The most weird or stupid news story you heard today.

[lifesaver]

I've been following this story for a few days, (everyone here has) then this bombshell today:

From the San Antonio Express-News
www.mysa.com

Ex-Zachry employee dies from self-inflicted gunshot

Web Posted: 02/02/2006 02:08 PM CST
Brian Chasnoff
Express-News Staff Writer


A former employee of Zachry Construction Corp. died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head this morning -- the same week he was fired for sending an e-mail from the company's server to a city councilwoman deemed "very racial and very discriminatory."

George Dickerson, 52, was pronounced dead around 9 a.m. in the backyard of his home in the 600 block of Glencrest. Police said the death was a suicide.

His suicide occurred the same day that the Express-News ran an article detailing Dickerson's e-mail to Councilwoman Elena Guajardo, in which Dickerson complained about Graham Central Station, a large nightclub across from Oak Hills, the North Side subdivision where Dickerson and his wife lived.

In a short note left behind on a desk, Dickerson wrote, "Due to past and current events, I've decided to end my life," said John Oberman, a cousin of Dickerson's.

"I don't think media coverage was an issue (in the suicide)," Oberman said, speaking Thursday morning outside Dickerson's home. "I think he was mostly upset over losing his job."

The San Antonio Express-News generally does not report on suicides unless they or the circumstances surrounding them are public.

In his e-mail to Guajardo, Dickerson had railed against the "undesirable, low-class elements from bad parts of the city" that the club attracts "into our upper class part of the city for which we pay a very large tax burden in which to live to be safe and away from such elements."

He also wrote that entertainment at the club was of a "lude, lascivious, low class, debaucheristic, criminalistic, riot insistic, anarchistic nature."

Dickerson had lived in the Oak Hills subdivision for about eight years and recently had met with the neighborhood association to discuss problems with the nightclub. His e-mail to Guajardo was meant to rectify long-standing safety concerns related to the nightclub, Oberman said.

Dickerson "was not racist," Oberman said. "He was concerned about beer bottles, fast drivers and a lot of ruckus going on that was not good for his neighborhood."

Vicky Waddy, a spokeswoman for Zachry, said Dickerson was fired for violating the company's computer use policy.

"The policy prohibits the use of the company's e-mail for personal messages or for sending material that is harassing, embarrassing, obscene, intimidating, inflammatory or otherwise inappropriate," Waddy said.

Dickerson's wife told police her husband was "very depressed" after being fired from Zachry, where he had worked for 27 years, according to a police report.

[AlphaFrog]

Child Groom Of Pregnant Woman Disappears
Attorney Says Wife Played No Role In Disappearance

POSTED: 9:42 am EST February 3, 2006

ATLANTA -- A 15-year-old boy whose 37-year-old wife is due to give birth to the couple's baby this month has run away from a group home, and his wife through her lawyer says she has no idea where he is.

Lisa Clark, who is due to give birth Feb. 20, was "surprised and concerned" by her young husband's disappearance last Friday, her attorney, Daniel Sammons, said. "She has no knowledge of his whereabouts."

The boy's grandmother, however, believes the wife was involved. "I think she's got him hidden out someplace," Judy Hayles told The Associated Press on Thursday.

She said the boy told his roommate that someone was picking him up and the boy left without shoes, jacket or money.

"That was his goal, to get with her," Hayles said. "They were just obsessed with having him there when the baby is born."

Sammons said he did not know when the wife last had contact with the boy, who was removed from his grandmother's custody in late November.

Producers of "The Tyra Banks Show," on which Clark was to appear Friday in an interview taped earlier, said Clark denied in a telephone interview Thursday that she had anything to do with his disappearance.

"I have not seen him or spoken to him at all," she said.

Clark and the youth, identified in juvenile court only as "A.S.G.," married in November. After being charged with child molestation for her relationship with the boy -- her teenage son's best friend -- Clark was released on bond on condition that she not have contact with him.

Clark has said she still hopes to make a life with the boy and their baby.

Prosecutor Lee Darragh refused to comment on the boy's disappearance or the grandmother's comments.

[Betarulz!]

Thinking may harm people with chronic brain diseases

BY JAMIE TALAN
STAFF WRITER

February 2, 2006, 8:43 PM EST

The process of thinking may actually be harmful to people with chronic brain diseases such as HIV dementia and Alzheimer's.

Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have discovered a rather alarming mechanism: The inflammation triggered by these conditions turns normal nerve impulses -- neurons talking to one another -- into a toxic language that can damage cells outright.

Dr. Harris A. Gelbard, a professor of neurology and principal investigator of the study published recently in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, has been researching the brain circuitry that goes awry in these mind-robbing conditions.

While colleagues in the neuroscience field have focused on the death of the neuron itself, Gelbard followed the destruction occurring beforehand when two cells were trying to talk to one another.

Gelbard and Matt Bellizzi witnessed under a microscope disturbing behavior in dendrites, the branchlike part of the neuron that conducts impulses from the body of the cell to another cell. Dendrites have spines sprouting out like twigs, and at the end of the curved branch is a synapse, a chemical handshake with the neighboring cell. Cells need the synapse to communicate.

Gelbard and Bellizzi saw that the dendrites growing in the damaged brain were beading -- creating a foxhole and disappearing. The synapse couldn't function properly. Then -- surprise -- the beading stopped and the dendrite's disappearing act was over. The synapse was also restored.

Gelbard and his colleagues realized that the beading -- the disappearing act -- was associated with functional deficits in the cell. When inflammation wasn't present, normal cell-to-cell communication flowed.

This dendritic beading has also been observed in the brains of animals with Alzheimer's. AIDS brains had the same beading. When nerves tried to communicate during a learning experience, the inflammation triggered this beading and prevented information from getting from one cell to the next. Abnormal amounts of calcium were also produced.

"This is an exceedingly innovative discovery," said Dr. Howard Gendelman, chairman of experimental neuroscience at the University of Nebraska. "This work brings us a significant step forward in developing new ways to detect and treat brain diseases."

Once Gelbard realized that inflammation was at the heart of this process, he began testing drugs to quiet this abnormal immune response.

"We got the idea to use a drug that buffers calcium and reduces inflammation," said Gelbard.

And it worked. Pretreating with a medicine normally used in emergency rooms to treat severe hypertension, Gelbard found that it prevented beading.

"It saved the synapse," he said. "It has to get to the right place and in the right dose, but you can do almost anything to neurons and they won't die."

He believes that this approach, conditioning neurons to withstand stress, could be used in early stages of dementia to strengthen vulnerable cells.

The National Institute of Mental Health is testing a variety of compounds to treat AIDS dementia. One class of drugs being studied is the anti-epileptic medicines that appear to have anti-inflammatory properties. Clinical trials are under way. Gelbard's work was funded by the same agency.

[hoosier]

Whatever You Do, Don't Tell Anyone!
"Mayor Michael Bloomberg ._._. anonymously donated $100 million Thursday to Johns Hopkins University to support stem cell research. ._._. A person familiar with his philanthropy confirmed the latest $100 million gift on condition of anonymity, citing Bloomberg's desire for privacy."--Associated Press, Feb._2

[douchebag]

Michael Bloomberg must be very wealthy if he can afford to donate $100 million to JHU.

[KSigkid]

Now this can't be good for you; I'm not even sure how good it would taste using glazed donuts.

Minor League Team Introduces Donut Burger

[jitterbug13]

^^^^
The Luther!!!! This is very sentlemental to Boondocks fans!

[lifesaver]

I'm not going to look for a link for it, but I saw it on CNN a little while ago.

Peter Tomarken (sp), the former host of Press Your Luck and other gameshows was killed with his wife today when the plane he was flying crashed in the waters off of california.

Why can I not help but think that he did indeed, press his luck?

[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

Bishops Bend Rules for St. Patrick's Day

MILWAUKEE - Michael O'Leary doesn't need to choose between sinning and nibbling this St. Patrick's Day. O'Leary will enjoy his corned beef on Friday with a clear conscience — thanks to a special dispensation from another Irish-American, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee.

Dolan is among dozens of bishops — from Green Bay, Wis., to Arlington, Va., to Chicago to Boston — granting one-day dispensations from Lenten rules that prohibit Roman Catholics from eating meat on Fridays to observe the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In many cases, the bishops are asking for a similar day of penance in exchange for relaxing the rules this Friday.

Many bishops offered the same deal the last time St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday during Lent — in 2000. The Archdiocese of New York has always extended a dispensation when the calendar lined up because St. Patrick is the patron saint of the archdiocese, spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

If Dolan hadn't granted the dispensation, O'Leary, director of Milwaukee's St. Patrick's Day parade, said he would stick to the rules — meaning he wouldn't prepare his corned beef brisket. But with the bishop's blessing, he plans to put a brisket in his slow cooker early Friday morning and slather it with mustard and other condiments come dinner time.

"It is being done in honor of St. Patrick," O'Leary said. "It's not as though I'm having something I would normally have. It's a special thing."

The connection between Ireland and corned beef dates to colonial times in Boston, when meat was imported from Ireland and preserved in salt, said Kevin O'Neill, history professor in the Irish Studies program at Boston College. The result — corned beef — was associated with Ireland.

While eating meat on a Friday in Lent isn't considered a mortal sin — the gravest category — it does take a dispensation for the church to lift the rule. At least 67 of the country's nearly 200 dioceses provide such dispensations, said Rocco Palmo, a Catholic commentator who has been keeping an informal count on his blog "Whispers in the Loggia."

Milwaukee parishioners can take their dispensation elsewhere: In other words, they can eat corned beef if they travel. But people shouldn't come in from other areas — where they haven't received dispensation — just to eat meat, said Kathleen Hohl, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Archdiocese. People should strive for moderation and not overindulge, she said.

"It's a dispensation. It's meant to be observed in an appropriate way," Hohl said.

Each local bishop has the authority to allow Catholics in his diocese to forgo the traditional abstention of meat on Fridays or other rules of Lent, said Bill Ryan, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Typically, bishops will determine if there's a need, he said, such as having a large Irish population.

Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, has opted against a dispensation to the 100,000 Catholics in his diocese.

Many parishes moved their St. Patrick's Day celebrations to Thursday or Saturday, said Jim Wharton, spokesman for the Sioux City Diocese. That allows them to go ahead with their Lenten fish fry events — a Friday staple that typically yields money for school or parish projects, he said. Not one Catholic in the diocese has called him wondering why dispensation wasn't granted, he said.

"For the most part, I think people understand it's really why we are who we are as a Catholic family and that's to observe some of the traditions of the church," Wharton said.

In exchange for his corned beef meal, O'Leary said he plans to give up something else, such as chicken wings or beer on a weekend when he's watching sports on television.

"I will deny myself something and pay it back," O'Leary said.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

But people shouldn't come in from other areas — where they haven't received dispensation — just to eat meat
I don't know why but this line totally cracked me up.

[KNOW-wun]

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, sent an e-mail to his supporters today titled "_'Russ Feingold Is a Traitor.'

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by KNOW-wun
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, sent an e-mail to his supporters today titled "_'Russ Feingold Is a Traitor.'

Hoosier, is that you?

[honeychile]

Originally posted by lifesaver
Why can I not help but think that he did indeed, press his luck?

Only if you end by saying he got the Big Whammy.

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by honeychile
Only if you end by saying he got the Big Whammy.

Yeah, I was wondering if that was the last thing he heard... the little whammy sound.

OK, OK, I am going to burn in hell. Not really for that... thats at the bottom of a rather long list. But still....

[KSigkid]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
Hoosier, is that you?

I think it is, judging from similar posts made elsewhere.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by KSigkid
I think it is, judging from similar posts made elsewhere.

The format and political cynicism seem familiar.