(CNN) -- The tooth fairy's trash became another man's treasure Saturday when a discolored molar that once belonged to John Lennon was put up for auction.
The winning bid came in at 19,500 pounds (U.S. $31,200), according to auction results posted online.
Michael Zuk, a Canadian dentist, is claiming responsibility for the winning bid. Omega Auction House, which sold the tooth, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
Lennon gave the tooth to Dorothy "Dot" Jarlett when she worked as his housekeeper at his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey, according to her son, Barry. Jarlett, who was employed between 1964 and 1968, developed a warm relationship with Lennon, her son said.
"She was very close with John, and one day whilst chatting in the kitchen, John gave my mother the tooth (he had been to the dentist to have it removed that day) and suggested giving it to my sister as a souvenir, as she was a huge Beatles fan," he said. "It has been in the family ever since."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#5
Let's see... take from the rich and spread to the whole world.
Givens: $31,200 for a tooth
6.5 billion people in the world.
($31,200/6.5x10^9)x100 cents/1$ = 5/10,000 of a cent per person.
Hmmm.....need more teeth.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/07/2011 16:45 Comments ||
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#6
how many hens is that?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/07/2011 16:52 Comments ||
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#7
Britney, Jessica, + Christina have all chunked up like crazy, wid matching hairstyles to boot - its just as bad watching FLOTUS Michelle turn from her younger hardline Radicalism + chic fashionista to promoting Peas.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Young supporters of Zim-bob-we's President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... stoned and beat backers of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday, blocking a planned rally of his Movement for Democratic Change party.
"Unfortunately we are unable to do this rally because of incredible acts of wanton violence, malicious violence that we have suffered at the hands of ZANU-PF this morning," Tendai Biti, MDC secretary general, told a news conference.
ZANU-PF is Mugabe's political party.
The rally, which Tsvangirai was due to address, was slated to be held in the sprawling Harare suburb of Chitungwiza, 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of the capital.
Biti said seven MDC activists were admitted to hospital, while five party vehicles were damaged.
"There are literally hundreds of people that have been beaten up, that have been stoned by ZANU-PF supporters, They have suffered bruises, tissue injuries, various degrees of injuries", he said.
He said police failed to protect the MDC.
"They watched us as these ZANU-PF youths destroyed our property and assaulted our members," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2011 00:00 ||
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For a map click here
A retired army general and intelligence operative has won the presidency of Guatemala in a run off election Sunday, according to Guatemalan news accounts.
General Otto Perez Molina of the Partido Patriota (PP) won 2,106,023 votes or 54.89 percent of ballots cast versus his opponent, populist industrialist Manuel Baldizon of the Libertad Democratica Renovada (LIDER) coalition, who won 1,731,082 votes or 45.11 percent of ballots cast.
Both candidates survived the general election in September in an election marked by turnout averaging almost 60 percent.
Perez Molina is considered a conservative and a hardliner who has promised a dura firma or firm hand in dealing with drug related violence. Molina was head of the Guatemalan army intelligence agency during the turbulent 1980s, during the Guatemalan civil war.
The election marks the end of the presidency of Alvaro Collom, a center-left president associated with the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) coalition. UNE failed to run a candidate because of the antics of Sandra Torres, Collum's wife. Her bid to run was ended by a Guatemalan high court, which ruled that even with a divorce, she could not run for president.
The balloting was marked by relative calm, although Baldizon was forced to go to Petain department after receiving death threats.
Guatemala is suffering a wave of drug related violence from both Mexican drug gangs such as Los Zetas and Gulf cartel operatives as well as local drug gangs.
(Rooters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader, looks likely to win re-election on Sunday after heavy social spending won him strong support among the country's poor.
Ortega has overseen a period of economic progress in his five years in power, bought backed by financial aid from his socialist ally in Venezuela, His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez.
What happens after Chavez shuffles off this mortal coil and the money stops?
A former commander of the Sandinista rebel army that won power in a 1979 revolution and a Cold War adversary of the United States, Ortega has solidified his hold on the Central American country with programs to improve health and education, microcredits and gifts of livestock.
"He has helped the poor. Other presidents didn't do that," said law student Wendy Gonzalez, 19, after casting her vote in a poor area of the capital of Managua.
Ortega has a big poll lead over a conservative opposition whose two main candidates failed to unite against him. A recent CID-Gallup poll showed he was on course to win nearly half the votes in the election, well above what he would need to avoid a run-off vote.
He was able to run for re-election thanks to a 2009 ruling by the Supreme Court -- which his Sandinista party controls -- that did away with a ban on consecutive terms.
Backed by Venezuela, Ortega has reduced poverty in this largely agrarian nation and is credited with allowing the private sector to operate freely.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Guess Russians (notoriously xenophobic---for solid historical reasons---People) are, deliriously, happy to see this exhibition of the Islamic presence in the heart of Russia.
#2
We, Russian Muslims, are proud of our fatherland, Russia, and we are trying to make Russia proud of us, our culture and our contribution to the modernization and development of our state, the head of the Council of Muftis, Ravil Gainutdin, was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying during the prayer service.
That's nice. What about the imported turbans, Ravil? Who speaks for them?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/07/2011 6:13 Comments ||
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#3
Duh! My quran sez: don't take Jews and Christians as friends.
#5
A crowd of about 300 people in Shanghai smashed windows at the sales office. The protestors had bought properties in earlier phases of the same project at prices as much as 30% higher than the discounted ones.
I'd be angry, too!
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/07/2011 7:39 Comments ||
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#6
My favourite contrarian Hugh Hendry will be happy. He's been telling anyone who cares to listen to short Chinese property. Only question; has he got his timing right?
#7
Tipper I don't watch TV so this Hugh Henry is new to me. He jumps about but I will take the time to sort him out. The Chinese property bubble I have been aware of for a while. The idea of a cheat economy is a good characterization of many current economies. China is a country of extremes, very rich, but far too many poor.
#9
This is not good. Most middle class wealth is in private homes. When home prices fall, the middle class is gutted. You can't have a democracy without the middle class so it's bad news here, and bad news for reformers in China as well.
#11
Wen Pledges Property-Tightening Resolve
This is one of the advantages of having a Fascist (or Third Way) economy, as China has. The economy is a subset of the political system. This way the economy can be controlled, so that you do not have a fiasco as you had in the US when the price of houses crashed.
#12
If you had a good government you'd have stopped the price of homes going up faster than incomes...
Look High home prices are a middle class signal as a result of high middle class incomes...
When you DONT have high middle class incomes because the state has nicked all the wealth created, but you still have high house prices it means you're getting poorer.
#13
These aren't "real" residential properties, but rather simulacra - buildings put up for the purpose of creating investment properties.
As I understand it, rental real estate is an attractive investment in a low-trust legal environment like mainland China, where so many actual business, bond, or equity investment opportunities carry with them the significant chance of fraud or default without recourse. So newly middle-class or successful low-level entrepreneurs have an incentive to buy rental properties as a safe place to park their gains from more risky endeavors. They don't want to put the effort and expense of actually maintaining the property under living conditions or deal with actual renters, so the properties are more often than not kept empty. Thus, the vast "ghost cities" of the interior.
Since all this means that the rental property market is, in the Chinese environment, highly speculative, it also means that we've been waiting for a bubble to pop. Can't be sure if this is it, or just an initial correction. But the end will come at some point, and not long off.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/07/2011 14:50 Comments ||
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#14
BTW, that's the savings of the Chinese entrepenural class right there, and if it goes "pop" like a soap bubble, they'll go stark raving mad. Bad day to be Taiwan or North Korea.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/07/2011 14:56 Comments ||
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#15
Mitch H nails it.
Residential property is a savings vehicle seen as both safer than banks and providing a better rate of return.
#16
I worked with a Chinese dude a couple of years ago. He had a pile of inherited money in stocks. His attitude and talk was more like a gambler than an investor. I don't know if he was the exception or the rule.
Since the Chinese are able to invest in physical precious metals, and the metals have done very well in the last few years, I'd bet they figured real estate was a better bet.
#17
The sad thing is that these people spent a bunch of their money investing in a tangible asset under the control of a bunch of Communist thugs. It will be so sad when the commissar comes and allocates the new and empty apartments to the families of soldiers and party members.
And if you don't think that is a good idea, hey take it up with the soldier dude here, whose family is squatting in your savings plan. Somebody said that all power comes from the end of a gun. I wonder what he meant?
Boo hoo, Chinese middle class. All that hard work and savings you've been doing, it is gone now. Your Communist overlords will happily share your wealth among themselves, and you can get back to the factory. And stop bitching about low pay.
If you don't revolt now, I hope that a decade from now, you have learned to invest in portable assets, so you can get out from under the thumb of the commissar.
#18
Chinese banks are not as sturdy as they want people to think. It seems irrational for them to buy our debt when their currency may be more unstable than expected. Unless they think they may extract something of value out of the US.
There are many real estate bubbles in China, and they are using Dollars to purchase it.
#3
WaPo: Several thousand protesters from across the country encircled the White House on Sunday to demand that President Obama deny a permit for a proposed oil pipeline that would stretch from Alberta to the Texas coast...After the protest, about 1,000 people joined Occupy DC in an impromptu, boisterous 90-minute march through downtown.
#4
The regressive party has struck again. I guess Canada will just build their western pipeline and export their oil to China. Better yet ship it to Texas to refine but cost an arm and a leg. The regressive party should beg China to send home money so they can sit on their hind parts and break wind at designated Occupy areas.
#6
IIRC Mama Russia wants to build a giant City = Trade-Plex in Russia-claimed Arctic, which means Russ may get first dibs on Canuck oil before China???
ONCE AGAIN, PEOPLE, FYI EARTH DOES HAVE A SOUTH POLE ALSO, YA KNOW?
#7
Yes, JM I have heard about that Ice City the Russians are building or are going to build. Argentina is getting possessive about the South Pole also.
[Dawn] A group of about two dozen former ministers and dissidents belonging to the country's major political parties, mostly from the Pakistain Mohammedan League-Q, are negotiating terms with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... for formally joining his Pakistain Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) or to have an electoral alliance with it, Dawn has learnt.
"Yes, we have been in touch with Imran Khan and the people in his party for almost six months and discussing the plan and the nature of cooperation with them to work together to achieve common objectives," said Ishaq Khan Khakwani, a former minister in the military-led regime of Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, Mr Khakwani claimed that his group, led by former minister Jahangir Khan Tareen, had made headway in the talks with the PTI, but made it clear that the group was not going to join the PTI and negotiations were being held only on the nature of cooperation between them.
Mr Khakwani said the group came into existence when the PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain decided to join hands with the PPP.
"We dissociated ourselves from the Chaudhrys after their decision to join the PPP and decided to go on our own to provide a new platform to the people of Pakistain to give them a hope," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2011 00:00 ||
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About a year ago, The Wall Street Journal ran an article describing the plight of Americans struggling to rebuild after bankruptcy. The article highlighted Linda Frakes, who filed for bankruptcy after accumulating more than $300,000 in credit card debt.
"Ms. Frakes is now unemployed, living on $330 a week of unemployment benefits and odd jobs," the Journal wrote. Frakes "struggled to rent a home and buy a car after bankruptcy. A used-car dealer ultimately gave her financing on a Jaguar."
No one's hardship should be belittled. Becoming unemployed or losing a home aren't just financial problems. They're social and emotional problems that strike at people's sense of being.
Impoverished, but driving a Jag!
But things always need to be kept in perspective. Only in the West, I thought to myself after reading the article, can someone be driving a Jaguar and portrayed as living in an impoverished underclass. Context is crucial with these issues.
The recent Occupy Wall Street protests (and their Occupy Sydney and Occupy Melbourne cousins) have aimed their message at the income disparity between the 1% richest and the rest of the country. But what happens when you expand that and look at the 1% richest of the entire world? Some really interesting numbers emerge. If there were a global Occupy Wall Street protest, people as well off as Linda Frakes might actually be the target.
In America, the top 1% earn more than $380,000 per year. In Australia, the top 3% of households earn more than $250,000 per week, according to the ABS. How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?
$34,000.
That was the finding World Bank economist Branko Milanovic presented in his 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots. Going down the distribution ladder may be just as surprising. To be in the top half of the globe, you need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it's $5,000 per year. Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000.
#1
The thing is the protestors define the thing how they want to. That's how flexible the liberal brain is. Even Michael Moore can deny he's one of the 1%. Kanye West doesn't even consider the issue.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
(CNN) -- The tooth fairy's trash became another man's treasure Saturday when a discolored molar that once belonged to John Lennon was put up for auction.
His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez
[Dawn] A group of about two dozen former ministers and dissidents belonging to the country's major political parties, mostly from the Pakistain 
