Category: Beliefs


How Much Is A Good Grade Worth?

Filed Under: Beliefs, Unusual News Stories by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 18, 2011

I know the economy is terrible, but it looks like a good grade can now cost a student quite a lot!

Here’s the story from ABC News:

>>Students, tests and cash were the perfect variables to fatten high school math teacher Jeff Spires’ wallet, officials said, but administrators pulled the plug on him after several students brought his alleged pay-for-grades scheme to their attention.

Spires, who taught at Charlotte County High School in Charlotte County, Fla.,  was suspended without pay on Oct. 14 and resigned two weeks later.

He had been a teacher in the district since 2002 and told school officials he changed grades for money because he was having financial trouble amid a bankruptcy, arrests and jail time.

“Maybe I see the kids are as desperate as I am,” he told the school’s investigators.

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Is The Age Of 90 The New 85?

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November 17, 2011

It seems that we’re living longer these days because we’re eating better foods and exercising more than we had been. Does that mean that we are going to last longer?

Here’s an article on this subject by Sophie Quinton at the National Journal:

“So many Americans are living past 85 that it may push the designation of ‘oldest of the old’ from 85-plus to 90 and older, according to a Census Bureau report released Thursday.

By 2050, the United States is likely to have 9 million people 90 and older, the report projected. In 1980, only 720,000 Americans were around who had lived past their 90th birthdays. That number grew to 1.9 million last year.

“Can 90 be the new 85?” asked Dr. Richard Suzman of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

“Because of increasing numbers of older people and increases in life expectancy at older ages, the oldest segments of the older population are growing the fastest,” added Suzman, whose agency commissioned the report.

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Man Recovers $10,000 Engagement Ring From Trash

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 11, 2011

Now THIS is true love!

Check out the story from an NBC station in Miami, Florida:

>>We’ve all accidentally thrown something valuable away in the trash, but what if that something was worth more than $10,000? Would you swim in a pile of waste to find it?

One Margate husband was faced with that conundrum and he didn’t think twice.

“The worst move of my life, horrible,” is how Brian McGuinn says he felt when he realized he had thrown out his wife’s engagement ring.

McGuinn meant to throw out a disposable razor, and ended up chucking out the ring with it. The one and a half carat diamond ring was valued at around $10,000, and worth far more than its weight in sentimental value.

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‘My iPhone Isn’t Working!’

Filed Under: Beliefs, iPod, iPhone, iPad, i by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 10, 2011

I know how addictive an iPhone can be since I have one. But when it has problems, who you gonna call? Not Ghostbusters, and apparently not your local police force!

Check out this story from thesmokinggun.com:

>>An Illinois man was arrested early yesterday after he called 911 on several occasions to complain that his iPhone was not working.

Michael Alan Skopec, 48, dialed police emergency operators five times to beef about his malfunctioning Apple product, according to a Kendall County Sheriff’s Office report.

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Alaska Getting Their Own ‘Snowpocalypse?’

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 9, 2011

It wasn’t very long ago that we got a serious snowstorm in the Washington, DC, area that was called “Snowmageddon” and “Snowpocalypse.”

Well, it’s Alaska’s turn, apparently. Here’s a news story about it from the Reuters agency:

>>An “epic” storm was bearing down on western Alaska on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said, warning that it could be one of the worst on record for the state.

The storm, moving inland from the Aleutian Islands, was expected to bring hurricane-force winds with gusts up to 100 miles per hour, heavy snowfall, widespread coastal flooding and severe erosion to most of Alaska’s west coast, the National Weather Service warned.

“This will be an extremely dangerous and life threatening storm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced,” the service said in a special warning message on Tuesday.

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Are Soy Meals ‘Cruel And Unusual’ Punishment?

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 8, 2011

I don’t think the person in the news story below has ever eaten at a Seventh-day Adventist hospital or college campus.

Here’s the story from a CBS affiliate in the Tampa, Florida, area:

>>CLERMONT, Fla. (CBS Tampa) – A Florida inmate is suing the state’s prison system for pulling the pork from his meals.

Eric Harris, a 32-year-old convicted pedophile who is serving a life sentence, suggests Lake Correctional Institution’s policy of serving a vegan diet is seriously affecting the quality of his life sentence.

The Weston A. Price Foundation, a special interest group against soy products, will pick up the case’s legal expenses, and announced it has class-action ambitions including other prisoners, prison guards and taxpayers.

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Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?

Filed Under: Beliefs, Science Fiction by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 4, 2011

Let’s face it — blue eyes are considered magical while brown eyes, well, not so much.

Believe it or not, medical science might be able to help “make your brown eyes blue.” Check out this story from the Daily Mail:

>>Ever wished you were the blue-eyed boy? You soon could be, after a doctor revealed he can permanently change a person’s eye colour in just 20 seconds.

Dr. Gregg Homer, from Stroma Medical in California, said his Lumineyes technology uses a laser tuned to a specific frequency to turn brown eyes to blue.

The laser energy removes the brown pigment, or melanin, from the top layer of the iris, and the blue eye colour emerges over the following two to three weeks.

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Charging Prison Inmates For Doing Time?

Filed Under: Beliefs by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 3, 2011

County governments are looking for new ways to add revenue to their coffers. I’ve always joked that if they could charge for breathing or for sex, some government would do it!

Well, a supervisor in southern California has come up with an intriguing idea, according to a CBS TV station in Los Angeles:

>>If you do the time in Riverside County, you better have the dime to pay for it.

KNX 1070′s Mike Landa reports that’s the driving sentiment behind one Riverside County supervisor’s efforts to charge jail inmates for their time in custody.

Supervisor Jeff Stone introduced an ordinance this week seeking reimbursements for the cost of jailing inmates that an estimated $143 dollars per day.

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Lonely People May Have More Trouble Sleeping

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November 2, 2011

A new study indicates that insomnia could be the result of loneliness.

Here’s the story from the Reuters news service:

>>People who are lonely may be more likely to have sleepless nights, researchers said Tuesday in a study that suggests loneliness may not only cause unhappiness, it may be bad for your health.

Reporting in the journal Sleep, Lianne Kurina of the University of Chicago and colleagues studied loneliness and sleep patterns among a group of older residents living in two colonies of Hutterites in South Dakota.

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Man Falls Into Hole, Hangs On To Newspaper

Filed Under: Beliefs, Unusual News Stories by Wayne Hall — Leave a comment
November 1, 2011

Now here’s a story people who work at a newspaper, like me, enjoy hearing!

An 80 year-old man fell into a hole, but didn’t let go of his morning newspaper. Here’s the story from newsday.com:

>>Michael Ciron‘s walk down his lawn for his morning newspapers Sunday took a little longer than he expected.

Ciron, 80, of Oceanside, said that about 9:30 a.m. he fell 8 to 9 feet into a narrow hole that appeared in his front lawn — landing in his slippers in wet, shifting sand — before being quickly rescued unscathed by local firefighters.

“When I fell down there, it was scary,” he said. “The dirt down there was like sand.”

He started to call for help, but soon realized that his voice wouldn’t carry far beyond the narrow pit.

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