unless Mel came forwards with evidence in support of it as a real location.

Mel Waters

In 1997 the local newspaper the "Tri City Herald" reported that Waters was not listed in the Kittitas County telephone directory or the register of taxpayers, and that authorities in Ellensburg were unable to find any evidence that he was a resident. Calling into question whether he existed.

Source : Wikipedia.

Le retour de Nessie.

Ajustez vos lunettes, réglez vos écrans.

Source : CNN.

The way you are...

Ne cherche plus chéri, je l'ai rangé dans ton fion.

Les sacs de luxe FION, sont réservés au marché asiatique... Dommage !

Source : directe.

Racisme primaire.

La couleur d'une voiture annoncerait le risque d'accident

Les voitures noires sont plus souvent impliquées dans des accidents de la route et les blanches sont plus sûres, selon les résultats d'une étude australienne.

Le Centre de recherche des accidents de l'université Monash de Melbourne s'est penché sur les relations entre les risques d'accident et 17 couleurs de véhicules en décortiquant les rapports de police de deux Etats. Il en ressort une corrélation statistique significative.

"Comparés aux véhicules blancs, un certain nombre de couleurs peuvent être associées à un risque supérieur d'accident", peut-on lire dans le rapport publié sur le site internet du centre.

"Ces couleurs sont généralement celles ayant un indice de visibilité moindre, dont le noir, le bleu, le gris, le vert, le rouge et l'argenté (...) ou ayant un faible contraste avec des éléments visuels clé lors de la conduite."

Les chercheurs ont conclu que le risque d'avoir un accident au volant d'une voiture noire en plein jour était plus élevé de 12% qu'avec une voiture blanche. Après les noires, viennent les grises, puis les argentées, les bleues et les rouges.

L'étude reposait sur des données concernant 855.258 accidents entre 1982 et 2004.

Source : Reuters (8 Juin 2007)

La Ligue attire votre attention : cette étude concerne la couleur des véhicules, pas celle des chauffeurs.

Tête à claque à louer.

Ce soir à 20h50, Gérard Miller, le psy de la bande à Ruquier, fera parti des piégés de l'émission "La grande illusion" sur France 3.

Mais pendant le tournage de l'émission, tout ne s'est pas passé comme prévu.

Selon le magazine "Voici" de ce lundi, Gérard Miller devait se retrouver bloqué avec Steevy et Claude Sarraute dans un ascenseur, mais ce que la production ne savait pas, c'est qu'il a une peur bleue des ascenseurs.

Cette farce n'a pas du tout plu au psychanalyste qui est entré dans une grosse colère. Il a accusé la production de l'émission de jouer avec ses nerfs et son coeur. Il a alors menacé de porter plainte mais, en guise de dédommagement, la production lui a proposé une indemnisation pour ne pas devoir passer devant la justice.

Le montant de la transaction est resté secret...

Source : jmm.com (14 Mai 2007).

"Sauf conditions exceptionnelles" : elle est bien bonne !

Avocats et juges sont unanimes : ils estiment que la loi sur les peines minimales présentée par la ministre de la justice, Rachida Dati, vendredi 1er juin, aura pour conséquence une forte augmentation des effectifs des prisons. "L’impact de ce texte, qui fait pression sur les juges, sera très lourd. Les conséquences en termes de surpopulation carcérale vont être considérables, estime Bruno Thouzellier, président de l’Union syndicale des magistrats (USM, majoritaire). "Car si, formellement, on laisse une marge d’appréciation au juge pour prononcer une peine de prison ferme ou non, dans les faits, on la lui enlève."

Même analyse au Syndicat de la magistrature (SM, gauche) : "Même si la possibilité de prononcer des peines alternatives à la prison n’est pas remise en question, l’effet conjugué de ce texte avec la loi de décembre 2005 limitant les possibilités de sursis aura pour effet de faire déborder les prisons déjà surpeuplées et de mettre en place un système pénal rompant définitivement avec toute conception humaniste de la sanction."

Pour Paul-Albert Iweins, président du Conseil national des barreaux, "ce qui est préoccupant, c’est que les circonstances de faits et de personnalité disparaissent avec la deuxième récidive. On restreint la capacité des juges et des jurés".

Le projet de loi "tendant à renforcer la lutte contre la récidive des majeurs et des mineurs" est au Conseil d’Etat. Il vise un champ très large : il ne concerne pas seulement les crimes, mais s’applique aux délits les plus courants, à partir de trois ans d’emprisonnement encourus, soit les vols simples. Les peines minimales s’appliquent aux mineurs récidivistes de 16 à 18 ans. Pour eux, de surcroît, l’excuse de minorité disparaît au troisième acte délinquant : ils seront dès lors passibles des mêmes sanctions que les adultes.

Le texte ne comporte que quatre articles : les deux premiers fixent les peines minimales que les juges, sauf conditions exceptionnelles, devront prononcer. Ces planchers sont de l’ordre du tiers de la peine maximale prévue : un an si le délit est puni de trois ans de prison, deux ans s’il encourt cinq ans, etc.

Le projet modifie une nouvelle fois l’ordonnance de 1945 sur l’enfance délinquante, dont la dernière retouche date de mars. "Les carences de la justice des mineurs, qui met un temps infini à prononcer les condamnations, différeront l’effet de cette loi, mais d’ici quelques années, elle fera passer le nombre de mineurs détenus de quelque 700 actuellement à 3 000 ou 4 000", estime un procureur qui requiert l’anonymat.

La loi prévoit, enfin, une disposition qui devrait conduire plusieurs milliers de condamnés à passer un temps plus long en détention : le juge d’application des peines pourra constater lui-même que les faits ayant conduit la personne en prison relèvent d’une récidive, même si cela n’a pas été relevé par la juridiction de jugement. En clair, seront ainsi revues les libérations conditionnelles, les réductions de peine accordées pour bonne conduite (sept jours par mois, cinq mois en situation de récidive) ou les remises supplémentaires accordées au titre de la réinsertion (trois mois par an, deux mois en cas de récidive).

"Cette disposition visant à "rattraper" le défaut de vigilance des juges aura un impact énorme sur les durées d’incarcération", pense David de Pas, juge d’application des peines, membre du SM. "Cela remet en question l’autorité de la chose jugée et va à l’encontre des lois précédentes qui ont demandé aux juges d’aménager les peines pour limiter la récidive", critique Mickaël Janas, président de l’Association des juges d’application des peines.

Pour les majeurs comme les mineurs, le message est la fermeté : à la deuxième récidive, c’est bien le maintien en liberté, et non l’incarcération, qui doit être spécialement motivé par le juge. "On inverse la logique judiciaire", dénonce M. de Pas. Dans la pratique quotidienne de la justice pénale, notamment celle des comparutions immédiates, le résultat ne fait aucun doute.

Source : Le Monde (2 Juin 2007)

Black Swan III

Tampa, FL - May 21, 2007- Since the announcement by Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (AMEX:OMR) of the recovery of over 500,000 coins from the shipwreck code-named "Black Swan", intense international media coverage has led to many questions that the Company would like to address.

In addition to the following questions and answers, additional information on the shipwreck can be accessed in the "Black Swan Question and Answer" section of Odyssey's website at www.shipwreck.net, or a copy may be obtained by contacting the Company.

1. It has been widely reported that this shipwreck could be worth up to $500 million. What is the Company's position on this?

The Company has not estimated the total potential value of the shipwreck, other than to estimate on a preliminary basis a wide range of potential retail prices based on the coins that have been conserved to date.

What we know is that we have recovered over 500,000 silver coins weighing over 17 tons, along with some gold coins and other artifacts. After conservation of the first 6,000 coins, we requested that a numismatist and one of the world's most experienced coin marketers, Nick Bruyer, inspect the coins and provide an opinion of the retail pricing that we could expect from the collection.

Based on Mr. Bruyer's opinion, Odyssey reported that we expected the retail pricing of the silver coins to range from several hundred to four thousand dollars per coin. This wide range of prices would depend on the condition, origin and date of the individual coins. We understand that in a separate interview with a reporter, Mr. Bruyer provided his opinion that the mean retail price of the coins could be approximately $1,000 based on the small sample of coins that he inspected. This was reported as a potential $500 million retail value for the coins, which explains where that figure originated.

Odyssey's position is that until all the coins are conserved, documented and graded, it is impossible to know what the entire collection would bring at retail. Based on the coins that have been conserved to date and that he has been able to inspect, we are comfortable with Mr. Bruyer's opinion that coins from the "Black Swan" will bring from several hundred to four thousand dollars per coin retail. These are estimates that could change significantly when the rest of the coins are conserved and do not include the cost of marketing and sales, so actual revenue to Odyssey would be much lower than retail sales prices.

For more information on the marketing and pricing of coins, see questions 2, 8 and 12 in the "Black Swan Q and A".

2. There have been reports that the "Black Swan" is a number of different shipwrecks, including HMS Sussex and the Merchant Royal. Are any of these reports correct?

We can confirm that the "Black Swan" is not HMS Sussex, and that the "Black Swan" was not found in waters anywhere near the shipwreck believed to be HMS Sussex. Beyond that, we cannot confirm the identity of the shipwreck because we are not certain ourselves. The site is in an area in which a number of Colonial-era Shipwrecks were believed to be lost. The "Black Swan" bears characteristics of one shipwreck in particular, but some of the evidence gathered to date is inconsistent with our research, so we want to be sure of the identity before we announce it.

3. It has been reported that the Spanish Government is engaging in a "probe" of Odyssey because it is "suspicious" that we have not publicized more information about the shipwreck. Is this true?

We have no knowledge of any such inquiry, and would expect that we would have been the first ones contacted if there was one. In our experience with the Spanish Government, with whom we have had a very cordial relationship for many years, we would have been informed directly or through the US or UK embassy of any outstanding issues relating to Odyssey's operations.

During the past few days, we have also seen many fanciful media reports from Spain with absolutely no substance in reality. Unfortunately, some of these wild allegations would logically cause concern to the Spanish Government. We anticipate presenting the Spanish Government with an official account of our activities in order to assure them that many of these media reports relative to the "Black Swan" are pure fiction.

We have stated clearly that the recovery was conducted in conformity with Salvage Law and the Law of the Sea Convention, beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country. We do not believe that the recovery is subject to sovereign immunity by any nation pursuant to the Law of the Sea Convention.

The coins were brought into the United States with a valid export license granted by the country from which they were exported, and imported legally pursuant to US Law.

There was no point at which any aspect of the "Black Swan" operation was within the jurisdiction of Spanish authorities, and we will be pleased to provide proof of that fact to the Spanish Government if requested officially.

4. What about the claim that the Spanish Government has now asked the "Guardia Civil" marine patrol to monitor Odyssey's activities?

The Spanish Guardia Civil has always monitored Odyssey's ships in Spanish Territorial waters. When operating in or near Spanish Territorial waters, we report our operational plans and movements to the Guardia Civil marine patrol before we send our ships to sea. They are able to monitor all our activities visibly with their patrol boats and through radar, so it is illogical to suggest that we have conducted any illicit operations in Spanish territorial waters.

5. What happens, if you finally determine the identity of the "Black Swan" and establish that the UK, Spain, any other country or even individuals may have rights to the shipwreck?

If we are able to confirm that some other entity has a legitimate legal claim to this shipwreck when - and if - the identity is confirmed, we intend to provide legal notice to any and all potential claimants. Even if another entity is able to prove that it has an ownership interest in the shipwreck and/or cargo and that they had not legally abandoned the shipwreck, Odyssey would apply for a salvage award from the Admiralty Court. In cases such as this, salvors are typically awarded up to 90% of the recovery.

We do believe that most shipwrecks that we recover, including the "Black Swan", will likely result in claims by other parties. Many will be spurious claims, but we anticipate that there might be some legitimate ones as well. In the case of the "Black Swan", it is the opinion of our legal counsel that even if a claim is deemed to be legitimate by the courts, Odyssey should still receive title to a significant majority of the recovered goods.

6. Why is Odyssey being so "secretive" about the "Black Swan?"

Based on past experience with other shipwrecks, we have found that putting out information about the identity of shipwrecks into the public before we are certain of the identity results in wild speculation about values, ownership rights and scores of other issues. We also believe that it would be an added risk factor to disclose the location of the site because we have publicly stated that we have left a large number of artifacts on the site, and the security risk is obvious.

7. Why haven't you determined the identity of the shipwreck yet? When will you announce the identity?

Determining the identity of a shipwreck is complicated. For example, it would be possible to find a French-built ship, with English cannons, Dutch pottery, Chinese porcelain, Turkish pipes, and Venetian trading beads that had been captured by pirates before it sank. Proving the shipwreck's identity in that case might prove very difficult, if not impossible depending on the research available.

In the best interest of all concerned, we will follow our often-stated policy of announcing what we know about the identity of a shipwreck, only after it's confirmed by research.

8. There have been reports of a partnership between Odyssey Marine Exploration and the Disney organization. Are these true?

We can confirm that Odyssey and the Disney organization have recently entered into a relationship on a number of projects, and that the two companies are in discussions relative to some new partnership opportunities.

We have immense respect for Disney and believe that a combination of Odyssey's authentic deep-ocean adventures coupled with Disney's story-telling, film-making, television and marketing capabilities will reap benefits for both companies, while providing the public with an unprecedented opportunity to enjoy the thrill of deep-ocean exploration.

About Odyssey Marine Exploration
Odyssey Marine Exploration is a Publicly Traded US Company with several shipwreck projects in various stages of development throughout the world. Additional information about Odyssey, the "Black Swan" project, and the Company's other activities is available at www.shipwreck.net.

For additional information, please contact Natja Igney, Odyssey's Manager of Corporate Communications, at 813-876-1776 ext 2553.

Source : shipwreck.net (Odyssey Marine Exploration)