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29 March 2024

Best of Web: Santa does `WikiLeaks'...

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By Staff & Agencies

 

Santa does 'WikiLeaks'

(GETTY)

A retired American Santa Claus who had for 28 years listened carefully to childrens' Christmas wishes whispered into his ears has now 'wikileaked' everything on a blog.

Although not of the same nature of Julian Assange's controversial WikiLeaks, the scribblings of Anderson, the 57-year-old retired 'Santa' -- or just 'Mr Claus' , as many called him -- are now on santasays.org, a blog he created to post much of what he patiently heard during his tenure as Santa in Dallas's NorthPark Center, reports ABC News.

Among the funny misspeaks posted on the blog are: "One little girl gave me her list and said that she wanted a little chair for a little desk so that she could write a little diarrhea. Of course she meant diary, but the misspeaks are pretty funny sometimes."

He writes that he realised on day one that being Santa was not going to be easy.

"The first words I heard from a child was, 'Daddy left us and moved and so I guess he doesn't love us anymore,'" remembers Anderson.

"That's when I knew I'd hear more than 'I want a Barbie for Christmas,'" he said. "Kids see Santa as someone they can confide in and care share their secrets with."

When not dressed up as Santa Claus, Anderson works as a professor at the University of Texas-Austin.

The licensed psychologist has no children of his own but finds relief to be among children.

"After 9/11, I had one kid tell me to take toys to the children of the terrorists so that they 'wouldn't hate us so much,'" said Anderson.

"It's often more reflective in terms of their immediate family circumstances," he said. "Like the little one who wanted money to help mom pay the bills because she worries so much."

 

Woman kills wolf to save family

(SUPPLIED)

A Saudi woman lunged at a wolf with a massive kitchen knife and stabbed it to death many times after it attacked her ageing husband, a newspaper in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Thursday.

Saadi Al Mutairi, in his 70s, stepped out of his house in the central province of Mahd Al Dhahab to check his noisy sheep when he came face to face with the wolf, Alwatan Arabic language daily said.

The wolf jumped on him but he managed to grab his limbs and head to prevent the animal from biting him before he started to yell for his wife, it said.

“She came out with a big kitchen knife, caught the wolf from the head and started to stab his body until the animal was dead,” the paper said.

Her 15-year-old son, Adbullah, said he was not aware of the battle between his parents and the wolf until the morning, when he woke up for school.

“My father told me that my mother killed the wolf…..my father and my mother were not hurt in the battle,” Abdullah said.

Alwatan said Mutairi decided to hang the wolf by the nearby tree as a “prevailing norm” among local tribes to show their courage.

“It is also a habit by the local bedouin and tribes intended to scare off animals which attack their sheep,” it said.
 

Man glues own eye shut

(AGENCY)

The husband of ailing Hollywood socialite and actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was hospitalized Tuesday after accidentally gluing one of his own eyes shut.

Gabor, 93, has been in and out of hospital in recent months. But this time, it was self-proclaimed Prince Frederic Von Anhalt who was rushed to hospital after he mistakenly picked up a bottle of nail glue he mistook for eye drops and sealed his eye shut, according to celebrity website TMZ.com.

The colorful 66-year-old German socialite underwent a procedure at a Beverly Hills clinic to unstick his eye. One of his representatives told TMZ he was in good spirits.

Just two months ago, von Anhalt - who says he was adopted as an adult by a German princess - was hospitalized for swallowing a bee while sunbathing and eating Kaiserschmarrn pancake in his backyard.

He has claimed to have fathered the daughter of late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith after her death in February 2007. Earlier this year, he launched a bid to become the next governor of California.

Von Anhalt is Gabor's ninth husband.

The elderly serial marrier, famous cop slapper and Hollywood star of yore had several health scares this year.

Gabor, who was left partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound after a 2002 car accident, was admitted to hospital last month after suffering painful swelling in her legs.

In July, the Hungarian-born actress and former beauty queen was hospitalized after falling and breaking her hip when she reached for a ringing phone while watching her favorite television show, "Jeopardy."

She underwent hip replacement surgery but suffered more complications, including a blood clot for which she had more surgery.

During another hospital stay in August, she called in a priest to administer last rites, then left the hospital a day later insisting she wanted to return at home.
  

Woman with gun shuts down news channel

(AGENCY)

A gun-wielding woman has burst into a US television station, forcing the evening news bulletin off the air, though no one was injured, the station said.

After a brief stand-off with a police SWAT team that surrounded the building of ABC Charlotte, North Carolina affiliate WSOC-TV, the woman was taken into custody. ABC News said she had pulled out a gun and put it to her head, though police later learned the gun was not loaded.

A CBS affiliate in Charlotte, WBTV, identified the woman as Wendy Naidas.

The station went black during the incident, which interrupted its 5pm bulletin but was back on air an hour later. Employees were evacuated to the back section of a parking lot during the incident.

"Not on air. Distraught woman with gun in lobby. Police have building surrounded. Employees evacuated," WSOC-TV anchor Blair Miller said in a message on the Twitter microblog, from inside the station.

Police chief Rodney Monroe told WBTV that Naidas threatened the receptionist and herself while they were barricaded in the building. Although police initially said Naidas had fired at least one shot, Monroe later said no shots had been fired.
 

Heidi Montag's cosmetic surgery nightmare

(AGENCY)

Montag says she feels like Edward Scissorhands.

After undergoing 10 cosmetic surgery procedures in one day last year, Montag says she feels she looks worse than she did before.

"Parts of my body definitely look worse than they did pre-surgery," the American reality television personality said.

"This is not what I signed up for . . . I'm always going to feel like Edward Scissorhands."

The surgery has left the blonde bombshell with a number of physical defects including scars under her chin, two small bald spots and lumps on her legs, butt and lower back after having fat removed.
 
 Baggage handler found asleep in plane's cargo hold

(AGENCY)

Staff were shocked to discover a baggage handler who had fallen asleep inside the plane's cargo hold after hearing a "loud thumping noise" while preparing to take-off, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says.

In another surprising incident, a dog escaped from the cargo door of a taxiing Boeing 737 and was seen running next to the plane.

The incidents were among 260 reported to the ATSB over the past seven years and detailed in a safety report focusing on loading issues. The majority of them - 98 per cent - involved passenger planes.

While some are "minor" events, the ATSB outlined recent examples of loading occurrences that could have had disastrous implications.

Among the serious incidents was a Bulgarian-registered Airbus A320 that suffering a tail-strike during take-off from an Italian airport in 2009.

The cause was found to be due to the forward cargo hold being emptied of luggage at one stopover, while the rear hold remained packed with luggage, leaving the plane unbalanced.
  

Unhealthy lifestyle means the average woman looks four years older

(AGENCY)

New research reveals that unhealthy lifestyles are fuelling a premature ageing epidemic with the average woman looking more than four years older than their actual age.

Despite many of us wanting to look 10 years younger, an alarming survey shows we are not helping ourselves to stay youthful, reports Daily Mail.

According to a poll of 8,000 women over 25, unhealthy habits including smoking, drinking, eating junk food, using sun beds and not looking after our skin, is making women old before their time.

Results indicated that modern lifestyles are having a detrimental effect on looks, making women look 4.25 years older than they actually were, said the newspaper.

In this image-conscious age, the survey also uncovered that a quarter of women spend 10 minutes a day worrying about their ageing, adding up to two and half days every year.

Recently clean living Jennifer Aniston, age 41, topped the list of celebrities who look best for their age, while party animal Amy Winehouse, 27, was voted the celebrity who looks the worst for her age, the newspaper reported.
 
 
Avatar tops list of the most-pirated films of 2010

(AP)

James Cameron's 3D sci-fi epic became the highest-grossing film of all time in 2010. It was also the most pirated movie of the year.

Avatar was illegally downloaded from BitTorrent websites 16,580,000 times in 2010, according to the blog TorrentFreak.

That figure represents a 33 per cent increase in downloads from last year's most pirated film, Star Trek, which had just under 11 million downloads, The Hollywood Reporter said.

The superhero satire Kick Ass came in at No.2 on the most-pirated list with 11,400,000 downloads, despite making just $48 million at the box office compared to Avatar's $2.8 billion.

The top five was rounded out by Inception, Shutter Island and Iron Man 2.
 

 

 

 

Santa does `WikiLeaks'


A retired American Santa Claus who had for 28 years listened carefully to childrens' Christmas wishes whispered into his ears has now 'wikileaked' everything on a blog.

Although not of the same nature of Julian Assange's controversial WikiLeaks, the scribblings of Anderson, the 57-year-old retired 'Santa' -- or just 'Mr Claus' , as many called him -- are now on santasays.org a blog he created to post many of what he patiently heard during his tenure as Santa in Dallas's NorthPark Center, reports ABC News.

Among the funny misspeaks posted on the blog are: "One little girl gave me her list and said that she wanted a little chair for a little desk so that she could write a little diarrhea. Of course she meant diary, but the misspeaks are pretty funny sometimes."

He writes that he realised on day one that being Santa was not going to be easy.

"The first words I heard from a child was, 'Daddy left us and moved and so I guess he doesn't love us anymore,'" remembers Anderson.

"That's when I knew I'd hear more than 'I want a Barbie for Christmas,'" he said. "Kids see Santa as someone they can confide in and care share their secrets with."

When not dressed up as Santa Claus, Anderson works as a professor at the University of Texas-Austin.

The licensed psychologist has no children of his own but finds relief to be among children.

"After 9/11, I had one kid tell me to take toys to the children of the terrorists so that they 'wouldn't hate us so much,'" said Anderson.

"It's often more reflective in terms of their immediate family circumstances," he said. "Like the little one who wanted money to help mom pay the bills because she worries so much."