>Bottle message found after 5 years

>

A British man who discovered a message in a bottle on a beach said he tracked down the U.S. teenager who dropped it from a cruise ship five years ago.

Tony Hoskings, a retired electrician, said he found the bottle in July while walking his dog in Goonhavern and discovered a message inside from cruise ship passenger Daniel Knopp.

“I noticed paper and could just see that it said Grandeur of the Seas, which I recognized as a cruise ship belonging to the company that my wife and I took a cruise with on their liner Song of America,” Hoskings said.

The message, which bore the date June 21, 2004, reads: “Hello, my name is Daniel Knopp. I am on a cruise ship. I hope whoever reads this finds great joy. God bless.”

The note also identified Knopp’s home as Baltimore, Md.

Hoskings said his local paper, The West Briton, contacted the Baltimore Sun for help in locating Knopp. He was found after a seven-week search and discovered to be a 19-year-old political science student at the University of Maryland.

“I was 14 when I threw the message off the ship in Freeport, in the Bahamas,” Knopp said. “I thought it would be unreal if it were ever to be found, and I figured it would be destroyed by the ocean environment.”

“I was astounded by it not only being found, but the message still being legible — it’s almost story-like that it was located,” he said.

via Bottle message found after 5 years.

The oceans are a mess already, so don’t do it, but if you were going to put a message in a bottle, what would you say?

>Evidence for the offical story of 9/11

>

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.^[1][2] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights.

In total 2,993 people, including the hijackers, died in the attacks.^[3][4] The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 90 countries. In addition, the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a result of exposure to dust from the World Trade Center’s collapse.^[5] The United States responded to the attacks by launching a “War on Terrorism“, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists, and enacting the USA PATRIOT Act. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayed closed for the rest of the week following the attack, and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destruction of billions of dollars worth of office space caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan.

The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial was built on the site. The rebuilding process has started on the World Trade Center site. In 2006 a new office tower was completed on the site of 7 World Trade Center. The 1 World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2011, will become one of the tallest buildings in North America. Three more towers were originally expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site.

I keep hearing “evidence shows” that Al-Qaeda terrorists were the attackers. What evidence?

1. There were Arabic-language flight training manuals in a rental car the FBI impounded from the airport parking lot and it was rented by Mohammed Atta, described as the lead hijacker.
2. The luggage of one of passenger did not make it onto the plane and the Boston Globe reported the luggage contained a Koran, an instructional video on flying commercial airliners and a fuel consumption calculator. (Source: dm)
3. According to one report, US intelligence intercepted communications between Bin Laden supporters discussing the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.  (Source: dm)
4. Satam Al Suqami’s passport was found on the streets of New York during the debris clean up after the buildings fell.  See image of passport below. (ABC, CNN, 9/11 commission)
5. Phone calls from passengers on hijacked planes told that terrorists had taken over the plane.

Details:

1. The Mitsubishi [rental] car seized by police was identified by a civilian who got into an altercation with several Arab men as they were parking their car, it was reported. The unnamed man called Boston police after his own flight landed yesterday and he learned planes hijacked from Logan had been involved in the attacks. The car – rented from National Rental Car – has been seized by the FBI. Meanwhile, detectives interviewed more than 130 people at the airport. – (Source:  dm)

1. At about 9 p.m. Tuesday, FBI agents and Massachusetts State Police towed a rented, late-model, white Mitsubishi Mirage with a Virginia license plate to an FBI garage. Arabic-language flight training manuals reportedly were found inside the car.  (Source: abc [cached])

1. Marwan Alshehhi’s rental car is discovered at Boston’s Logan Airport containing an Arabic language flight manual, a pass giving access to restricted areas at the airport, documents containing a name on the passenger list of one of the flights, and the names of other suspects. The name of the flight school where Atta and Alshehhi studied, Huffman Aviation, is also found in the car. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001]

1. September 7 , 2001 : Al-Shehhi and Atta stay at a Holiday Inn close to Sarasota , Florida where President Gerorge Bush plans to visit an elementary school on September 11 .
September 7 , 2001 : Al-Shehhi and Atta visit Shuckums , a sports bar in Hollywood , Florida .
September 9 , 2001 : Al-Shehhi returns a car previously rented by Atta to WARRICK RENT-A-CAR, Pompano Beach, Florida, and asks the charge be removed from Atta’s credit card and placed on his. – mpg

4. According to ABC News and the Associated Press, the passport of hijacker Satam Al Suqami was found a few blocks from the WTC. ABCNEWS sources identify another hijacker as Satan Suqami, a Saudi national on American Airlines Flight 11, whose passport was recovered in the rubble. (Source: abc [cached])

4. Al-Suqami’s passport was found by a passerby, reportedly in the vicinity of Vesey Street, ^{(source: cnn)} before the towers collapsed. According to testimony before the 9/11 Commission by lead counsel Susan Ginsburg, his passport had been “manipulated in a fraudulent manner in ways that have been associated with al Qaeda.” Passports belonging to Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al Ghamdi were found at the crash site of United Airlines flight #93. (Source: wikipedia)

4. MS. SUSAN GINSBURG: Beginning with passports. Four of the hijackers passports have survived in whole or in part. Two were recovered from the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania. These are the passports of Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al Ghamdi. One belonged to a hijacker on American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed. A fourth passport was recovered from luggage that did not make it from a Portland flight to Boston on to the connecting flight which was American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Abdul Aziz al Omari.  – (Source: 9/11 commission)

5. Partial passenger phone call transcripts here.

If you’d like to read the 9/11 commission report, you can read it on line.  Harpers and many others call the report a whitewash, but I recommend that everyone look at the evidence presented.  I’ve read so much on line, but I admit now that I’ve never read the complete 9/11 report.  I’m starting it today.

>UFO startles elderly Gorey residents

>

IT was red, it hovered in the sky, it looked something like a dolls’ house and travelled at great speed.

The UFO was watched intently by two elderly sisters who live at Gorey and who now want to find out if anyone else saw what made their jaws drop late last Friday night.

Gladys Manning (92) was opening the side curtain in her lounge in Place Le Couteur when she saw the red object in a gap between trees behind her garden at about 11.30 pm.

‘I was so shocked that I called out to Christine and forgot she was deaf. In a second it flashed off across the sky towards Gorey Pier,’ said Gladys. However, when Gladys went to open the other curtain the object came back to hover in the same place, and this time it was seen by Christine.

Again the object, which the women said appeared to them to be about the size of a television screen, was there for a few seconds before it zipped off at speed in the same direction as before.

via UFO startles elderly Gorey residents » News » This Is Jersey.

>Archaeologists Find 1st Century Graves in Slovenia

>

Archaeologists have found the remains of a Roman burial ground dating to the 1st century near the former tobacco factory Tobacna tovarna in Ljubljana. So far, 25 graves have been discovered, most of which contained cremated bodies, head of the excavations Barbara Hofman told.

The burial ground was located by the road leading from ancient Emona, today’s Ljubljana, towards Aquileia (SW), as it was common in ancient times to bury the dead by the road outside the city walls.

According to Hofman, the area most probably served for burying one or two generations of Emonians in the 1st century, while some burials from the 3rd and 4th century are also evident.

Almost all of the discovered graves are rectangular tegula cassettes, while a vertically triangular shape was used in one grave.

The ashes were mostly contained in amphoras and glass urns, but were also scattered in some of the graves, Hofman explained.

She said other items found in the graves were mostly ceramic oil lamps or table vessels.

Archaeological excavations near Tobacna tovarna have started in mid-August and extend over 350 sq. metres.

How long they will still last depends on how large the endangered area is. Nevertheless, much is still expected to be found, Hofman also said.

via Archaeologists Find 1st Century Graves in Slovenia.

>Convicted ex-priest challenges repressed memories

>

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, one of the central figures in the clergy sex abuse scandal, was convicted after a 27-year-old man tearfully described how the popular priest used to pull him out of catechism classes and rape him, beginning when he was just 6 years old.

The victim said he did not remember the abuse for two decades, until 2002, when memories came rushing back as he saw media reports about the clergy scandal unfolding in Boston.

Now Shanley is challenging his conviction based on an ongoing debate in the psychiatric community over the validity and reliability of repressed memories. The highest court in Massachusetts will hear Shanley’s appeal Thursday.

The case is being closely watched by experts on both sides of the issue.

Nearly 100 scientists, psychiatrists and researchers have signed a friend-of-the court brief denouncing the theory of repressed-recovered memories. Another group has submitted a brief supporting the theory.

Shanley’s lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., argues that Shanley deserves a new trial because the jury relied on misleading, “junk science” testimony about repressed memories by prosecution witnesses.

“His conviction rests upon a theory that is false, that has not been shown to exist and has been rejected by the scientific community,” Shaw said.

“They needed repressed memories to normalize for the jury what was otherwise an extraordinary assertion — that he could be completely oblivious that this ever happened and then remember it 20 years later,” Shaw said.

The clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002 after church records were made public showing that church officials had reports of priests molesting children, but kept the complaints secret, shuffling some priests from parish to parish rather than removing them.

Shanley, now 78, was known in the 1960s and 1970s as a “street priest” who reached out to Boston’s troubled youth. Internal records showed that church officials were aware of sexual abuse complaints against him as early as 1967.

The crisis, which led to the resignation of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, spread as similar sexual abuse complaints were uncovered in dioceses across the country.

A wave of lawsuits led to massive settlements, including a record $660 million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 alleged victims in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and an $85 million settlement in 2003 with more than 550 victims in the Archdiocese of Boston.

All told, the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has paid more than $2.6 billion in settlements and related expenses since 1950, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. …

via The Associated Press: Convicted ex-priest challenges repressed memories.

>Convicted ex-priest challenges repressed memories

>

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, one of the central figures in the clergy sex abuse scandal, was convicted after a 27-year-old man tearfully described how the popular priest used to pull him out of catechism classes and rape him, beginning when he was just 6 years old.

The victim said he did not remember the abuse for two decades, until 2002, when memories came rushing back as he saw media reports about the clergy scandal unfolding in Boston.

Now Shanley is challenging his conviction based on an ongoing debate in the psychiatric community over the validity and reliability of repressed memories. The highest court in Massachusetts will hear Shanley’s appeal Thursday.

The case is being closely watched by experts on both sides of the issue.

Nearly 100 scientists, psychiatrists and researchers have signed a friend-of-the court brief denouncing the theory of repressed-recovered memories. Another group has submitted a brief supporting the theory.

Shanley’s lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., argues that Shanley deserves a new trial because the jury relied on misleading, “junk science” testimony about repressed memories by prosecution witnesses.

“His conviction rests upon a theory that is false, that has not been shown to exist and has been rejected by the scientific community,” Shaw said.

“They needed repressed memories to normalize for the jury what was otherwise an extraordinary assertion — that he could be completely oblivious that this ever happened and then remember it 20 years later,” Shaw said.

The clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002 after church records were made public showing that church officials had reports of priests molesting children, but kept the complaints secret, shuffling some priests from parish to parish rather than removing them.

Shanley, now 78, was known in the 1960s and 1970s as a “street priest” who reached out to Boston’s troubled youth. Internal records showed that church officials were aware of sexual abuse complaints against him as early as 1967.

The crisis, which led to the resignation of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, spread as similar sexual abuse complaints were uncovered in dioceses across the country.

A wave of lawsuits led to massive settlements, including a record $660 million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 alleged victims in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and an $85 million settlement in 2003 with more than 550 victims in the Archdiocese of Boston.

All told, the U.S. Roman Catholic Church has paid more than $2.6 billion in settlements and related expenses since 1950, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. …

via The Associated Press: Convicted ex-priest challenges repressed memories.

>Missing Link found in church

>

A Catholic who believed his prayers were answered when he was rescued from a lift was killed when he went to church to give thanks and the stone altar fell on him.

Gunther Link, 45, died instantly as he was crushed under the ancient 860lb monument in the Weinhaus Church in Vienna, Austria.

Link’s body was found by parishoners attending Mass the next day after he had been reported missing by his cousin.

Police spokesman Roman Hahslinger said: “He was a very religious man and had been scared when he was trapped in the lift and had prayed for release.

“A short while later he was pulled out of the elevator and he went straight to the church to thank God.

“He seems to have embraced a stone pillar on which the stone altar was perched and it fell on him, killing him instantly.

“We have found his fingerprints on the pillar. We are now investigating the case further.”

via Ananova – Missing Link found in church.

>Ghost hunter killed in fall from building

>

A first date with a playful, late-night search for ghosts inside a University of Toronto landmark ended in tragedy yesterday when a 29-year-old woman plunged to her death.

Leah Kubik, just two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, was found without vital signs inside a courtyard just before 2 a.m.

“They were believed to be exploring an old building because it’s rumoured to be haunted,” Toronto Police Const. Wendy Drummond told the Sun.

The Gothic-style, 134-year-old Connaught medical research building was the site of a grisly murder in 2001 but paranormal experts stress it’s not haunted, only rumoured to be cursed.

Police said the pair managed to enter the ivy-covered building through an open window and then climbed three flights of stairs to the roof. There was still dust used by forensic investigators to recover fingerprints around the window yesterday.

The man crossed from one roof to the other, but a wire the woman was holding onto gave way and she plunged several storeys to her death, Drummond said. Police tape was still blocking people from one stairway, which is suspected to have been used by the pair to gain access to the roof.

Police said they are still trying to determine whether it was death by misadventure.

“(The investigation) is ongoing and we’ll have to go over any video surveillance, if there is any,” Drummond said, adding they are also awaiting toxicology reports and an autopsy.

American-born Kubik worked in Toronto as a support centre engineer. She had also worked as a bartender. Bar owner George Bozikis recalled the former employee as a nice person who had an eccentric style accented by the homemade eyeglasses she fashioned.

The building, erected in 1875 as the former seminary for Knox College, is no stranger to tragedy. In January 2001, U of T professor David Buller was found stabbed there.

The talented artist suffered several wounds during the knifing frenzy in the second-floor studio where he’d taught painting for 15 years. Professor George Hawken said he was friends and a colleague of Buller. Hawken said employees use swipe cards to gain access to the building.

via Ghost hunter killed in fall from building | Canada | News | Edmonton Sun.

More accurate story:

By MARY KATE MALONE
Tribune Staff Writer

A former Osceola resident was not “ghost hunting” when she died after falling from a historic Toronto building Sept. 10, her mother says.

Contrary to media reports that 29-year-old Leah Cunningham Kubik was on a drunken ghost-hunting chase, her mother says her death was the tragic result of curiosity.

“She just saw the building and thought it was interesting,” said Sue Strantz, Kubik’s mother. “She had wanted to get in there for a long time, and it just so happened that (Sept. 10) was the night she did it.”

Kubik was on a first date with a 34-year-old Canadian the night of her death. After dinner, the pair decided to sneak into a 135-year-old University of Toronto building at 1 Spadina Crescent.

Kubik reportedly fell three stories while climbing on the roof. She died in her date’s arms once he reached her minutes later, said Kubik’s mother, who lives in Osceola.

The Toronto Star, the largest daily newspaper in Toronto, reported that Kubik had been on a “quest for ghosts” that night.

“Just before 2 a.m. yesterday, a drunken ghost-hunting trip across the building’s roof went from an eerie adrenaline rush to a painfully real-life tragedy,” the paper reported.

Strantz said her daughter was never interested in ghosts or ghost hunting. “It’s not as crazy as you might think when you think about things you have done in your life that could have ended badly,” Strantz said.

Police in Toronto said they will not know Kubik’s blood-alcohol level for several months.

Iain Marlow, the Toronto reporter who covered the story, said police initially told reporters that Kubik had been ghost hunting.

“Police originally told us they were ghost hunting and they had candles. … That piqued (the media’s) interest,” said Marlow, who quoted paranormal “experts” extensively in his story.

“The news stories are quite inaccurate, leading people to believe all kinds of things that never happened,” Strantz said.

Kubik, a 1997 graduate of Jimtown High School, was the eldest of four girls. She moved to Toronto four years ago, Strantz said. – southbendtrib

>Rare tongue-eating parasite found

>

A rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself has been found off the Jersey coast.

Fishermen near the Minquiers – islands under the jurisdiction of Jersey – found the isopod, a type of louse, inside a weaver fish.

Marine researcher Paul Chambers, from the Société Jersiaise, was one of the fishing party and identified the find.

He said he was surprised to find the isopod away from the Mediterranean sea.

Isopods are normally about 2cm (1in) long and live in fish, surviving on the animal’s blood, in warm waters.

‘Quite vicious’

Mr Chambers told BBC Jersey: “When we emptied the fish bag out there at the bottom was this incredibly ugly looking isopod.

“Really quite large, really quite hideous – if you turn it over its got dozens of these really sharp, nasty claws underneath and I thought ‘that’s a bit of a nasty beast’.

“I struggled for weeks to find an identification for this thing until, quite by chance I stumbled across something that looked similar in a Victorian journal.

“Apparently there’s not too much ill effect to the fish itself except it’s lost its tongue.”

Experts at the University of Southampton confirmed that the creature was an isopod and that there had been several sightings of them in Cornwall in 1996.

Mr Chambers added: “It doesn’t affect humans other than if you do actually come across a live one and try and pick it up – they are quite vicious, they will deliver a good nip.”

via Rare tongue-eating parasite found.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. That is diiiiiiiiiiiiiisgusting!

>6-Year-Old Drives Stoned Mom

>

A Coatesville mother made her 6-year-old daughter drive a car because “[mom] was sleepy” after smoking “that stinky stuff,” according to police.

The 30-year-old mother was arrested Sunday at about 4:20 p.m. after police saw the child driving a Dodge Durango station wagon at South Fourth Avenue and Walnut Street.

Officer Robert Keetch said he had to do a double take after seeing the little girl driving. “There were two white knuckles and a little head popping over the stearing wheel,” he said.

Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

The woman, Lakisha Hogue, was sitting in the passenger seat, laughing, when a patrol officer pulled her over, said police. Hogue told the Officer Keetch that she was teaching her daughter how to drive.

“Mom made me drive because she was sleepy,” the girl told police.

Then police say the aunt asked her niece, “Was your mom smoking that stinky stuff again?” The girl replied “yes,” say police.

Hogue is being held in Chester County Prison on child endangerment, corruption of a minor and reckless endangerment charges. She will not be charged with driving under the influence because she was not the person driving the car.

via 6-Year-Old Drives After Mom Smokes “That Stinky Stuff” – News- msnbc.com.