It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying "toxic dart" guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped. "My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire," he said. "The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?"

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. "The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?" said Sheridan. The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them. Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the Navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

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Kate, Cocaine, Chanel and Scientology

It looks like there's more bad news for Kate Moss. After first saying they would keep her on, Swedish giant H&M has said they're dumping Moss for the upcoming Stella McCartney campaign. Then, Chanel piled on and said it would not be renewing her contract to be the face of Coco Madmoiselle perfume. Not to be outdone, Burberry then announced that they were also firing Moss.

Then a friend of Moss' gave an exclusive story to a British tabloid detailing a sordid ongoing affair between Moss and actress Sadie Frost, when she was still married to Jude Law (this is before the Nanny incident, try to keep up.) When Jude Law found out that his wife had been having naughty relations with Kate, he was furious...not that his wife was having an affair, but that he wasn't included. Yes, that's right, Jude then demanded to join in and all was well.

The giant fashion conglomerates were most unhappy that the face of their products is now also apparently the face of the drug-addicted, lesbian orgy lifestyle. But it gets worse. Now the London police want to investigate.

he buzz over Kate Moss' alleged drug use is showing no sign of quieting. Authorities have launched an investigation into photos published by the U.K.'s Daily Mirror that seemingly show the supermodel snorting cocaine, London's Metropolitan Police said Wednesday.

While officials usually focus on investigating drug dealers rather than users, that policy is "adaptable to the impact of events," Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of Metropolitan Police, told reporters. Blair said that any decision on charges would be made with consideration into how the events impacted young people. "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behavior on impressionable young people and if there is evidence something should be done about it," he said.

"I can remember being asked a question about a previous individual who was given a caution. I think that was a wrong decision." Police said the investigation would require more evidence than the newspaper photos before it could proceed.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for poor Kate, it does. Apparently, the Scientologists are hounding her to partake in their drug rehab program, Narconon. The Scientologists are promising Kate they can turn her life around. Could a couch-jumping episode on Oprah be in Kate's future? Stay tuned....

Posted on September 23, 2005
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All Eight Dolphins Rescued

Happy dolphin news: all eight dolphins have been now been rescued from the ocean and taken to a naval engineering base where they are being treated for injuries and starvation.

Led by a marine biologist who specializes in dolphins, a rescue team had rescued four of the dolphins by Friday. But when they went back on Saturday, they couldn't find the rest of the group. They searched by plane and boat, and finally found them Tuesday -- they were swimming towards land, apparently tired of waiting for the humans to get their act together and bring everyone home.

[W]hen rescuers returned on the fourth day, the remaining four dolphins had left the area. NOAA couldn't move all the dolphins at once because they had limited equipment and only one pool to put them in.

"This area is so damaged," Foster said. "There's not many swimming pools, not many holding areas ... so what we did was take the most compromised animals and move them to the Holiday Inn (swimming pool)."

When the last four of the dolphins were located on Tuesday, they were in the channels in front of the Beau Rivage Casino. All of the dolphins have since been reunited and are on their way to recovery.

"We're all just thrilled that the dolphins are now safe and sound," said NOAA Fisheries Service biologist Laura Engleby. "Certainly we were really concerned about the challenges they were faced with out there. We were so excited to see that they were all together. This has just been a huge success."

The veterinarian said some were 100 pounds underweight and had deep lacerations, which are being treated. The group of dolphins had never been in the same pool before, but formed a pod during the disaster when they were swept out of their Gulfport, Mississipi Oceanarium home pools by the storm surge. Now the owner says he'd like to keep them all together since it appears they've formed a family unit.

But dolphins are expensive to keep. Let's hope that they recover fully, and that Sea World or some canny corporate donor buys or sponsors the entire group.

Posted on September 21, 2005
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Four Dolphins Rescued, Four to Go

Ok, this dolphins-needing-rescuing story is really starting to stress us out. There are eight bottlenosed dolphins who were swept out of their pools during Hurricane Katrina. They're in the Gulf of Mexico and want to go back to their trainers (raised in captivity, they have no idea how to evade predators or even hunt for fish). Plus, they're injured and starving, according to the veterinarian treating them.

They got two of the most injured dolphins at the end of last week. Then, they got a mom and her son on Saturday, according to the Dolphinsrus.com, the official website of the Oceanarium.

Mom and Son Reunited: Kelly Saved

More wonderful news came on Saturday when Marine Life trainers were able to rescue Noah's mom Kelly. Like her son, Toni and Jackie, Kelly jumped onto a floating mat and was brought ashore where she was immediately transported to the Navy saltwater holding tanks which finally arrived on Saturday morning. Shortly after, she was reunited with her son and the other dolphins who were transferred from the temporary shelter of a hotel swimming pool.

Four down, four to go....what is the delay here? No one's saying. We'll keep checking. Hang on, dolphins!

Posted on September 20, 2005
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Cocaine Kate Fesses Up

They're calling her Cocaine Kate. And that doesn't make Burberry, Chanel or Dior very happy. Not to mention Coty-owned Rimmel cosmetics, which is marketed mostly to teens. She fessed up to being a druggie and has kept her contract to model for Stella McCartney's new campaign. But her other contracts are up in the air, and she's worried she might lose custody of her 2 year-old daughter, Lila Grace.

Apparently Lila’s father, Jefferson Hack was horrified at pics of Kate snorting five lines of coke in 40 minutes and fumed to a friend: "That stupid bit**. She’s not thinking of Lila." "I know Kate is a good mother who loves our child. But I’m no longer allowing our daughter to be in the same room as Doherty. He’s turned Kate into a druggie like him."

Moss has reportedly fretted: "How could I fight it in court if Jeff wants solo custody of Lila after this? Any judge would take one look at those pictures and take her off me."

In an attempt to rectify the situation Kate has now promised to go into rehab and has apparently accepted there is no future in her relationship with Doherty.

The photos were allegedly emailed to Kate by close friend, Sadie Frost, and caused the model to cry out: "My f***ing career is over!" Unbelievably her first response was to ask friends if she could tell the world that she had been "joking around" and "just pretending to take cocaine."

Just "pretending to take cocaine"? Brilliant spin! No doubt the judge, her ex-husband, and her giant cosmetics company employers will buy that easily. Who knew she had brains as well as looks?

Posted on September 19, 2005
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Kate Moss and the Coke Binge

Now we don't want to upset you or anything, but the British tabloid Daily Mirror followed supermodel Kate Moss around and actually nabbed photos of her snorting cocaine by the barrel-full, firing up a joint and washing it all down with copious amounts of alcohol.

TheDaily Mirror today reveals shocking pictures of supermodel Kate Moss snorting a fat line of cocaine during a debauched drugs and drink session with junkie lover Pete Doherty.

As the white powder induces a sudden rush to her brain, she rocks back in her seat and laughs hysterically. The coke is kicking in. Within seconds she leans forward and again sniffs into a tightly rolled-up £5 note, hoovering up every last grain of the Class A drug.

It is clear from the extraordinary images, captured during a Mirror undercover investigation, that the 31-year-old catwalk queen is a practised user. Rumours of her drug habits have circulated for years but she has always denied taking Class As such as cocaine. In a West London recording studio, though, Kate chats casually with Doherty and pals as she absent-mindedly crushes and chops out the chunky lines on the back of a plastic CD cover.

Kate Moss a coke addict? Who would have thought?

Posted on September 16, 2005
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Dolphins Survive the Hurricane

Finally, some happy news about the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Eight bottle nose dolphins who were swept out of their oceanarium by the hurricane storm surge have been found by their trainers. The dolphins stayed together as a group and were starving and injured, but they are being treated.

"To find all eight of them on your doorstep is just unheard of," said Moby Solangi, president of the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport. "When we first saw them, they were really starving. When they saw their trainers, they were absolutely flipping."

Since Saturday, when the dolphins were found, their trainers, along with a dolphin rescue team from Florida and a marine biologist from Seattle, have been boating out into the Gulf of Mexico three times a day to visit the school of dolphins. The six females and two males are fed fish filled with vitamins and medicine to help treat their infections. None of the dolphins suffered life-threatening injuries, Solangi said, but they all endured multiple scrapes and lacerations.

The team of rescuers coaxes the dolphin to a pair of floating mats by using whistles and banging buckets together, sounds the animals learned to associate with eating while in captivity, Solangi said.

"More than likely, they’ve lost all their hunting skills, their social skills," said Jeff Potter, a marine biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service who participated in rescues following the tsunami last December. "The biggest thing is to try to get some food in them. We’re trying to build up their strength before we actually try to reacquire them." The dolphins, trained to respond with flips and the like to the delight of show crowds, are being taught how to beach themselves on the mats, which is how the rescuers eventually plan to secure them for transport to safety.

Happy, rescued dolphins. It's a good thing.

Posted on September 15, 2005
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Watch Out for that Chinese Skin Cream

The Guardian reports on a lovely Chinese practice of using the skin of executed prisoners as an ingredient in a number of skin preparations.

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

*****

He [the agent for the company] suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

Oh well, if it's cheaper to harvest skin from dead (no doubt totally disease-free and really guilty of something) prisoners, then by all means let's go for it. We're not worried about a) whether the "prisoners" were really guilty and/or actually dead when this stuff was harvested or b) that there might be anything weird in that Chinese bottle of skin cream. Nope, not us.

Posted on September 14, 2005
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Martha Stewart and the Desperate Housewife

She's back! Martha Stewart has done her time and is back on TV, with not one but two new shows. Martha debuted her new daytime show yesterday. She rolled out a new persona: more self-deprecating, funnier. She joked about her ankle bracelet and entertained Marcia Cross, who plays crazed homemaker Bree Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives. Marcia is no Bree, it turns out. She's severely domestically challenged; she had to be taught how to scramble eggs properly and how to fold a t-shirt the right way. She doesn't cook or bake at all.

And speaking of Desperate Housewives, the rumor is that Bree's husband Rex really is dead. And that makes us very, very angry.

Posted on September 13, 2005
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John Cusack and the Body Double

E! reports on the naughty switcheroo John Cusack pulled on the producers of his upcoming film, The Contract.

Tab Flab: Apparently, John Cusack is in danger of becoming too big of a star. Why else would producers of his upcoming flick The Contract send him a personal trainer to prepare for the shoot. But according to the National Enquirer, the suits were befuddled when Cusack reported to the set looking just as flabby as he'd been before. Turns out Cusack, who doesn't like to work out, sent a buddy-double to the trainer to crunch and flex and tone. Who knows, maybe his pal's pecs will get a cameo in the film? But if producers really wanted John to slim down, they should have written it into, hello, The Contract.

Sounds like it's body double time to us. Then they can just use CGI to place Cusack's head on top of the buffed double for the entire film. Problem solved. Or, Cusack could just suck it up and hit the gym...

Posted on September 12, 2005
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The Katie Holmes Makeover Express

The Katie Holmes makeover into a Tom Cruise wifebot continues unabated. IMDB reports that Tom has decided that he likes the name "Kate" better than "Katie" so --presto chango-- her name will be changed to Kate Cruise.

Batman Begins actress Katie Holmes is planning to do what neither of Tom Cruise's past two wives did when she weds the movie star - take his name. The tradition-loving actress plans to deviate from Nicole Kidman and Mimi Rogers' example and go by the name of Kate Cruise, both personally and professionally, when she exchanges vows with her fiance, according to American magazine In Touch. A source tells the publication, "Tom calls her Kate, so he suggested she start going by that professionally." The surname change is something old-fashioned Holmes has always been keen on.

First he made her drop the plum role of Edie Sedgewick in the upcoming Factory Girl (and nothing says Oscar like playing an anorexic, drug-addicted Andy Warhol hanger-on, we always say), then he assigned her a Scientology minder who follows her around, then he requires her to become nocturnal so she can eat meals with him while he's doing night shoots for Mission Impossible III and now he's renamed her. What in the name of Xenu is next?

Posted on September 9, 2005
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The Human Zoo

Clearly, the keepers at the London Zoo have run out of pandas: their latest popular exhibit is entitled "Humans" and features scantily-clad humans in an enclosure with a sign reading: "Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment." The humans on display wore bathing suits and fig leaves, while they played with hula hoops and waved at the bemused visitors.

Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking, "Why are there people in there?" London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills says that's exactly the question the zoo wants to answer. "Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate," Wills said.

The exhibit puts the three male and five female "homo sapiens" amid their primate relatives. While their neighbors might enjoy bananas and a good scratch, these eight have divided interests, from a chemist hoping to raise awareness about apes to a self-described actor/model and fitness enthusiast.

For others, the aping around is just another forum for rampant exhibitionism and self-promotion. Pointing at one heavy muscled and gleaming body on the ledge, one visitor joked that the zoo should consider a breeding program.

"You can tell why some people came here, like the big muscly men who clearly like parading around in thongs," said Damien Largey, 23. Melissa Wecker, 21, was disappointed that the humans were wearing swimsuits beneath their fig leaves. "They're not doing anything. It looked lots better on the news," she complained.

Anyone who has seen the original Star Trek episode where Spock's former commander, Captain Pike, visits a planet called Talos IV that has its own human zoo is not going to find this exhibit quite so funny. Starfleet quarantined the planet because it was so dangerous to humans. Although, come to think of it, the Talosian Zoo actually came in pretty handy for Pike later on....

Posted on September 7, 2005
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Christina Aguilera, Wedding Singer?

Christina Aguilera netted a cool $2 million to sing for one hour at the lavish wedding of a Russian billionaire over the weekend. The wedding was held in the south of France, and the billionaire in question, Andrey Melnichenko, sprang for a private jet to ferry the singer to and from the event.

Following the 24-year-old on stage was Whitney Houston and Enrique Iglesias - who duetted with his famous father Julio. A source reveals, "Christina did a brilliant job. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when she sang "Beautiful." "But no one suspected how much she'd been paid - it's like winning the lottery for her."

You'd cry tears of joy too if you just picked up a cool $2 million for an hour's work that didn't even involved nudity or the breaking of any laws. Sweet!

Posted on September 6, 2005
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The Hurricane's Aftermath

Watching the news coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been a disturbing experience. The human suffering is just overwhelming. Our sister site, BloggersBlog.com has an entire section devoted to Hurricane Katrina here. The section has links to blogs covering the hurricane aftermath, local news with hourly updates, links to legitimate charities for those who'd like to help, and lots of news coverage.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those are have suffered and are still suffering during this national disaster.

Posted on September 2, 2005
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