Camels Exploited

They probably answer the questions better than some of the human beauty contestants!

clipped from news.yahoo.com ABU DHABI (AFP) - More than 10,000 camels from across the Gulf will be competing for millions of dollars in prize money at a beauty pageant for the "ship of the desert" in Abu Dhabi next week. Camels from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will strut their stuff before a panel of expert judges who will decide which owners should be awarded prize money totalling around 9.5 million dollars. One hundred cars are also up for grabs. "Preserving the rich heritage of the UAE and passing it on to future generations constitutes one of the most important missions which people of the UAE wish to undertake, by connecting our culturally rich past with our aspired bright and prosperous future," the official WAM news agency quoted festival organiser Mohammed al-Mazrouei as saying earlier this week.

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NASA Wants Their Rocket Back

With a farm that big, he'll probably find most things at some point in time.

clipped from news.yahoo.com CANBERRA (Reuters) - A cattle farmer in Australia's remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites. Farmer James Stirton found the odd-shaped ball last year on his 40,000 hectare property, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) west of the northern Queensland state capital of Brisbane. "I was riding out to check some cattle, and I came around the corner and there it was in a paddock," Stirton told Reuters on Friday. "I know a lot of about sheep and cattle but I don't know much about satellites. But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket." He said the object was hollow, and covered in a carbon-fibre material. He has contacted some U.S.-based aerospace companies to try to find out what the object really is.

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Dinosaur Found on Bus

Actually, the dinosaur died while waiting for the bus!

clipped from news.yahoo.com AREQUIPA, Peru (Reuters) - Officials found the fossil of a giant dinosaur jawbone while investigating a suspicious package on a bus in the mountains of Peru on Tuesday. The fossil, weighing some 19 pounds, was found in the cargo hold of the bus, which was headed for the capital of Lima, and had been sent on the bus company's package service. Peru has struggled for years to combat trafficking of fossils and artefacts. Recently Yale University in the United States agreed to return thousands of pieces taken from the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu to Peru. "The jawbone that was found could be from a triceratops, even though dinosaurs like that have never been found in southern Peru," Pablo de la Vera Cruz, an archaeologist at the National University in Arequipa in southern Peru, said after examining police photos.

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Celebrity Eggs

Makes a change from waxworks!

clipped from www.ananova.com David and Victoria Beckcham have become egg-heads - thanks to a charity Easter auction. Chocolatier Thorntons are auctioning a range of chocolate eggs bearing the faces of Victoria Beckham, David Beckham, Lily Allen, Prince Harry and Gordon Brown. Dark chocolate has been used to stencil the portraits onto white Easter Eggs which are ebing auctioned on eBay.

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Cow Killed in Shootout

"She was going for her gun" claims officer.

clipped from news.yahoo.com OTTAWA (AFP) - Police in Toronto, Canada's largest metropolis, on Thursday shot a rampaging cow that had fallen off a truck and backed up morning rush hour traffic. The steer injured two people and repeatedly charged at police after a trailer carrying it and several other cows flipped over on a freeway, Ontario Provincial Police Constable Dave Woodford told reporters. After four hours of trying to corral the 1,000-pound (450-kilogram) animal, an officer finally took it down for safety reasons, using his service revolver, he said. When the trailer tipped over, three other cows and a bull were suddenly freed and fled onto the highway, causing chaos and forcing police to shut down the busy roadway for about an hour while they tried to get the animals off to the side.

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Putting To Rest a True Soccer Fan

I'm surprised they don't have any orders for it. Maybe all the soccer fans want to be put in a real match ball.

clipped from news.yahoo.com VIENNA, March 2O (Reuters) - Vienna's leading funeral company, steeped in tradition, is moving with the times: the bereaved can have their loved one back in a cremation urn in the shape of a football. The black and white urn joins more conservative containers in sombre and art-deco designs in the range offered by Bestattung Wien just as Austria prepares to co-host the Euro 2008 soccer championship. No one has yet ordered the 362 euro (281.57 pounds) urn, which has been available for two weeks.

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Stinkiest Sneakers

I wonder what training he had to do for the competition?

clipped from news.yahoo.com ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Ben Russell has a title most people would walk away from. Russell, 15, from Eagle River, Alaska, beat seven other contestants from around the country to claim the title of rottenest sneakers in the country. He won the championship in Montpelier, Vermont, in the annual Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest, sponsored by the shoe insert maker.

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Bees Head for Freedom

"Excuse me officer, I've lost some bees".

"How many did you lose?"

"About 8-12 million."

clipped from news.yahoo.com SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Millions of swarming honey bees are on the loose after a truck carrying crates of the insects flipped over on a California highway. The California Highway Patrol says 8-to-12 million bees escaped Sunday from the crates in which they were stored and swarmed over an area of Highway 99 and stung officers, firefighters and tow truck drivers trying to clear the accident. CHP Officer Michael Bradley says a tractor trailer flipped over while entering the highway on its way to Yakima, Wash. The flatbed was carrying bee crates each filled with up to 30,000 bees.

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Female Mice Wanted For Secret Experiment?

There are so many things they could be used for. The thing I'm stumped by is why they have to be female.

clipped from news.yahoo.com MOSCOW (Reuters) - Wanted: 3,200 white mice. Must be female. No more than 18 grams. Purchaser: the Kremlin security service. So why does the Kremlin guard, which is made up of former spies and elite troops who protect President Vladimir Putin, want to buy so many female white mice? "Everyone is wondering what they are for. But if they were ordered then that means they are needed," an official from the service said with a gruff chuckle. Some Russian media have also speculated the mice could play a role in testing toxic substances or indicating the presence of dangerous gases.

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Elephants Attempt to Rig Election

Now, is it Obama or Clinton who's trying to rig the election in Sri Lanka, WI?

clipped from news.yahoo.com COLOMBO (AFP) - Security forces armed with loud hailers were deployed in eastern Sri Lanka Monday to drive away wild elephants blocking access to polling booths, police said. Villagers in Wellaveli told the authorities that they were unable to vote at the first local elections in 14 years because a herd of elephants had blocked their polling booth, a police official in the area said. "We sent a team of commandos in armoured personnel carriers and loud hailers and sirens to drive away the elephants," the official said. "The roads have now been cleared."

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Balloon Clothes are Fun!

The clown at my kid's party only made a hat out of balloons!

clipped from www.ananova.com Two US fashion designers have been attracting a lot of hot air over their new collections - made entirely out of balloons. Katie Laibstain, 23, and Steven Jones, 39, create outfits from bikinis to party dresses out of nothing but modelling balloons twisted together. And, even though each dress can be worn only once, they have sold some of their more elaborate designs for as much as £1,000. Katie, of Richmond, Virginia, said: "Balloon clothes are ultra chic. They are the finest couture available. My dresses contain 300 or more balloons, depending on the design. "They may not always be easy to get into, but there are so many creative ways to take them off - pop, pop, pop!"

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German Soldiers Unfit

I'm positive they're all fitter than me!

clipped from news.yahoo.com BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's young soldiers are fat, smoke too much and don't exercise enough, a report on the armed services said on Tuesday. "The public perception is that soldiers are slim, sporty and healthy. Unfortunately, the reality is very different," said Germany's army commissioner Reinhold Robbe as he presented the report. Some 40 percent of soldiers between 18 and 29 are overweight compared to 35 percent among Germany's civilian population, said the report, which also found young male and female soldiers smoked too much and failed to do enough sport. "I make no secret of the fact that these results worry me a lot," said Robbe, who blamed a passive lifestyle among troops. Once one of the world's most-feared fighting forces, Germany's armed forces now have about 245,000 uniformed staff.

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