December 31, 2007
Cops say foiled kiss-and-escape plot
DEDHAM, Mass. - A burglary suspect planned to escape using a handcuff key his girlfriend would pass him during either a hug or a kiss in court, but he forgot one crucial factor, authorities say.
The problem, they said, was that James Miller allegedly discussed the plot with Theresa Fougere during phone calls from jail, which are monitored by the Norfolk County sheriff's department.
Inmates are warned the phone conversations aren't private.
Miller, 38, who was being held on a charge of heroin possession and was a suspect in several store burglaries, now has been charged with attempted escape and conspiracy.
Fougere, 46, was arrested Monday on charges of attempting to aid a felon to escape. Quincy police said they interviewed her during the weekend and she gave them the key.
A spokesman for the sheriff's office didn't know where she got the key.
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November 11, 2007
Woman charged with biting off man's lip
SEATTLE - A woman bit off her ex-boyfriend's lower lip as they were kissing in bed, likely disfiguring him permanently, authorities said. The man and the woman had kissed several times Monday night when, without provocation, she bit off his lip and spat it out, he told King County sheriff's deputies.
Laura Roberta Cutler, 44, was charged Wednesday with second-degree domestic-violence assault and ordered held on $75,000 bail.
Deputies were called to the house in White Center, south of Seattle, and found Thomas J. Brummel, 49, on the front porch, much of his lower lip missing and his face and neck covered in blood, King County sheriff's Detective Scott Tompkins wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
Deputies reported finding the man's lip on the bedroom floor, covered with cat hair. Doctors at Highline Hospital were unable to reattach the lip and said the man will likely be permanently disfigured.
Brummel and Cutler live at the house with two other renters, all of whom are recovering from drug addiction and agreed to share a "clean and sober" home. Tompkins wrote that Cutler was drunk when detectives arrived, and "her rage was evident and uncontrolled."
Neither of the other residents witnessed the attack, Tompkins wrote.
"Had it not been for Brummel's yelling ... 'She's a devil woman!' and running up and down the stairs, none would've known the altercation had taken place," he wrote.
Cutler is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 15 in King County Superior Court. It was not immediately known whether she had a lawyer.
Deputies had been called to the home an hour before the attack because the woman apparently was drunk and disruptive. At that time there was no indication of violence or any other reason to arrest her, sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said.
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August 11, 2007
Hungary claims world kissing title
BUDAPEST (AFP) - Organisers of a kissing event in Budapest said Monday they have earned a place in the Guinness book of world records for the most number of couples locking lips at the same time.
They said they would submit video footage and documentation showing 7,451 couples were locked in simultaneous buccal bonding for 10 seconds on Sunday, during a week-long Sziget music festival.
The marathon mouth meet was the latest saliva-laced salvo in a running rivalry between Hungary and the Philippines for the kissing crown.
Filipinos set the Guinness world record in February 2004 with 5,327 couples, only to be overtaken by Hungary, with 5,875 couples in 2005.
The Asian country came back in February this year, with 6,124 couples playing tonsil hockey in Manila to regain the record -- but Hungary smacked them down again in June, when it produced 6,613 smooching couples.
With the latest effort, Hungary figures they have clinched the record for some time to come.
"We thought that here at the Sziget festival we can set a record which the Filipinos will not be able to beat. We'd like it if this record now belonged to Hungarians for good," said Zsuzsa Simon of the tabloid daily Bors, which organized the event.
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July 23, 2007
French woman plants lips on white canvas by Cy Twombly
PARIS (AFP) - A Cambodian-born French woman faces prosecution for criminal damage after planting a kiss on a painting by the American artist Cy Twombly, leaving the imprint of her lipstick on the otherwise immaculate white canvas.
The untitled work three metres by two (roughly nine feet by six), valued at two million euros, is part of an exhibition dedicated to the US painter in the southern French city of Avignon.
Thirty-year-old Sam Rindy, who visited the show with a friend on Thursday, told AFP that she was so overcome by the white canvas that she kissed it.
"I stepped back. I found the painting even more beautiful," said Rindy. "The artist left this white for me," she added.
Staff of the Lambert foundation, which owns the painting, took a different view. They called the police and the woman, herself a painter, was arrested as she left the premises. She will appear in court on August 16 to face charges of criminal damage.
The exhibition, "Blooming", runs until September 30.
Posted by ronnie at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2007
Chocolate gives people more of a buzz than passionate kisses
LONDON (AFP) - British researchers said Monday they were stunned to discover that people get more of a buzz from eating chocolate than passionately kissing their lovers.
"These results really surprised and intrigued us," said psychologist David Lewis, who led a study that recorded brain activity and heart rate from volunteers who tasted pieces of dark chocolate or kissed their partners.
"There is no doubt that chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz -- a buzz that, in many cases, lasted four times as long as the most passionate kiss."
While researchers expected chocolate, especially dark chocolate, to raise heart rates, he said, "both the length of this increase together with the powerful effects it had on the mind were something none of us had anticipated."
The 12 volunteers, all aged in their 20s, wore heart monitors and had electrodes attached to their heads as each placed a piece of dark chocolate on the tongue and, without chewing, indicated when it started to melt.
Couples were later invited to kiss each other in the same way as they would do normally.
The study found that -- at the point chocolate melts in the mouth -- all areas of the brain are stimulated far more intensely and for longer than from from kissing.
Chocolate also made the heart beat faster, according to the study supervised by Lewis, a formerly University of Sussex psychologist who now runs a private research company called The Mind Lab.
Some people saw the number of heart beats per minute rise from a resting rate of about 60 to as high as 140. Kissing also made the couples' hearts pound, but not for as long.
Both sexes showed the same responses in the tests.
Posted by ronnie at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2007
Protesters burn effigies after Gere kisses Shilpa
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Richard Gere's repeated kisses on the cheeks of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in an event to promote AIDS awareness sparked protests in India on Monday with demonstrators burning effigies of the actors.
Footage of the Hollywood star sweeping Shetty backwards in a dramatic embrace at the Sunday night event in New Delhi was repeatedly aired on news channels on Monday.
Many saw the act as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and Indian culture, though Shetty herself angrily dismissed the protests as an "over-reaction" that made India look silly.
Groups of men burned and kicked effigies of the actors in protests across India, including in the northern Indian cities of New Delhi, Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi as well as in the central city of Indore.
Some called for the actors' deaths. Others wanted public apologies.
But Shetty, the winner of the "Celebrity Big Brother" reality TV show in Britain this year, said the reaction to the kiss made India look "regressive."
"I admit it went a little overboard but that was not the intention," she said to a crowd of journalists and protesters that had besieged her film set in Mumbai on Monday evening.
"He did not do anything obscene," she said of Gere, adding that they had since spoken on the phone. "He apologized to me and told me to tell the media that he apologized."
She said Gere was only re-enacting his moves from the film "Shall We Dance" to entertain the audience and communicate in a Bollywood style as he did not speak Hindi.
The clinch between the two stars had originally gone down well when it happened onstage at an event on Sunday night to encourage truckers -- seen as a high-risk group in India's fight against AIDS -- to wear condoms during sex.
They whooped with delight and whistled loudly as Gere swooped down on a visibly delighted Shetty to kiss her on her hand and a number of times on one side of her face.
"No condom, no sex," an ebullient 58-year-old Gere shouted in Hindi to thousands of truck drivers who roared his words back in unison at a dusty fairground in New Delhi.
Indian authorities have been focusing on high-risk groups such as truckers, who have helped spread the virus across the country as many of them have sex with prostitutes during their journeys and infect their wives back home.
Posted by ronnie at 06:58 AM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2007
Why it's gross to kiss your sister
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said on Wednesday they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory.
The instinct evolved naturally and cannot be taught, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California Santa Barbara wrote in their report in the journal Nature.
Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is
all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers, who worked with Debra Lieberman of the University of Hawaii.
"We went in search of a kin detection system because some of the most important theories in evolutionary biology said such a thing should exist," Cosmides said in a telephone interview.
"It should regulate both altruism and incest disgust."
Humans have an inbuilt system that does both, they found.
"This data shows that the degree to which we feel those things is governed by these cues that, for hunter-gatherers, predict whether somebody is a sibling. And it works regardless of your beliefs -- who you are told who your siblings are," she
said.
Cosmides and her colleagues tested 600 volunteers, asking them all sorts of questions jumbled together so they would not know what was being studied.
"We asked them how many favors did you do for this particular sibling in a month. We asked if this sibling needed a kidney, how likely would you be to donate this sibling a kidney."
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
And they asked about all sorts of ethical dilemmas, including questions about sexual relationships with siblings.
Among the volunteers were people who had never shared a home with their siblings -- for instance, full- or half-siblings born 10 or even 20 years apart.
What determined incest disgust and altruism was the same --
how much time an older sibling spent watching his or her mother care for a younger one, or how much time the two spent together in the same household.
"If you co-resided with them for a long time as a child, you'd treat them as you'd treat any full sibling. This seems to
operate non-consciously," Cosmides said.
Especially strong was the effect of watching one's mother care for a younger child. "They would be very altruistic toward
that baby and they'd be grossed out at the idea of sex with that baby as an adult," Cosmides said.
Women are especially sensitive to this, added Cosmides, a cognitive psychologist. "One whiff of possible siblinghood and that's it for you if you are a woman," she said.
The study contradicts the teachings of Sigmund Freud, who described Oedipal urges and conflicts, Cosmides said.
"He thought you are attracted to your relatives and your siblings and parents and it takes the force of culture and society to keep you from committing the incest that is in your heart," she said.
Cosmides said Freud had a possible reason for his own feelings -- he had a wet nurse who cuddled and breastfed him: "Who their brain thinks is mom is different from who they consciously believe is mom. For them it is quite reasonable that they have an attraction to their mothers."
Posted by ronnie at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2007
6,124 couples kiss, break world record
MANILA, Philippines - More than 6,000 couples kissed simultaneously at midnight Saturday in the Philippines with organizers of the event claiming to have set a new world record.
Organizers of the annual pre-Valentine's Day celebration said they broke the record held by Hungary, where 5,875 couples kissed simultaneously in Budapest in 2005.
"We broke the record, it's great," said Howard Belton, a Briton who spearheaded the event.
With fireworks, confetti, a giant TV screen, and red balloons as the backdrop, couples locked lips and hugged for 10 seconds following a countdown outside a Manila mall.
An unofficial tally showed 6,124 couples kissed simultaneously, organizers said, but the number needs to be verified by an independent auditor and approved by Guinness World Record officials before it becomes a world record.
"It was our first time to join the celebration and we participated to be able to beat the record of Hungary," said Katherine Hermosa, who was with her boyfriend.
Posted by ronnie at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2007
Police: Teen seeking kiss rams wrong car
BAY CITY, Mich. - A lovers' quarrel and a case of mistaken identity has landed a teenager behind bars after police say he repeatedly rammed a teenage girl's car, thinking it was his girlfriend.
State police told The Saginaw News that the victim — a 17-year-old from Pinconning — called 911 early Sunday when the suspect smashed his car into the rear of hers.
The 17-year-old suspect struck her car about 15 times and pushed it through stop signs at intersections, the victim told police.
Dispatchers advised her to lead the suspect toward police units who were en route to intercept them, police said.
State police troopers and Bay County sheriff's deputies caught up with the suspect and pursued the Bay City teen at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, police said.
The teen told police he thought the driver was his girlfriend, who left a party after the couple quarreled. He said he wanted to talk to her and get his goodnight kiss, so he went searching for her, police said.
He told police he was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, telling her to stop her car. She told him she was stopped and didn't know what he was talking about, officers said.
The teen likely will face charges including assault with a vehicle, fleeing police and drunk driving.
Posted by ronnie at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2006
Keep your kisses short in Tangerang
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Unrelated people who kiss each other on the lips for more than five minutes at public places in the Indonesian city of Tangerang will face arrest, local media said Friday.
The government in Tangerang, a suburb west of Jakarta, defended the regulation as a practical guideline for its officers to follow up on tough and heavily criticized anti-prostitution laws passed by the city council last year.
"Please do not dramatize this. We will not arrest people at will as we are not oppressors," Ahmad Lutfi, head of the city's public order department, told the Koran Tempo newspaper.
Lutfi declined to comment on whether officers would be armed with stopwatches, Tempo reported.
It was not clear if the guideline referred to an uninterrupted five-minute kiss.
Kissing in public is generally frowned upon in Indonesia, especially in rural, predominantly Muslim areas, but giving a time limit for such behavior is unheard of.
Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam, giving the sprawling archipelago the largest number of Muslims of any country. Although most are moderates, there is a growing tendency toward showing Islamic identity and conservative attitudes.
That backdrop, along with the recent devolution of power to regional governments, has given several regions space to create tighter rules on morality.
The new anti-prostitution laws in Tangerang, a city of more than one million, sparked complaints from liberals in February after a female restaurant worker waiting for her husband on a street at night was picked up because police officers thought she was a prostitute.
At the national level, draft legislation addressing pornography issues has been circulating for years in parliament and debate on it is reaching a peak. The original draft proposed a ban on public kissing on the lips but it is unclear whether the particular article will survive in the final version.
Posted by ronnie at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)