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Woman
lays waste to property with 43 goats
BERLIN (Reuters) - A
German woman living with 43 goats was evicted from her rented house
after the animals left "knee-high" piles of droppings around
the garden and laid waste to the building's interior, authorities said
Tuesday.
A court in the
southwestern town of Saarburg said the woman had been forced out
because she was behind on her rent and had allowed the condition of
the house to deteriorate to such an extent that it may have to be torn
down.
"The goats'
droppings were basically piled up knee-high around the garden, and
inside the house everything was chewed up. And it stank," said
court spokesman Manfred Grueter.
"It was total
chaos," he added. "It's pretty doubtful as to whether the
place can still be lived in."
The woman, a
freelance artist in her early forties, had resisted eviction on the
grounds her life with the goats had been used to create a "social
sculpture" inspired by the German sculptor Joseph Beuys.
Adam's Odd
News Stories |
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Taxi!
Cubans set sail in vintage cab
A group of 13
Cubans set sail for the United States in a vintage blue taxicab
converted into an unwieldy vessel, Miami television station NBC
6 reported.
But the makeshift
boat, with a prow jutting out of the front and a taxi sign on
the roof, was intercepted on Tuesday evening by the
U.S.
Coast Guard
about 20 miles off Key West on the southern tip of Florida.
The television
station showed images of Coast Guard launches circling the
vessel and the occupants rolling up the windows, presumably to
try to avoid being caught.
Coast Guard
officials were not immediately available to comment.
Generally, Cubans
intercepted trying to make the 90-mile crossing from Cuba to
Florida are sent home to the Communist-ruled island, while those
who make it to U.S. soil are usually allowed to stay.
The taxi passengers, riding in what NBC 6 said
was a 1949 Mercury, were not the first to make the journey in a converted
vintage vehicle.
First there were the "truck-boaters,"
a group who caught the public eye with their attempt to sail over in a 1951
Chevy truck kept afloat with oil drums in 2003. Another group tried the journey
in an elegant 1959 Buick-turned-boat in February 2004.
NBC 6 said one of the people on Tuesday's
vessel was 40-year-old Rafael Diaz. His father, a resident of Miami, told the
station the family knew earlier in the day that Diaz was trying to leave. Diaz's
father told the station he was worried and sad about the failed journey.
The television station said Diaz was traveling
with his wife and two children and had tried to leave Cuba before, once on one
of the previous converted vehicles.
While their transport is eye-catching -- and
the previous attempts have inspired considerable public sympathy -- the Cuban
migrants traveling in vehicle-boats are just a fraction of the hundreds of
Cubans who cross the Florida Straits every year, often ferried over in
smugglers' vessels.
According to Coast Guard statistics, some 1,406
Cubans have been intercepted so far in fiscal year 2005, which began in October,
compared with 1,225 intercepted in fiscal year 2004. |
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What
the hell is this? Once again Cuban immigrants try their damnest to get
into our country. Instead of a boat. They turned some 49 wagon into a
makeshift boat. I am so damn tired of seeing these folks coming into
our country illegally. So what they live in Cuba under Castro's riegn.
He's no Saddam, I have yet heard any kind of mistreatment from the
government. Maybe the guy who turned this taxi cab should get a job in
the Cuban Navy. He seem's to have already out done their own
ships.