Silly/Odd News Stories from around the World

[Zu Ra]

Happy birthday, Adolf Hitler! Boy with nazi leader's name denied ShopRite cake



Adolf Hitler's alive and in New Jersey

This Hitler youth is blond-haired, blue-eyed and just turned three.

Adolf Hitler Campbell is the middle child of three kids given Nazi-themed names by their parents, including a dad who denies the Holocaust occurred and decorates his home with swastikas.

"They're just names, you know," father Heath Campbell told the Easton Express-Times. "Yeah, they (the Nazis) were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They're not going to grow up like that."

Adolf has two sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie. The latter, just eight months old, was named for Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler.

The bizarre names came to public attention after a local ShopRite declined to provide the Holland Township, N.J., family with a cake inscribed "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler."

"Other kids get their cake," Campbell complained. "I get a hard time. It's not fair to my children. How can a name be offensive?"

The kids are growing up in a home festooned with a swastika in every room. The father wears boots that once belonged to a Nazi soldier, and claims a relative was a member of Hitler's feared Schutzstaffel.

The parents insist they are not racist, although they don't believe in mingling the races.

And Heath Campbell claims he doesn't understand why people are shocked when they hear his son's full name.

Someone give him a history book.

Source : http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_w..._with_naz.html

[Kakashi]

"Other kids get their cake," Campbell complained.

Big problems in Germany. That, and a severe case of parental retardation.

[Anh_Minh]

If they really wanted a cake instead of making trouble and getting attention, they'd have asked for a "Happy Birthday Adolph". But then, if that's what they wanted, they wouldn't have named their kids that in the first place.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Wow, did they seriously think that name wouldn't come with a heap of problems?

[Xellos-_^]

the kid better be home school or he will get bullied by the other schools. Not even stupidest nazi would do this to their kids.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Geta Boshi

Source : http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_w..._with_naz.html

Spoiler for ...:

This happened to me: my parents, old-time lefties, named me "Karl Marx" -- they apparently thought it would not be a problem, as society seemed to be moving into a groovy, understanding time (late 60s). They, uh, thought small-mindedness was a transient cultural trait, as opposed to an enduring human characteristic, particularly among junior-high kids.

Boy, were they ever wrong! It took a few years, particularly because we -- duh! -- moved to rural Idaho in the interim, but around 5th grade the other kids figured it out, and I was cooked. History class was always brutal, and there are probably hundreds of school yearbooks with a hand-drawn bushy beard obscuring my face.

It got easier in high school, as it was kind of an edgy name, but at age 17 I rushed over to the county court and changed my name. I made my father pay the court fees, for obvious reasons.

On every tax form, university application, and -- most humiliating -- job or credit application, I am required to put "Karl Marx" as a previous name, for background checks. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Other than that, it's just a family joke these days, and even my high-school classmates have tired of it at reunions.

--Joseph Stalin

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/c...nalize/c06u6k9

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by mg1942

Spoiler for ...:

This happened to me: my parents, old-time lefties, named me "Karl Marx" -- they apparently thought it would not be a problem, as society seemed to be moving into a groovy, understanding time (late 60s). They, uh, thought small-mindedness was a transient cultural trait, as opposed to an enduring human characteristic, particularly among junior-high kids.

Boy, were they ever wrong! It took a few years, particularly because we -- duh! -- moved to rural Idaho in the interim, but around 5th grade the other kids figured it out, and I was cooked. History class was always brutal, and there are probably hundreds of school yearbooks with a hand-drawn bushy beard obscuring my face.

It got easier in high school, as it was kind of an edgy name, but at age 17 I rushed over to the county court and changed my name. I made my father pay the court fees, for obvious reasons.

On every tax form, university application, and -- most humiliating -- job or credit application, I am required to put "Karl Marx" as a previous name, for background checks. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Other than that, it's just a family joke these days, and even my high-school classmates have tired of it at reunions.

--Joseph Stalin

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/c...nalize/c06u6k9

he change his name form Karl Marx to joseph Stalin? and that is a improvement?

[iLney]

What's wrong with the name Karl Marx?

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by iLney

What's wrong with the name Karl Marx?

It's not on the same level as naming a kid after hitler, but Karl Marx is an infamous name among certain groups for the whole communism thing. Add that to the tendency of kids to look for anything to tease other kids about, and there you go. Though that was almost certainly a joke.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by iLney

What's wrong with the name Karl Marx?

At best , you could say than he was a optimist.
At worse, you could say he started a movement than screwed up so much lives.

But , if you want to be realist; if he didNt writed what he writed, someone else would have done it.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Cats keep lost boy warm

Misiones, Argentina (Dec 20): Argentine police say a destitute one-year-old boy was kept alive by a colony of stray cats who shared food scraps and kept him warm in the city of Misiones.

The boy, who had been missing for several days, was found by police officer Lorean Lindgvist, The Daily Telegraph reported last Saturday.

"The boy was lying at the bottom of a gutter. There were all these cats on top of him licking him because he was really dirty," Ms Lindgvist said. "When I walked over they became really protective and spat at me. They were keeping the boy warm while he slept."

Ms Lindgvist said she noticed scraps of food near the boy and surmised "the cats knew he was fragile and needed protecting", the Telegraph reported, noting doctors said the warmth of the cats saved the boy during freezing nights that could have killed him.

The boy's father, who is homeless, said his son vanished several days ago and that cats had always been protective of the boy.

- UPI

'Tis the season for miracles.

[Vexx]

Or he's the living incarnation of the god of cats.....

[Anh_Minh]

... Sohma Kyo, what are you doing in Argentina?

[Solais]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Cats keep lost boy warm

'Tis the season for miracles.

He's protected by Cait Sith!

[FateAnomaly]

Or his mother is a cat girl.

[Shadow Kira01]

Originally Posted by Solais

He's protected by Cait Sith!

Where is his moogle robot?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Or he's the living incarnation of the god of cats.....

the need to rename the kid to Bast

[Riker]

Stolen cake sparks bank data alert in Germany

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Two couriers at a package distribution center stole a Christmas cake destined for a German newspaper and mailed in its place a package of credit card data, prosecutors said Friday. The mix-up triggered an alarm over lost bank customer details. A batch of microfilmed data including names, addresses and card transactions ended up at the Frankfurter Rundschau daily last week - instead of the cake. Police advised credit card customers with Landesbank Berlin to check their accounts for inconsistencies.

But the incident turned out to be less sinister than feared.

Frankfurt prosecutors said that two couriers stole a Stollen, a German-style Christmas cake, at a distribution center in Mainz.

In an attempt to cover up the theft, the men instead sent one of several packages of credit card billing details destined for Landesbank Berlin to the newspaper, the cake's intended recipient.

Doris Moeller-Scheu, a spokesman for Frankfurt prosecutors, said the suspected thieves didn't open the package and "could not know what was in it," so no harm came to customers.

She said the two men had admitted to the theft. Prosecutors did not name the courier service involved or identify the two suspects.

[kyon.haruhi.suzumiya]

Banking blues: What's In a Name?

Collapsing American banks continue to make the news. Just the other day in the Mainichi Shimbun, there was an article about a local bank in Georgia, the 24th bank bankruptcy in the country.
The name of the bank, the article said, was "Hebun torasuto banku," or what looked to me like "Heaven Trust Bank." Heaven?! Then I realized that it's meant to be a transliteration of "Haven."
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) website posts a list of failed banks, and there are some ironic names in the mix. A few examples include the Freedom Bank, the Integrity Bank, and the Reliance Bank.
Japan has a bitter past, too. There was the Kofuku Bank ("Happiness Bank"), and the Anzen Shinyo Kumiai ("Safety Credit Union"), both of which collapsed after the bubble burst. Midori Bank ("Green Bank") sank into the red and flopped. Bank after bank returned to square one, as they were taken over or merged with other banks.
What troubled these banks in starting over was their name. Fruit and plant names were popular as being familiar and innocuous, but most had already been trademarked. "Apples and strawberries are sold out. The only thing left is Chinese cabbage," some complained.
With the flagging economy and financial crisis, banks have grown reluctant to issue loans, which poses a huge problem for businesses. "If the current cash-flow problem continues, everyone's going to have to file for black-ink bankruptcy," lamented the president of one small business in a television interview.
What's the point of a bank or credit union if they are unwilling to lend and unwilling to trust? Rumors are going around that the Financial Services Agency is considering instituting a policy that will force financial institutions failing to fulfill their roles to change their names: Reluctance Bank, Non-Trust Credit Union, Withdrawal Financial Group, Cheap Funds... (By Yoko Fukumoto, Economic News Department)

[TinyRedLeaf]

Many gamers are not fat, lonely men

Norrath (Dec 23, 2008): Picture a typical player of a massively multiplayer game such as World Of Warcraft and most people will imagine an overweight, solitary male. But this stereotype has been challenged by a study investigating gender differences among gamers.

It found that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity. Despite gaming being seen as a male activity, female players now make up about 40 per cent of the gaming population.

The study looked at gender differences in more than 2,400 gamers playing EverQuest II. The participants, who were recruited directly out of the game, completed a web-based questionnaire about their gaming habits and lifestyles.

In addition Sony Online Entertainment, Everquest's creator, gave the US researchers access to information about the players' in-game behaviours.

Dedicated women
The results showed that, although more of the players were male, it was the female players who were the most dedicated players, spending more time each day playing the game than their male counterparts.

"What we think about men and women and videogames may have been true 10 or 15 years ago, when there were mainly console video games or single-player games," said lead researcher Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware.

"But what were seeing now is that games become social, and as these online games become communities then the attraction for that kind of behaviour might increase for women."

Perhaps in support of this the survey revealed an unusually high level of bisexuality among the women who took part in the study — over five times higher than the general population.

"These are not people who are following strict gender stereotypes," said Prof Caplan.

Healthier gamers
Another unexpected finding was that the online game players — particularly the women — were healthier than the general population, though this was drawn from self-reported levels of exercise and body mass index.

Prof Dmitri Williams, a researcher at the University of Southern California and a co-author on the study, said one possible explanation could be that playing computer games reduces the amount of time spent in front of the television.

In games such as EverQuest II, players spend their time completing quests and killing monsters, so it's possible that such in-game activities might influence players in real-life, said Prof Williams.

"It could be that games inspire a more active lifestyle, instead of sitting in front of a TV."

For love and spoils
The study also found that men and women played computer games for different reasons, with men more likely to play to win and women more likely to play for social reasons.

Furthermore, a high proportion of women reported playing the game with their romantic partner, supporting the idea that game playing is becoming an increasingly sociable activity. The researchers say that this trend is reflected in patterns of general computer and internet use.

- BBC NEWS

*Ahem* Just so you know, I'm a ravishing male gamer with a rippling six-pack who leaps over tall buildings in a single bound. The above article proves that I'm telling the truth.

Interested female gamers (I know you're out there), please PM me for a good party.