Pastafarian wins legal battle to wear pasta strainer on his head

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was featured here back in April but after a 

tip-off from a colleague of mine, I've come across the following story that deserves a second mention in my blog.


'Pastafarian' wins right to wear sieve on his head in driving licence photo (well, he does belong to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)


Pasta strainers are now considered suitable religious headgear in Austria... at least as far as the transport authorities are concerned.

Three years after applying for a new driver's licence, an Austrian man has finally received the laminated card - in which he is pictured with an upturned sieve on his head.

Niko Alm was allowed to wear the unusual headgear as it is deemed a suitable accessory for his 'Pastafarian' religion, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Austrian authorities allowed Niko Alm to wear the unusual headgear as it is deemed a suitable accessory for his 'Pastafarian' religion, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Mr Alm, an entrepreneur, said he had the idea when he read that headgear
was allowed in official pictures only for 'confessional' reasons

The atheist says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted 'faith' whose members call themselves Pastafarians and whose 'only dogma ... is the rejection of dogma', according to its website.

Accordingly, Mr Alm sent his application for a new driver's licence in 2008 along with a picture of himself with a colander on his head.

The stunt got him an invitation to the doctor's to check he was mentally fit to drive, but after three years, Alm's efforts have finally paid off.

He now wants to apply for Pastafarianism to become an officially recognised faith in Austria.

How did this whole thing began.....

STUDENT USES HIS NOODLE... AND A RELIGION IS BORN

In 2005, a physics graduate from Oregon State wrote a letter about a 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' as a form of protest against the Kansas State Board of Education's decision to allow the teaching of Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in public schools.

By professing belief in a supernatural entity composed of pasta and meatballs, Bobby Henderson, 24, called on 'Pastafarianism' to be given equal time in science classrooms alongside Christian theory.

Word rapidly spread and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (CFSM) now has thousands of followers, mainly on college campuses and in Europe.
The central tenet of CFSM is that an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe 'after drinking heavily'.
Pastafarians celebrate every Friday as a holy day - and consider pirates 'absolute divine beings'.

May the Sauce be with you all!

Source: the Daily Mail

Capitalism at its finest - Tax evasion at its best

McDonald's argues it is a supermarket rather than restaurant 

in Russia. US fast food chain McDonald's has persuaded the Russian authorities that its outlets are supermarkets rather than restaurants in a landmark lawsuit that blocked an attempt by the Russian taxman to almost double its tax bill.

In a legal battle that is likely to see dozens of other fast food chains in the world's largest country following suit, McDonald's successfully argued that it should be classified as a food retailer for tax purposes rather than as a restaurant since many of its products are pre-packaged and sold to customers in the style of a supermarket rather than a restaurant.

It is a decision that will allow McDonald's in Russia to continue paying ten per cent tax on its profits rather than the eighteen per cent tax levied on restaurants. McDonald's has led a charmed life since it opened its first outlet in Moscow in the then Soviet Union in 1990.

Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1990, hundreds of people line up around the first McDonald's
restaurant in the Soviet Union at Moscow's Pushkin Square, on its opening day. 

Its first flagship restaurant served 30,000 customers on its first day, an absolute record, and it now has a network of 276 outlets across Russia.

Still rapidly expanding to meet huge demands for its fast food, it is patronised by almost one million Russians a day who consume specially Russianised versions of McDonald's fare such as "beef a la russe" as well as the hamburgers and sandwiches sold all over the world.

In a deal that the Moscow city authorities later challenged unsuccessfully through the Russian courts the first two McDonald's stores in Russia which occupied prime locations in Moscow were granted a special 20-year rent deal which saw them pay just one rouble (less than 1p) per square metre of space. That deal is still in place.


Source: The Telegraph

Man robs bank to get medical care in jail

By Zachary Roth

Some people who need medical care but can't afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they'll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gaston, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He's now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone's problems started when he lost the job he'd held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn't last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

But Verone's body wasn't up to it. The bending and lifting made his back ache. He had problems with his left foot, making him limp. He also suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

Then he noticed a protrusion on his chest. "The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept," Verone told the Gaston Gazette. "I kind of hit a brick wall with everything."

Verone knew he needed help--and he didn't want to be a burden on his sister and brothers. He applied for food stamps, but they weren't enough either.

So he hatched a plan. On June 9, he woke up, showered, ironed his shirt. He mailed a letter to the Gazette, listing the return address as the Gaston County Jail.

"When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me," Verone wrote in the letter. "This robbery is being committed by me for one dollar. I am of sound mind but not so much sound body."

Then Verone hailed a cab to take him to the RBC Bank. Inside, he handed the teller his $1 robbery demand.

"I didn't have any fears," said Verone. "I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police."

The teller was so frightened that she had to be taken to the hospital to be checked out. Verone, meanwhile, was taken to jail, just as he'd planned it.

Because he only asked for $1, Verone was charged with larceny, not bank robbery. But he said that if his punishment isn't severe enough, he plans to tell the judge that he'll do it again. His $100,000 bond has been reduced to $2,000, but he says he doesn't plan to pay it.

In jail, Verone said he skips dinner to avoid too much contact with the other inmates. He's already seen some nurses and is scheduled to see a doctor on Friday. He said he's hoping to receive back and foot surgery, and get the protrusion on his chest treated. Then he plans to spend a few years in jail, before getting out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.

Verone also presented the view that if the United States had a health-care system which offered people more government support, he wouldn't have had to make the choice he did.

"If you don't have your health you don't have anything," Verone said.

The Affordable Care Act, President Obama's health-care overhaul passed by Congress last year, was designed to make it easier for Americans in situations like Verone's to get health insurance. But most of its provisions don't go into effect until 2014.

As it is, Verone said he thinks he chose the best of a bunch of bad options. "I picked jail."

(Photo: Ben Goff/The Gaston Gazette)

Source: news.yahoo.com

Arts & Crafts time...

Garden Gnomes all over the world, Unite!

A Garden Gnome protester faces riot police during an anti-austerity demonstration near parliament in Athens today.

Dad's school project - building a Teepee

I thought my school days have finished a long long time ago, until that is, I had to help my daughter finish (meaning: start) the school home project that needed to be in at school the next morning. Great!

Luckily we had some materials to hand from the previous day's visit to the shops. Brown paper, some bamboo barbeque skewers and a base. Great, what can go wrong..... well, for starters it's already 7.30pm

After doing some quick rough calculations the 'skeleton' of the teepee was born...

Now all I needed to do was add on the cover and job's done. Wrong...! 

I've pre-cut some triangular pieces of brown paper and tried to super-glue them to the sticks. Needless to say, I got covered in the stuff. Had to prise my fingers apart several times. This method was soon abandoned. Needed to come up with plan B. 

After some collaboration with my daughter, we've come to the conclusion that we needed to add an authentic look to the teepee. And the idea of an animal skin was born. After all, that's what the Indians used to built their teepees. A mention of skinning our cat did not go down well with my daughter. Second best option was to use a chamois leather. I did not have one so it was time to scrounge. And where does one go when one needs to scrounge? David, my brother in law. He has everything. So a quick trip to his house to dig up some old piece of chamois leather he inherited from his dad (and I was about to make a tent out of it). That was more than 30 years old piece of leather there. Anyway, it had to be done. My daughters education was at stake! I am sure grandad would have forgiven us.

We came home and the chamois leather had the 7 star treatment. Hand washed as it was filthy, a spin in the washing machine to get it as dry as possible, we smoked the pipe, performed the (stop the) rain dance, slaughtered a buffalo to appease the great Manitou and various other native American rituals.

Finally, it was ready to be used on the frame. Hmm.... see for yourselves, not so great!

Manitou wasn't on our side. We quickly abandoned that plan too!

Time was running out and failure wasn't an option. Ditched the authentic look and gone back to basics.

Plan C was to go back to Plan A and refine it. This time, Greek ingenuity kicked in (keep the comments to yourselves) and everything started coming up nicely together. Bit by bit we were nearing completion. We had to, it was nearly midnight. 

  

.... and finally, the Masterpiece, nicely decorated by my daughter

This better get some good marks at school, but as she has told me towards the end, she will not be taking History next year, so it doesn't matter!!! Arghhhhhh.........

One thing's for sure though, I will not be wasting anymore buffalos to Manitou again!

GC

Modern and Contemporary handmade Greek Jewellery

Some truly beautiful jewellery here, from an old school friend of mine, Sofia Sylvia.

If you are about to buy some jewellery for what ever occasion is coming up, stop. 

Don't do anything until you see these 'gems'.

If you are looking for 'that' something special, then I recommend a visit to the website.

A modern and contemporary collection of past and present, that I am sure will please all tastes.....

.....don't take my word for it, go and have a look, apollonia-jewellery.com