TradersGuideofTexas.com

GILMER, Texas — Gilmer Mirror editor Mac Overton reported that a Gilmer resident entered the offices of the newspaper Aug. 19 and informed employees that a dead cow was lying in the rain-soaked intersection just outside the building.

Sure enough, the deceased bovine was sprawled in the street where Highways 271/155 and 154 cross.

“No, I don’t know what happened,” Mr. Overton told Traders Guide of Texas. “I suspect some rancher got to the sale barn and wondered what had happened to his cow.

“This pic will probably be in Saturday’s edition [of The Gilmer Mirror]. Maybe by then police will have more info. Meanwhile, I wonder if someone had rare steak for dinner tonight. Apparently the poor cow must have died instantly, thankfully.”

Mr. Overton said a city employee removed the animal by attaching it by chain to a truck and hauling it away.

PHOTO: A dead cow lies in a busy intersection in Gilmer, Texas, Aug. 19, 2008. Apparently the animal fell off a truck, possibly on the way to a sale barn. [Photo by Mac Overton]

A bank in Altoona, Pa., has filed suit against one of its customers after he spent nearly $300,000 mistakenly deposited into his account.

But wait. He didn’t spend any of it until after he had tried repeatedly to give the money back. So finally he gave up trying to give it back and spent more than $150,000. The bank discovered its mistake and is suing to recover the loot. Is that fair? What would you do? Read all about it.

Deep in the basement of a dusty old library in Edinburgh, Scotland, lies a small black box that churns out random numbers. The profoundly dull-looking device apparently sensed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center four hours before they happened and, in 2004, appeared to warn of the Asian tsunami, which killed more than 220,000 people.

This is “earth-shattering stuff,” says Dr. Roger Nelson, a researcher at Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.

Dr. Nelson’s Global Consciousness Project, originally hosted by Princeton, is one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. It aims to “sense” whether all of humanity shares a single unconscious mind that we all tap into without realizing it.

The project has attracted a roster of 75 respected scientists from 41 nations. Researchers in Princeton in the U.S.A. work alongside scientists from universities in Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany.

For much more on this startling story, follow this link. Or go directly to Princeton University’s Global Consciousness Project Web site. Also, feel free to scroll down this page and type a comment about this article posted on The Blurb at TradersGuideofTexas.com.

Linda Moulton Howe, an internationally known winner of regional Emmy awards as an investigative journalist, interviews witnesses of the many unidentified flying objects and lights reported in the skies over Stephenville, Texas, in January and February 2008. The Stephenville sightings differ from many others in many countries over the years in that some of the UFOs in the Stephenville area are accompanied by mysterious symbol-like shapes in the night sky. This link includes still photos and at least one video.

ILLUSTRATION: Artist depicts a UFO. In Stephenville no spacemen were reportedly sighted, and no craft were reported as landing.

BULLETIN: Linda Moulton Howe updates her coverage of the mysterious sightings in Stephenville. Law officers describe shape-shifting aerial craft in the Stephenville area.

The owner of a small computer company in Germany has fired three nonsmoking employees because he says they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment.

You can read the article in its entirety here.

Also, you’re invited to comment on the article. What’s your opinion? Have national, state and local governments gone overboard in requiring that many businesses not allow their employees or customers to light up?

Have some businesses also gone too far by no longer allowing smokers to light up anywhere on business property?

Just scroll down this page and type your comment in the space provided. Traders Guide of Texas will post the most interesting ones.

PHOTO: A smoker in olden days lights up.