Category: Funny

For the first time in Gallup’s tracking of the issue, a majority of Americans (53%) believe same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. The increase since last year came exclusively among political independents and Democrats. Republicans’ views did not change.

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Here we go again. A California religious radio impresario who predicted — wrongly — that the end of the world would begin on May 21 revised his prophesy on Monday, saying now that the end is due in October.

In a rambling, 90-minute speech, broadcast both online and on his stations, Harold Camping, whose Family Radio network paid millions of dollars to promote his prediction, said that he was stunned when the rapture did not happen on Saturday.

What he decided, apparently, was that May 21 had been “an invisible judgment day,” of the spiritual variety, rather than his original vision of earthquakes and other disasters leading to five months of hell on earth, culminating in a spectacular doomsday on Oct. 21 — something he had repeatedly guaranteed. On Monday, however, Mr. Camping seemed satisfied with his new interpretation, which apparently spared humankind its months of torture for a single day of destruction.

But his shifting soothsaying led to a barrage of questions from reporters, something Mr. Camping seemed to wave off with a wan smile and occasional flashes of emotion.

“The world has been warned,” said Mr. Camping, who said this would be his last interview. He added that his company — which had bought billboard space nationwide to promote the May 21 date — would not promote his new prediction, Oct. 21. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore,” he said.

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Almost 10 years later CC, aka Copy Cat, is still in the College Station area. She has a mate, Smokey, and they live with their three offspring in a cat mansion built by Dr. Duane C. Kraemer, an A&M researcher who helped bring CC into the world.

CC and her family seem like perfectly normal cats, which disappoints many guests hoping to see something more exotic, said Kraemer’s wife, Shirley, the head cat wrangler.

A&M’s cat-cloning operation was an offshoot of the Missyplicity Project to clone a dog named Missy with funding help from a company that wanted to market pet cloning. When the dog-cloning project had little success, researchers turned to cats. About 80 cat embryos were produced, but only one developed into a full-term pregnancy after being transferred to a surrogate mother.

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In short, Richardson ate the hot dog while he was shopping, paid for his $28 worth of groceries, then walked out of the store without paying for his 99-cent hot dog.

At that point the jig was up–store employees followed him to the parking lot and held him there until police showed up and arrested him. This despite what nearly every report describes as Richardson’s insistence that he simply forgot he ate the thing, and his willingness to pay the dollar for the hot dog right then and there.

Instead, he was arrested by the cops and charged with shoplifting by Cheney Municipal Prosecutor Julie McKay.

Eventually McKay offered Richardson a plea deal that would have dismissed the shoplifting charge if he’d pay the original $.99 for the dog, plus a $200 penalty for stealing it.

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Burj Khalifa has been designed to be the centrepiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that would include 30,000 homes, nine hotels such as The Address Downtown Dubai, 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) man-made Burj Khalifa Lake.

The building has returned the location of Earth’s tallest freestanding structure to the Middle East where the Great Pyramid of Giza claimed this achievement for almost four millennia before being surpassed in 1311 by Lincoln Cathedral in England.

The decision to build Burj Khalifa is reportedly based on the government’s decision to diversify from an oil based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, it is necessary for projects like Burj Khalifa to be built in the city to garner more international recognition, and hence investment. “He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational,” said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties.

Current records that the Burj Dubai holds:

Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 928 m (3,045 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m/1,671 ft)
Tallest structure ever built: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m/2,121 ft)
Tallest extant structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m/2,063 ft)
Tallest freestanding structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m/1,815 ft)
Building with most floors: 160 (previously Willis Tower – 108)
Building with highest occupied floor in the world: 160th floor
World’s highest elevator installation, situated inside a rod at the very top of the building
World’s fastest elevators at speed of 64 km/h (40 mph) or 18 m/s (59 ft/s)[23] (previously Taipei 101 – 16.83 m/s)
Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft)[24] (previously Taipei 101 – 449.2 m/1,474 ft)
The first world’s tallest structure in history to include residential space
Highest outdoor observation deck in the world (124th floor) at 452 m (1,483 ft)
World’s highest mosque (located on the 158th floor)
World’s highest installation of an aluminium and glass facade, at a height of 512 m (1,680 ft)
World’s highest swimming pool (76th floor)
World’s highest nightclub (144th floor).
World’s highest restaurant, At.mosphere, located on 122nd floor at the height of 442 m (1,450 ft). (Previously the world’s highest restaurant was 360, at a height of 350 m (1,148 ft) in CN Tower).
World’s highest New Year fireworks display.

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