Interesting Current Events

[VinReaper]

Originally Posted by patrickwm68

This happened right near my house yesterday.

31 Year Old Man Killed In Wood Chipper Accident.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/200...recycling.html

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/artic...020/1001/RSS09

Brutal!

VR

[VinReaper]

Megan Fox is single!

The "Transformers" star -- seen here grabbing coffee Thursday -- broke off her engagement to "90210" star Brian Austin Green, reports Us Weekly. Hallelujah!! There is a God!!!






VR

[VinReaper]

'Unrestored' copy of first Superman comic book for sale
By Kara Yates
CNN



(CNN) -- After being hidden away for years, a copy of the original "Superman and Friends" comic book will make a comeback -- at a price of about $400,000, a comic expert said Thursday.

Starting Friday, comic book collectors and Superman fans will have the opportunity to bid on a comic classic -- an "unrestored" copy of Action Comics No. 1, said Stephen Fishler, owner of Comic Connect, an online liaison between comic book buyers and sellers. The book's owner is not being identified.

The auction is attracting a lot of interest.

"One bidder wanted to trade his Ferrari for the comic book," as part of an under-the-table deal, Fishler joked. But he said the auction will remain public. "I couldn't see myself trading in my Toyota Prius" -- even for a $375,000 car.

Why is this comic book so unique?

"Of the 100 existing copies, 80 percent have been restored, but people want an untouched copy," Fishler said. The book is listed in "fine" condition, a six on the 10-point rating scale.

"It's the Holy Grail of comic books," Fishler said.

Co-created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the comic book first appeared on newsstands for 10 cents a copy in June 1938.

Nearly 12 years later, a young boy on the West Coast found himself in a secondhand book store, where he persuaded his dad to loan him 35 cents to buy the comic book.

Until 1966, the owner forgot about the book, which was hidden in his mother's basement. Since then, he's been holding onto it, hoping to see it increase in value, Fishler said. He has not been disappointed.

"There has been a lot of interest shown on the book in the collectibles market," said Fishler, who predicted the comic book will sell for about $400,000. But, he added, no minimum price has been set for the auction, so "whatever it sells for, it sells for.

"I've known Action Comics to sell for around $750,000," comic book sales associate Bill Peterson said. "I don't have any intention on making a bid, but I know people who don't mind dropping several thousand for a classic comic."

The comic book marked the first appearances of Lois Lane, Giovanni "John" Zatara and, of course, Superman. The book is in high demand because "there was no such thing as a superhero before Superman. It spawned everything that came after -- like Batman and Spider-Man," Fishler said.

Even during the current economic downturn, Fishler expects the book to do well.

Those who can afford to bid, he said, "would ordinarily put money into the stock market. But that's a shaky proposition." These days, the comic book may even be a better investment than putting money into a CD or a bond, Fishler speculated. iReport.com: Would you give up your prized possession?

Because the book was published at the close of the Great Depression, it contains advertisements that may appear quaint and quirky to 21st century readers. For only $1.25, one could buy a blonde wig, a live chameleon, a whoopee cushion, a Bible "the size of a postage stamp" or hypnosis lessons.

"Some books seem to go in and out of fashion," reads the auction blurb at comicconnect.com. But "Action Comics No. 1 will never be one of those books."

All About: Comic-Con International


VR

[VinReaper]

He did say he was going to be back.

One of the exciting revelations at Comic-Con this year was the look of the scary new poster for Terminator: Salvation, the return to the sci-fi action series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name.

In it, the smoking, battered and bullet-riddled metal skull of a Terminator cyborg stares out at the viewer – and the eyes are illuminated in a devilish red, indicating that the killing machine is still "alive." Instead of pupils, each eye contains what looks like a DNA double helix.

In the movie, Christian Bale plays John Connor, who leads a ragtag group of humans against warmongering robots in a post-apocalyptic future.
– Michael Y. Park

VR

[Fremen]

Anyone on here?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...bspeed10m.html

[VinReaper]

Originally Posted by Fremen

Anyone on here?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...bspeed10m.html

Those Star Wars collectors! They are loose canons!


VR

[VinReaper]

BBC NEWS
Sweden targets strippers for tax



Sweden's tax authorities are seeking the bare facts about webcam strippers' income, estimating that hundreds of Swedish women are dodging the law.

The search involves tax officials examining websites that feature Swedish strippers, in an effort to identify them and chase them for tax returns.

The tax loss is estimated at about 40m Swedish kronor (£3.3m) annually.

Project leader Dag Hardyson said 200 Swedish strippers had been investigated so far. He said the total could be 500.

"They are young girls, we can see from the photos. We think that perhaps they are not well informed about the rules," said Mr Hardyson, head of the tax authority's national project on internet trade.

The investigation into strippers is part of a wider tax project that includes online poker and fake trader locations.

Detective work

Mr Hardyson told BBC News that the strippers could be liable to pay about half of their earnings in tax. Striptease via webcam is quite legal in Sweden, unlike prostitution, he added.

"I don't think they have any costs really - almost 100% of what they earn is pocketed. Many have regular work and this is extra income. We want them to register their activity as a business - it's still taxable, even if it's a hobby," he said.

He stressed the difficulty of identifying strippers, saying the contact information on the websites was often "not obvious".

"We have to visit the companies behind the websites to get the information, then we have to work with the electronic wallets where the money is going in."

He said the Swedish tax authorities had been tipped off about Swedish internet strippers by the Dutch authorities, who had started a similar investigation earlier.

Web search tools like spiders had failed to detect the Swedish strippers.

"When we investigated the sites manually it worked better," he added.


I love the last quote!

I am sure they did! LOL!

VR

[VinReaper]

'Dungeons & Dragons' co-creator dies

(CNN) -- David Lance Arneson, who helped trigger the global phenomenon of role-playing games as co-inventor of "Dungeons & Dragons," has died at the age of 61.

A statement on the game's official Web site, wizards.com, said Arneson died Tuesday evening "after waging one final battle against cancer."

Arneson "developed many of the fundamental ideas of role playing: that each player controls just one hero, that heroes gain power through adventures, and that personality is as important as combat prowess," the statement said.

The game's co-creator, Gary Gygax, died last year.

In 1974, Arneson and Gygax created "Dungeons & Dragons," which allowed players to assume roles in a magical world. They could be fighters or wizards, elves or dwarfs.

"As characters journey through various lands, they search for hidden treasures while battling menacing monsters with their own brains and brawn," a description on wizards.com says.

Some games would last days or weeks -- or even longer. "Game campaigns are as limitless as the player's imaginations," wizards.com says.

What began as a hand-assembled print run of 1,000 games quickly sold out. Young people all over the world started buying up the game. By 1982, sales broke the $20 million mark.

Arneson filed a series of lawsuits against Gygax insisting he was not being given credit or proper royalties for his work creating the game. The suits were settled.

"Dungeons and Dragons" spawned video games, novels, a cartoon, and a movie. The franchise saw a surge this decade after "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" movies took off.

VR

[VinReaper]

Canada Issues a Wake-Up Call: You May Be a Citizen
By PHRED DVORAK

Government of Canada Commercial:
LINK: Waking Up Canadian!

Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.
The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country. It also grants citizenship to their children.
In the video 'Waking Up Canadian,' a man goes to sleep in a drab room and wakes up to find out that he's become a citizen of Canada. Surrounded by flags, maple-leaf-shaped cookies and a canister of maple syrup, he's welcomed by a hockey player, two plush moose and a uniformed Mountie.
The Canadian government doesn't know the precise number or location of individuals affected by the legislation. But it believes most are U.S. citizens, a spokeswoman for Canada's immigration office said. U.S. Department of Homeland Security records show 240,000 Canadians were naturalized in the U.S. from 1948 to 1977; the new law fixes problems that occurred during those years.
To reach that amorphous group of beneficiaries, the Canadian government has turned to YouTube. It's running an ad there titled "Waking up Canadian," in which a man awakens on April 17 to a room festooned with red-and-white Canadian flags. He's met by a welcoming committee consisting of two stuffed plush moose, a hockey player, and a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Eligible individuals automatically become Canadian citizens. But they don't get proof of that citizenship unless they apply for it, meaning other countries -- including those that allow people to be citizens of only one nation -- won't be alerted, according to the immigration office spokeswoman. Those people also may renounce their citizenship rights, she said.

James Hager
Canada is using YouTube to tout a new law granting citizenship to unsuspecting foreigners, many of whom are Americans.


The citizenship bonanza is the byproduct of a decadeslong struggle by a motley group of people who claim they were unfairly denied or lost their Canadian nationality. Canadian families who crossed the border in 1947 to 1977 to have their babies in a U.S. hospital found those children weren't recognized as Canadians unless the families registered them with the government. Some foreign brides of Canadian World War II servicemen lost their citizenship if they stayed out of the country for a decade or more.
Then there are the Canadian Mennonites who moved to Mexico in the 1920s to the 1960s. When their children and grandchildren returned to Canada, many found their nationality unclear.
Some such cases languished in litigation for years. Others surfaced in 2007, when new U.S. rules requiring passports for travel between Canada and the U.S. uncovered significant numbers of people who thought they were Canadian, but weren't. The old rules were "quite intricate," said Bill Janzen, an immigration lobbyist in Ottawa for the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada.
The new law offers citizenship to many individuals now in limbo. It also stops the previous practice of granting citizenship in perpetuity to children of Canadians born abroad, limiting eligibility to children of parents born in Canada.
Write to Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8


Enjoy, eh?!

VR

[VinReaper]

I HAVE ALSO STARTED A SEPERATE THREAD FOR THIS...

LINK: Dom Deluise Dies at Age 75



Dom DeLuise dies at 75

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Dom DeLuise, who spiced up such movies as "Blazing Saddles," "Silent Movie" and "The Cannonball Run" with his manic delivery and roly-poly persona, has died, his son's publicist told CNN.

Publicist Jay Schwartz did not disclose the cause of death, but DeLuise, 75, had been battling cancer for more than a year.

DeLuise was surrounded by family when he died in a Santa Monica, California, hospital Monday night, son Michael DeLuise told CNN affiliate KTLA-TV.

DeLuise was most famous for his supporting roles in a number of Mel Brooks films, including 1974's "Saddles" -- in which he played a flamboyant musical director who led dancers in a number called "The French Mistake" -- and 1976's "Silent Movie," in which he played the assistant to Brooks' director Mel Funn. He was also in the Brooks-directed "The Twelve Chairs" (1970), "Spaceballs" (1987) and "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" (1993).

But he could also assay more serious roles, most notably in the 1980 dark comedy "Fatso," directed by Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft, in which he played an overweight man trying to wean himself from comfort food.

DeLuise was also part of the supporting cast in the Burt Reynolds crash-'em-up vehicles "Smokey and the Bandit II" (1980), "Cannonball Run" (1981) and "Cannonball Run II" (1984). Other DeLuise films include "The End" (1978), "The Best Little !%&!%&!%&!%&!%&house in Texas" (1982) and "Johnny Dangerously" (1984).

His voice was featured in such films as "An American Tail" (1986) and its sequels, "All Dogs Go to Heaven" (1989) and its 1996 sequel, and "Oliver & Company" (1988).

Dominic DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 1, 1933. In the 1960s he had bit parts in a handful of movies, including "Fail Safe" (1964), but became well known as a regular on "The Entertainers" and a Dean Martin variety show. He had his own summer replacement show in 1968 and was a regular on Glen Campbell's "Goodtime Hour" in 1971-72.

DeLuise had three sons -- Peter, Michael and David -- who all became actors.

His wife of 40 years, actress Carol Arthur, appeared in several movies with him, including "Blazing Saddles" and "Silent Movie," according to DeLuise's Web site.

A frequent collaborator with DeLuise, Burt Reynolds released a statement to "Entertainment Tonight" on his friend's death.

"I was thinking the other day about this. As you get older you think about this more and more, I was dreading this moment. Dom always made everyone feel better when he was around. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much," Reynolds says.

Rest in Peace Captain Chaos!

VR