ODDITY/SCARY : Giant marionettes

Now this is a puppet show. Pictures and movies can be found on this page but the explanation was found here.

Residents of Nantes, France woke to a space capsule crashed into a smoking pile of rubble in the central square of the city. Later that day, a giant animatronic elephant and entourage of the Sultan paraded into town to visit the mayor.

Then, on saturday, the capsule opened to reveal a giant animatronic girl who walked through the streets, mischievously sewed a row of parked cars to the street with a shipping Hauser rope, rode a scooter, and even asked that the crowd give her some privacy while she used the toilet.

This play went on all day -- the Giant and elephant slept curled together in a park -- for an entire weekend. People were completely involved in this fantasy, and you can only imagine the effect it has on the imaginations and passions of children.

WTF?!? : The anti-swine flu holy water dispenser

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu -- an electronic holy water dispenser.

The terracotta dispenser, used in the northern town of Fornaci di Briosco, functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public washrooms -- a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water.

"It has been a bit of a novelty. People initially were a bit shocked by this technological innovation but then they welcomed it with great enthusiasm and joy. The members of this parish have got used to it," said Father Pierangelo Motta.
Catholics entering and leaving churches usually dip their hands into fonts full of holy water -- which has been blessed by a priest -- and make the sign of the cross.
But fear of contracting the H1N1 virus has led many in Italy -- where some 15 people have died of swine flu -- not to dip their hands in the communal water font.
"It's great," said worshipper Marta Caimm as she entered the church. "Thanks to this we are not worried about catching swine flu. It is the right thing for the times," she said.
Luciano Marabese, who invented the dispenser, said he did so out of concern that fear of swine flu was eroding traditions.

And he is now blessing himself all the way to the bank.
"After all the news that some churches, like Milan's cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world," he said.

The 19 Pound Baby

Believe it or not, not the biggest baby ever born.

A mother in Jakarta, Indonesia, delivered a 19.2-pound, 2-foot-long child on Monday via Caesarean section. In retrospect, giving birth to a 9 pound baby now seems trivial. The 19.2 lb baby is now recorded as the largest baby born in Indonesia and just a few pounds short of the world record holder, a 23 lb. baby born in 1879.

The baby's arrival was reported on TODAY Thursday. Even though the mother did not have to deliver the baby naturally, the surgery was still a risk with such a large baby. The sheer size of this "infant" dwarfs the other babies in the hospital nursery.

“This heavy baby made the surgery really tough, especially the process of taking him out of his mum’s womb,” Dr. Binsar Sitanggang told Agence France-Presse. “His legs were so big.”

Diabetes likely caused the child to receive too much glucose in the womb, according to doctors. This may have attributed to the baby's massive size. The doctors do report that the baby is in good health.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Canadian Anna Bates gave birth to a baby boy who weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces and was 30 inches long. He was born way back in 1879, however, and died just 11 hours later.

The biggest baby a healthy mom delivered was another boy, who truly tipped the scales at 22 pounds, 8 ounces. His mom was Carmelina Fedele from Italy, and that was in 1955.

What’s a “typical” birth weight? Well, it averages out to about 7-1/2 pounds for an American baby.

If you are having trouble determining how big a 19 pound baby is, he is about the size of a one year old toddler. It's amazing that he is not walking yet.

Dr. Sitanggang commented on the very vocal newborn, "“This baby boy is extraordinary; the way he’s crying is not like a usual baby. It’s really loud.”

The mother of this 19 lb. baby boy has three other children at home. Hopefully she has saved their toddler clothes because those cute little baby clothes are not going to fit this big guy!

Unidentified creature resembling alien found in Panama (photos)

...another Montauk Monster?



...another Montauk Monster?

I don't know what this little guy is, or was...but whatever it is, I feel sorry for its untimely ending. Imagine, having been a "creature" enough in your own eyes to hide yourself away in a cave, and then when you are discovered, being beaten to death for the way that you look. I don't know that I buy the teenagers story either, but there isn't much else to go on. Theories that it may be some kind of animal undergoing stages of decomposition therefore having lost it's fur and looking the way it does are surfacing. There hasn't been any verified scientific evidence to back up any of these yet.