News of the Weird

[InsaneApache]

This would have been weird a decade ago, alas not after Blairs tenure....


A shopkeeper has been fined £250 and given a criminal record because he fought back when he was attacked by shoplifters.

Jacob Smyth chased three youths out of his hardware shop in Penzance, Cornwall, when he was set upon. When he was kicked in the groin by one of the hooded youths who had stolen cans of spray paint Mr Smyth hit back.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2008072.ece

Apparently the shopkeeper had taken the law into his own hands, despite the fact he'd rung the police several times over thieves pinching his stock, and the fact that the police had done nothing. I mean, just who does the capitalist pig think he is? He should give his stock away to the oiks.

Thanks Tony for all you have given us in the UK. :shame:

[Husar]

He should have killed the guy and buried him in the backyard, these days that's the better option.:dizzy2:

[Crazed Rabbit]

That's a disgusting story, Apache. I don't think I want to visit Britain.

Crazed Rabbit

[KukriKhan]

Man gives CPR to Bale of Straw (http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/6564932p-5843463c.html)

Unknown whether the Straw Bale pulled through.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Deputies think the man had been drinking.

Hehe, understatement of the year methinks.

[Kralizec]

Man gives CPR to Bale of Straw (http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/6564932p-5843463c.html)

Unknown whether the Straw Bale pulled through.

Hmm, in a few months I'll be taking a First Aid education course, I hope they'll learn me to avoid embarassing situations like this :juggle2:

[InsaneApache]

I wonder if he did it the old fashioned way and delivered a thump to the sternum?

Then there is the accepted practise of mouth-to-nose, rather than mouth-to-mouth....does make you wonder what sort of women he's been :daisy: ing.

I wonder if he's visited our Drunkards tThread. :inquisitive: :sweatdrop:

[ShadesPanther]

The report says he thought Tuesday was Halloween

Well.... close enough.

[doc_bean]

Finally, I've found something weird enough !

Arrest for trying to lure teen World of Warcraft fan (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21997186-2,00.html)

[InsaneApache]

'Goddess' sacked for visiting US.....


A 10-year-old girl who is worshipped as a living goddess in Nepal has been stripped of her title for defying tradition and visiting the US.

Sajani Shakya was one of the three most-revered Kumaris, who are honoured by Hindus and Buddhists alike.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6264014.stm

I bet she went to Disneyland. :yes:

[English assassin]

So, now she is not a goddess, she WON'T be confined to a palace all year and wheeled out on three or four occasions for ritual blessings? I bet she is absolutely gutted.

Personally I wouldn't agree to be a god without at least getting the ability to hurl thunderbolts. And a few saucy goddesses to tend to my godly needs...:wink3:

[discovery1]

So, now she is not a goddess, she WON'T be confined to a palace all year and wheeled out on three or four occasions for ritual blessings? I bet she is absolutely gutted.

Personally I wouldn't agree to be a god without at least getting the ability to hurl thunderbolts. And a few saucy goddesses to tend to my godly needs...:wink3:

Actually she broke with tradition in not living in isolation. She went to school with other kids and even played video games with her friends.



Sajani is somewhat unique in that she is permitted outside of the "goddess house" where she lives with her family. Her fellow Kumaris, for the most part, live lives of isolation and devotion. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11710170)

[Lemur]

Free markets and politics, that's what it's all about. In this case, it's a startling 50% drop in the price of machetes (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0246874220070702) after a Nigerian election. No word about the Urgent Business Opportunity I heard about from this prince ...


The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported. [...]

"Before the conduct of the general elections, I was selling a minimum of seven machetes daily but can hardly sell one a day now," said Usman Masi, a trader quoted by NAN.


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/burnt-street-machete.jpg

[Andres]

Madrid Hotel Let "Stressed Out" People A Chance To Smash Rooms (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/03/world/main3012173.shtml)


"After a few blows comes exhaustion and with it the release of pain-relieving endorphins which make us feel much better."



MADRID, Spain, July 3, 2007

CBS/AP) A few lucky people in need of a stress break were offered the ultimate, if unconventional, therapy.

A Spanish hotel chain planning renovations at one of its Madrid locations offered 30 "highly stressed out people," selected by a team of psychologists, the chance to take up sledge hammers and battering rams and rampage through the its rooms on Tuesday.

And rampage they did.

Wearing protective dust masks, goggles, white overalls, helmets and gloves, the amateur demolition crew swung hammers into television sets and bedroom walls and tossed beds and desks like hard-partying rock stars.

In their wake they left a trail of splintered debris in rooms that not long before had hosted traveling salesmen and tourists.

The NH Alcala hotel in Madrid, part of a chain of 335 hotels on three continents, said it decided to forgo hiring professionals and let selected customers carry out the facelift, and in so doing generate a bit of headline-making publicity.

"Who hasn't dreamed, in the middle of a stress attack, of breaking everything around them?" NH hotels said in a statement.

The hotel's marketing department admitted the idea did not originate from them but from customers who wanted to participate in NH's remodeling plans for the Alcala hotel, even "offering to destroy the furniture," reports the Spanish daily El Pais.

"After a few blows comes exhaustion and with it the release of pain-relieving endorphins which make us feel much better," said psychologist Laura Garcia Agustin.

Despite having been inaugurated as recently as 1996, the hotel's interior looked dated and dowdy, hotel executives said, more 1970s than new millennium. Facing the capital's large Retiro park in the exclusive Salamanca district, the hotel was clearly lagging behind in modern Madrid.

Those involved in the stress-relieving demolition will be invited back to admire the establishment's new interior at an event in September, the chain said.

I'm sooo jealous...

[Andres]

Watch out! He's got a fish! (http://www.wftv.com/news/13612090/detail.html)

DESTIN, Fla. -- A cat fight between two Destin friends ended painfully for one man.

One man threw a catfish at his 22-year-old friend Monday. The fins went in about three-quarters of an inch and stuck in the unidentified man's back.

Lifeguards cut the fish away and the men was taken to a hospital.

[Husar]

I'm sooo jealous...
Same here.:sweatdrop:

[Marshal Murat]

Al Gore III gets arrested with drugs. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8Q5SNPG2&show_article=1)

I didn't know a Prius could go over 40.

[Gregoshi]

Al Gore III gets arrested with drugs. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8Q5SNPG2&show_article=1)

Hmmm, that's got to be an inconvenient truth for Al Jr. :laugh4:

[KukriKhan]

Pops will be so proud; I'm sure he was doing 100mph simply to quickly recharge the batteries. Think of the itsy-bitsy carbon footprint of miles traveled over ounces of gasoline used.

More like a carbon toe-print.

[Papewaio]

Madrid Hotel Let "Stressed Out" People A Chance To Smash Rooms (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/03/world/main3012173.shtml)





MADRID, Spain, July 3, 2007

CBS/AP) A few lucky people in need of a stress break were offered the ultimate, if unconventional, therapy.

A Spanish hotel chain planning renovations at one of its Madrid locations offered 30 "highly stressed out people," selected by a team of psychologists, the chance to take up sledge hammers and battering rams and rampage through the its rooms on Tuesday.

And rampage they did.

Wearing protective dust masks, goggles, white overalls, helmets and gloves, the amateur demolition crew swung hammers into television sets and bedroom walls and tossed beds and desks like hard-partying rock stars.

In their wake they left a trail of splintered debris in rooms that not long before had hosted traveling salesmen and tourists.

The NH Alcala hotel in Madrid, part of a chain of 335 hotels on three continents, said it decided to forgo hiring professionals and let selected customers carry out the facelift, and in so doing generate a bit of headline-making publicity.

"Who hasn't dreamed, in the middle of a stress attack, of breaking everything around them?" NH hotels said in a statement.

The hotel's marketing department admitted the idea did not originate from them but from customers who wanted to participate in NH's remodeling plans for the Alcala hotel, even "offering to destroy the furniture," reports the Spanish daily El Pais.

"After a few blows comes exhaustion and with it the release of pain-relieving endorphins which make us feel much better," said psychologist Laura Garcia Agustin.

Despite having been inaugurated as recently as 1996, the hotel's interior looked dated and dowdy, hotel executives said, more 1970s than new millennium. Facing the capital's large Retiro park in the exclusive Salamanca district, the hotel was clearly lagging behind in modern Madrid.

Those involved in the stress-relieving demolition will be invited back to admire the establishment's new interior at an event in September, the chain said.

I'm sooo jealous...

Hehe I had a uni vacation job smashing glass... it went into shop facades with neon lights behind them to make well something that looks like ice / gems.

[InsaneApache]

Who's the daddy?


BIRMINGHAM Marcia and Millie Biggs, are twin sisters, but one is black and the other is white.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/child_health/article2028663.ece

Quite extraordinary.

[Petrus]

Who's the daddy?



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/child_health/article2028663.ece

Quite extraordinary.

Beautiful.

It enlightens my day.

[doc_bean]

Who's the daddy?



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/child_health/article2028663.ece

Quite extraordinary.

It actually happens fairly often it seems, I've heard of at least two other cases like it in recent year (one being the daughters of a famous footballer here iirc).

[English assassin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/6274044.stm

Its summer fete time here in the UK, and the cake baking contests are tougher than I thought. Even being the only entrant doesn't guarantee first place...

Woman runner-up in one-horse race
A grandmother won second prize in a cake-baking contest at a fete, only to discover she was the only entrant.
Jenny Brown, 62, entered her Victoria Sponge into the competition and was initially pleased to have come second.

But she was left shocked when a friend revealed to her that she was the only person to take part.

The contest was organised by the Wimblington Sports Committee and judges marked down the cake because it had indentations from the oven rack.

'Judges' expectations'

Ms Brown said: "My friend came over to me at the fete and said I had come second.

"I asked her how many more entries there had been, but she just started laughing and said I was the only one.

"I definitely wasn't annoyed about it."

Although the cake was not deemed fit to win the competition, Ms Brown said it was soon polished off with no complaints.

Julie Dent, from the Wimblington Sports Committee, said: "The judges had an expectation and I suppose they didn't feel as though it qualified for first place.

"This was the first year but the cake competition will become an annual event."

She said her own baking was subject to another strange decision.

"About 11 years ago I entered a show with some fruit scones. I was the only entrant but I came third."

[Marshal Murat]

There were Fireworks? (http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_185134600.html)

Good job Philly!

[Lemur]

Ms Brown said: "My friend came over to me at the fete and said I had come second.

"I asked her how many more entries there had been, but she just started laughing and said I was the only one.

"I definitely wasn't annoyed about it."
That is so quintessentially British. I can't say why, exactly, but you just can't see that sort of thing happening in France, or Texas, or much of anyplace else.

[Fisherking]

I agree to that! And I am sure there was a que for a piece of cake afterwards.

[Banquo's Ghost]

That is so quintessentially British. I can't say why, exactly, but you just can't see that sort of thing happening in France, or Texas, or much of anyplace else.

In a sense, you are right - but the hidden undercurrents of age-old jealousies and hatreds permeate the English country fete to a degree that would curl your toes. She was only sanguine because no-one else won. If Mrs Battersby from Underwhelming-in-the-Wold had pipped her, you could have frozen a ham at twenty paces from her polite congratulations.

[InsaneApache]

Mrs Battersby from Underwhelming-in-the-Wold

LMFAO. :2thumbsup:

[Gregoshi]

God (or whoever you do or don't worship) bless the British! :laugh4:

Where is this Underwhelming-in-the-Wold? Sounds like my kind of place.

[Papewaio]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=277096Woman nearly dies after Brazilian wax

Not only does she nearly die from the wax, 6 months later she decides to get shaved instead and almost dies a second time. :dizzy2:

A young Melbourne woman almost died last year after a trainee waxer botched a Brazilian and gave her a horrific infection.

The beauty treatment left the 20-year-old with some minor cuts, which later became infected and grew into a rash which extended to her chest, arms and neck.

The infection got so bad that at first Austin hospital doctors thought she had a flesh-eating disease, but discovered the truth when they examined her under a general anaesthetic.

Doctors used anitbiotics to save the woman, who suffers from diabetes and has a lower immune system.

But just six months later the same woman was back again with a similar condition — this time caused by shaving —

[Hosakawa Tito]

A hair raising experience to be sure, Pape. Next treatment option; wrap hairy areas in athletic tape and tear it off? it feels so good when they stop

[Lemur]

Man has one eye poked out by an angry lover. They get back together. Much to no-one's surprise, she pokes the other one out (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSHKG33247020070705?feedType=RSS). It must have been a vision thing.

Blinded by love, man stabbed in eye by girlfriend

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong woman who blinded her boyfriend in one eye in a fight six years ago has been jailed for jabbing a chopstick into his other eye, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Last November, Po Shiu-fong, 58, accused long-time boyfriend Kwok Wai-ming, 49, of having an affair, the South China Morning Post reported.

During the row, Po stabbed a plastic chopstick into his left eye, which she had already blinded six years ago when she poked it with her finger.

"Po became hysterical when she saw the wound and mopped it with a towel. The pair then went to bed," the paper said.

"The next morning they had another argument in which she grabbed a chopstick and stabbed Kwok's right eye," it said.

Two days later, he sought medical treatment and filed a police report against Po, whom he had dated since 1993.

The paper said he didn't report the attack six years ago, telling the court his silence was "a love sacrifice."

Kwok lost 10 to 20 percent vision in his right eye, the paper said.

Po was jailed for six months on Tuesday.

"If I forgive her, God would not forgive me," the paper quoted Kwok as saying. "No matter what, nothing could compensate for the loss of my eye."

[Husar]

Bad memories? Just delete them. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2007/07/01/scimemo101.xml)


Researchers have found they can use drugs to wipe away single, specific memories while leaving other memories intact. By injecting an amnesia drug at the right time, when a subject was recalling a particular thought, neuro-scientists discovered they could disrupt the way the memory is stored and even make it disappear.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Police hunt renegade cow botherer (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/06/english_longhorn/).

Nocturnal bovine botherer caught in the act

By Lester Haines


North Yorkshire police are on a state of high alert after a youth was spotted coupling with an English longhorn cow at a specialist breeder's farm in Skipwith, The Sun reports.

The lad was clocked at 4.30am, dressed only in black briefs, by a "shocked" passer-by who interruped proceedings by shouting at the nocturnal bovine botherer. A 999 call alerted the authorities, but when officers arrived at the scene, the perp had made good his escape.

Farmer Richard Parish also declared himself "shocked", adding: "English longhorns are lovely animals - but not that lovely. My mates are having a right laugh and milking it for all it is worth."

Parish believes he has identified the victim - one of three longhorns on the farm - as Blondie, described as the "friendliest" of the bunch. The psychological effect on the animal is not noted, but Parish said: "I have got to be much more vigilant. The cows don't seem to be spending so much time outside and are happier inside the barn at night."

Residents of Skipwith, population 300, do not believe the outrage was committed by a local, and police night-time patrols are "on the alert in case he strikes again". They said: "We are treating this matter seriously."

Down to his briefs at 4.30am in the English countryside? The lad must have been Friesian if he wasn't wearing a Jersey. I wonder if the lady wished him good bison?

[Gregoshi]

I'm in the mooooooood for love
Especially because you're steer meat
Especially because you're steer meat
I'm in the mooooooood for love.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Feeling lucky? Tomorrow might be your day. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070705/ap_on_re_us/lucky7_day)

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

My mates are having a right laugh and milking it for all it is worth."

:laugh4:

[Hosakawa Tito]

Boy, this job will look good on the resume. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070706/od_nm/australia_condoms_dc;_ylt=ApPbzwUBCU_rPvvCr7ddXRoZ)
I gotta get one of those hats.:laugh4:

[ShadesPanther]

Saw this yesterday but couldn't find a link. If this doesn't win News of the Weird I don't know what will.

Therapist slept with Split personalities patient's other half (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=466719&in_page_id=1811)

[Gregoshi]

Therapist slept with Split personalities patient's other half (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=466719&in_page_id=1811)
Blaeker obviously has a private practice and is not a Sybill servant.

[lars573]

WOW playing couple run a guild, by themselfs. (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/a-real-raid-array/world-of-warcraft-addict-constructs-massive-47-pc-setup-275902.php) That's right just the two of them. 47 PC's, 46 WOW clients, and 46 WOW accounts. Just thinking about the amount of $ they spent on this gives me a small cereberal hemmorage. My nose is bleeding right now.

[Husar]

That's just sick, Lars.:no:

[Andres]

Estonia dominates wife-carrying championship (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKL0769439420070707)



The winning couple received plasma televisions and Klauson's weight, 49 kilograms, in beer.


SONKAJARVI, Finland (Reuters) - Estonians took gold and silver at the world wife-carrying championships in Finland on Saturday, defying rain and exhaustion to stumble along a path with women clinging upside-down to their backs.

They were among 44 couples from 12 countries competing in the annual event in Sonkajarvi, central Finland.

The race, held for the 12th time, is intended to evoke the spirit of a legendary Finnish brigand, Rosvo-Ronkainen, who made those who wanted to join his gang run through a forest carrying heavy sacks on their backs.

In the modern version, couples race along a 250-metre track, tackling a pool and several hurdles, with the men carrying the women on their backs.

Estonian Madis Uusorg finished first, in a time of 61.7 seconds, despite having Inga Klauson on his back upside-down with her legs around his neck.

Madis Uusorg is the brother of last year's winner, Margo Uusorg, who holds the world record for the event of 56.9 seconds.

"I'm feeling really great because we won," Madis said afterwards. "It was my fifth time here, second time to win this competition. And it was the first time to beat my brother!"

Margo won his fifth world championship in 2006 and said at the time it might be his last.

He could not resist turning up again this year, carrying a rather heavily built Julia Galvin from Ireland, but the pair could only manage 29th place.

"I kept my promise, having won last year, of carrying Julia this year," he said.

John Keerie, a Briton living in Helsinki, ran the race dressed as convict. He carried his wife Aino Telaranta-Keerie into 19th place.
"I drowned in that pool, but at least my wig is still in place. Now for beer," he said.

The winning couple received plasma televisions and Klauson's weight, 49 kilograms, in beer.

"My goal was to have fun. But not only did we have fun, but so did our kids and the people here had fun," said American James Lafferty from Ohio, who carried his wife Susan into 33rd place.

The purpose of it all? So the town of Sonkajarvi can spread a little happiness, said organiser Veikko Tervonen, with a smile.

[InsaneApache]

Hells Bells! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6283950.stm)


School 'rejects boy called Hell'
An Australian Catholic school is at the centre of an unholy row over claims it refused entry to a five-year-old boy whose surname is Hell.

and there was me thinking that Richard Hell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RI17P74ybc) was a made up name. :inquisitive: :laugh4:

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Crazy Doctor prescribes exorcism for stomach pain. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6284688.stm)

Struck off much?

[doc_bean]

WOW playing couple run a guild, by themselfs. (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/a-real-raid-array/world-of-warcraft-addict-constructs-massive-47-pc-setup-275902.php) That's right just the two of them. 47 PC's, 46 WOW clients, and 46 WOW accounts. Just thinking about the amount of $ they spent on this gives me a small cereberal hemmorage. My nose is bleeding right now.


The problem with massive online games is that they're full of other people.

:laugh4:

[Dave1984]

Cheeky (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070709/tod-britain-court-islam-6058bda.html)

LONDON (AFP) - A female Muslim juror has been arrested in Britain after allegedly listening to an MP3 player under her hijab headscarf during a murder trial, police said Monday.

The woman in her early 20s was spotted by a fellow juror listening to music as she was meant to be helping try the case of a pensioner accused of bludgeoning his wife to death after 50 years of marriage.

She could now be charged with contempt of court and, if convicted, may be punished with an indefinite jail sentence and an unlimited fine.

Details emerged after the defendant was convicted and Judge Roger Chapple lifted a reporting restriction which prevented previous publication of the details for fear of disrupting proceedings.

The woman had repeatedly arrived late for hearings at Blackfriars Crown Court, central London, and prosecuting lawyer Peter Clarke asked for her to be dismissed.

The judge initially refused, saying it was not necessary, but a day later, he received a note from another juror suggesting that the woman may have been listening to music during the defendant's evidence.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that police were called by a judge hearing a case at Blackfriars "regarding the inappropriate actions of a juror."

"A woman was arrested for contempt of court on the direction of the judge," he added. "Following the conclusion of the trial, the judge has requested that the matter be investigated."

Lawyer Benn Maguire, a member of the team prosecuting the murder case, said: "It is unique for all those who are connected with this court to experience a situation where the juror is suspected of listening to a MP3 player under her Islamic headgear."

He added that he expected the woman would go to prison if she was charged and found guilty of contempt.

[Gregoshi]

A female Muslim juror has been arrested in Britain after allegedly listening to an MP3 player under her hijab headscarf during a murder trial, police said Monday.

Now that juror will have to face the music.

[Lemur]

I guess he was peddling the wrong books: man selling religious literature is struck by lightning from a clear blue sky. On Sunday. (http://kutv.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_190140139.html)

Religious Book Seller Struck By Lightning

Jul 9, 2007

A man making a trip from Puerto Rico to South Florida to raise money for his religious education remains hospitalized Monday after he was struck down by a bolt of lightning which flew from clear blue sky on Sunday. He was selling religious materials when he was hit.

Hailu Kidane Marian was working with members of his religious group, selling religious materials door-to-door in a Northwest Miami-Dade neighborhood, when the bolt from the blue struck him down.

"I heard a boom, and I looked and the guy jumped back, and he just laid there, stiff," said witness Maria Martinez.

Paramedics say Marian was not breathing and his heart was not beating when they arrived, but they were able to revive him and rushed him to Jackson Memorial hospital, where he was in critical condition Sunday night.

Members of his religious group waited outside the hospital throughout the night for word of his condition.

"He's unconscious, he's in a coma," said Francisco Perez, leader of the Puerto Rico-based group. "It's difficult what happened, you know, but what can we do? Things happen in life, but we still believe in God."

This is the second incident in as many months of someone being struck down by lightning from a clear sky in South Florida.

Last month David Canales, a gardener who worked in the Pinecrest area, was killed when lightning apparently struck him from a rainless sky. Two co-workers standing nearby were unhurt.

CBS Miami Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli said 'dry lightning', which can strike even when the sky is clear, can be very dangerous because victims are not expecting it and don't prepare as they might with a storm threatening.

Measurement of lightning strikes in the area Sunday showed only a few bolts compared to the last few days, making Marian especially unlucky to be struck by one of them.

Nobody else was injured when the bolt flew from the sky.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Now that juror will have to face the music.Yeah, that juror hasn't heard the end of this case yet.
But it all sounds like a masquerade to me. If she really made a covert attempt to evade her jury duties she would've masked it better. One iWitness stating she had an iPod under her hijab headscarf sounds like a thinly veiled attempt at a cover-up.



An Australian Catholic school is at the centre of an unholy row over claims it refused entry to a five-year-old boy with the surname HellMan, what an outrage. If I were this kids parents I'd be raising hell right now.


:sweatdrop:

[InsaneApache]

Crazy Doctor prescribes exorcism for stomach pain. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6284688.stm)

Struck off much?

What a prat. :furious3:

[lars573]

Man, what an outrage. If I were this kids parents I'd be raising hell right now.
:tomato:

[ShadesPanther]

Man, what an outrage. If I were this kids parents I'd be raising hell right now

:sweatdrop:

I know the school has now got Hell to pay for not letting him in.

[Lemur]

Two words that shouldn't go together: eyeball tattoo (http://www.ectomo.com/?p=206).


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/200707021111-pix1.jpg

[Csargo]

:shocked:

[Gregoshi]

Lemur, you just threaded the eye of the needle. :laugh4:

[ShadesPanther]

The tattooo artist has to be careful he doesn't put someone's eye out with that needle.
I wonder if the ink has a "No more tears" formula.









I'll get my coat.

[Papewaio]

I wonder if they can do that for Albinos so that the eye is less likely to get cancer... an artificial melanin...

[King Henry V]

Hells Bells! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6283950.stm)



and there was me thinking that Richard Hell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RI17P74ybc) was a made up name. :inquisitive: :laugh4:
Rofl, reminds me of this video by Rowan Atkinson. (Warming: does contain language of a sexual nature, mods please delete if deemed inappropriate). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEGwx2txuc

[naut]

LMAO, talk about starting out on the wrong foot. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/bride-arrested-after-attacking-groom-with-shoe/2007/07/11/1183833555037.html)

[Pannonian]

British blamed for mysterious Beast of Basra (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2059824.ece)

"British forces operating around the southern Iraqi city of Basra are being blamed for the arrival of a plague of vicious badgers that stalk the streets at night, attacking livestock and even humans."

[Gregoshi]

"If we built this large, wooden badger..." - Sir Bedevere

It is the British, but it's not what anyone thinks.

[drone]

British blamed for mysterious Beast of Basra (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2059824.ece)

"British forces operating around the southern Iraqi city of Basra are being blamed for the arrival of a plague of vicious badgers that stalk the streets at night, attacking livestock and even humans."
Badgers? Badgers? We don't need no stinking badgers.

Edit-> Coooool. Street pinball! (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07191/800583-85.stm)
Alex Habay was in his Ford Taurus, stopped at a traffic light in downtown Meadville, Crawford County, yesterday morning, thinking about nothing, idly listening to a radio commercial while on his way to his summer job at the YMCA.

That's when a 1,500-pound wrecking ball smashed into the rear of his car.

"I was in complete bewilderment," said Mr. Habay, 20, of Hampton, a junior at Allegheny College. "At first I thought it was a car, but when I turned around there was no car.

[Lemur]

Priceless:


UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

[InsaneApache]

but they didn't mention Iran.

:creep:

[Gregoshi]

But they have released killer Mosque Rats.

[InsaneApache]

'ey yup lad, tha's gitten a degree'


"Ideally, we'd like people to talk about David Hockney, Tony Harrison, Henry Moore, the Beatles, and all these cultural expressions of the north, rather than these stereotypes that are no more than that - stereotypes of whippets and flat caps."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6896081.stm

Personally I'm gutted that they'll be missing out on steak pudding and black mushy peas, honeycombe tripe, monkeys elbow and hotpot.

Another thing, since when did the Beatles come from oop north? I thought they were scousers. :laugh4:

[sapi]

Priceless:


UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
:laugh4:

[Fragony]

Man eating badgers aren't quite it. Listen to this, Iran has arrested 40 squirrels that were probing Iran borders. All equiped with the latest technoligy, think of eyes, ears, and fuzzy tails.

[Papewaio]

World's tallest man meets world's smallest man (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22071138-2,00.html)



MONGOLIA, home to the world's tallest man, may well also be home to the world's shortest.

Bao Xishun, a 2.36m herdsman from Inner Mongolia, was yesterday introduced to He Pingping, who only measures 73cm.

Pingping, 19, was only the size of an adult's palm at birth, according to his father He Yun, and is seeking the official record as the world's smallest person.

That is a huge variation... kind of proves my point that there are larger variations within a group of humans then between...:2thumbsup:

[Andres]

Woman runs away with severed penis. (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20070713081005148C920110)


Due to the remoteness of the village, the victim, 23-year-old Markus Hunbani, only reached the regional hospital in Kupang on Thursday, four days after the incident.



Kupang, Indonesia - A woman in a remote Indonesian island village cut off her boyfriend's penis in an apparent jealous rage, Indonesian police said Friday.

"The incident was based on jealousy because the victim was allegedly cheating," said Commissioner Marthen Radja, regional police spokesperson for Timor island.

The woman, Erlin Mafefa, 22, had been arrested and was being held near the village, he said, adding it was still not clear what she had done with the severed penis.

"What we know of what happened was they were playing around then suddenly the woman got angry and cut the victim's penis off and ran away with it," he said.

Due to the remoteness of the village, the victim, 23-year-old Markus Hunbani, only reached the regional hospital in Kupang on Thursday, four days after the incident.

[Cowhead418]

I know this story is a bit old, but...

Hate those awkward conversations during your sit-down sessions? Well, Amsterdam has taken bathroom talking to a whole new level (http://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/423859%7Coddlyenough%7C08-27-2004::12:28%7Creuters.html)

I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty pee-ved about this.:shame:

(I've also read a story about a German inventor doing this, but I can't seem to find it)

[Adrian II]

I know this story is a bit old, but...

Hate those awkward conversations during your sit-down sessions? Well, Amsterdam has taken bathroom talking to a whole new level (http://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/423859%7Coddlyenough%7C08-27-2004::12:28%7Creuters.html)

I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty pee-ved about this.:shame:

(I've also read a story about a German inventor doing this, but I can't seem to find it)Just the pr Holland needs. A bog with a attitude... :no:

[Pannonian]

Mighty apes (http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2126328,00.html)

Still awaiting confirmation, so do Orgahs think they're telling the truth, do are they lion?

[Lord Winter]

Man Destroys telephone polls with APC (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/australia.tank.reut/index.html)

[Husar]

"You might consider sitting down next time," the toilet told a male Reuters reporter politely in a female robot voice. The next user was told that "The last visitor did not take heed of basic rules of hygiene."
Those dirty Reuters reporters.:whip:

[Andres]

Those dirty Reuters reporters.:whip:


:laugh4:

[Fragony]

It's my fundamental right to have sex!!!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Dutchman_doesnt_get_fill_goes_to_cops/articleshow/2202360.cms :laugh4:

[sapi]

Man Destroys telephone polls with APC (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/australia.tank.reut/index.html)
Saw that one yesterday :laugh4:

[insert pun here]

[Louis VI the Fat]

Attentive German bus driver thwarts terrorist plot to endanger German public transport with Weapons of Mass Distraction (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22085306-13762,00.html?from=mostpop):

Woman told she is too sexy for bus

A GERMAN bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy.

"Suddenly he stopped the bus," the woman named Debora C told Bild newspaper.

"He opened the door and shouted at me 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus."'

The woman, pictured in Bild wearing her snug-fitting summer outfit with the plunging neckline, said she moved to another seat but was humiliated by the bus driver.

A spokesman for the bus company defended the driver.

"The bus driver is allowed to do that and he did the right thing," the spokesman said.

"A bus driver cannot be distracted because it's a danger to the safety of all the passengers."

[Gregoshi]

My hat's off to the bus driver. I bet he wishes he was a bust driver though.

[Pannonian]

The woman, pictured in Bild wearing her snug-fitting summer outfit with the plunging neckline, said she moved to another seat but was humiliated by the bus driver.

Is Bild available online?

Looks

Wow. Bild Zeitung makes The Sun look like the Financial Times.

[Ronin]

the bus driver´s argument makes no sense....


there is no such thing as "too sexy" :laugh4:

P.S.- I second the motion demanding a picture....we must have photographic evidence to correctly evaluate...errr...this case :smash: :2thumbsup:

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

the bus driver´s argument makes no sense....


there is no such thing as "too sexy" :laugh4:


:inquisitive:


I'm too sexy for my love too sexy for my love
Love's going to leave me

I'm too sexy for my shirt too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts
And I'm too sexy for Milan too sexy for Milan
New York and Japan
And I'm too sexy for your party
Too sexy for your party
No way I'm disco dancing

I'm a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I do my little turn on the catwalk

I'm too sexy for my car too sexy for my car
Too sexy by far
And I'm too sexy for my hat
Too sexy for my hat what do you think about that

I'm a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little touche on the catwalk

I'm too sexy for my too sexy for my too sexy for my

'Cos I'm a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little touche on the catwalk

I'm too sexy for my cat too sexy for my cat
Poor pussy poor pussy cat
I'm too sexy for my love too sexy for my love
Love's going to leave me

And I'm too sexy for this song

[InsaneApache]

Donkey owners in the Kenyan town of Limuru are up in arms over an order from the municipal authorities that their animals must wear nappies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6902309.stm

:laugh4:

It'd need a bloody great big safety pin to hold 'em up. :laugh4:

[Lemur]

Hear hear, point of order! Someone must post a picture of this German girl who is "too sexy." Unless we see for ourselves, we can never make a proper judgement.

In other news, Wal-Mart (http://www.local6.com/news/13686443/detail.html) will begin selling religious action figures, including Jesus, Moses and Samson. And it's about darn time, if you ask me. Too long have the lemur children been allowed to while away their afternoons with ungodly action figures. Time to bring the noise (http://store.messengersoffaith.net/) holy spirit style.


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/spiritwarriors.jpg

Wal-Mart To Sell Jesus, Religious Action Figures

420 Stores Will Carry Line Of Faith-Based Toys

POSTED: 6:44 am EDT July 16, 2007

For the first time, the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart will sell a line of religious toys, according to a WKMG-TV report.

More than 420 Wal-Mart stores nationwide will begin carrying the faith-based toys that include Jesus and Samson action figures.

Only about one-sixth of stores will carry the toys.

A Wal-Mart representative told USA Today that stores that sell a lot of Bibles will carry the new line.

The toys are produced by One2believe.

The company targets parents who would rather their children play with the faith-based toys rather toys rather than other super hero action figures, the report said.

The items will likely go on sale early next month.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

[ShadesPanther]

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/spiritwarriors.jpg


Why does that picture seem strangely homoerotic.. :laugh4: :inquisitive:

[InsaneApache]

I'll bet there isn't one of Mohammed. :sweatdrop:

[Ronin]

does the steel cage come with the toy or is it sold separately? :laugh4:

and also...does it come with kung-foo grip? :inquisitive: :clown:


I hope they have a Mohammed figure....imagine the fun you can have....

Jesus vs. Mohammed in a one time steel cage match for all our souls!!!

World Wide Fundamentalist Wrestling....


LET`S GET READY TO HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMBLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE!

[ShadesPanther]

Jesus vs. Mohammed in a one time steel cage match for all our souls!!!


Mohammed would win easy.

[Ronin]

Mohammed would win easy.


We will have to see about that....

*wrestling promo mode on*

it´s Jesus´s Flying Crucifix Pin against Mohammed´s Triple Jump Arabian Facebuster

The King of Kings against The Prophet!!!

only one man can emerge victorious!!!

It´s the grudge match of the millennium.....steel cage...no rules......no outside interference

Two man enter...one man leaves...there can only be one highlander!!! :laugh4:

don´t miss it...this sunday on Pay Per View!!!!

*wrestling promo mode off*

[Gregoshi]

World Wide Fundamentalist Wrestling....


LET`S GET READY TO HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMBLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE!

...it´s Jesus´s Flying Crucifix Pin against Mohammed´s Triple Jump Arabian Facebuster

~:joker: I'm not even gonna try to contest the Master of wrestling promotion...the winna and still Champeen - Rooooonin!

Classics! :laugh4:

[Louis VI the Fat]

Here's that décolleté!

Unlike that Australian source, the Francophone press, in its desire to present their discerning intellectual audience with the relevant facts at all times, shows a picture that presents this case from a factual and objective point of view.
Be warned though that, at least according to the bus driver, the following image is Not Safe For Work:

https://img63.imageshack.us/img63/9007/decollete987564da6.jpg



tbh, the article (http://www.kisa.fr/Debora_C_trop_sexy_72686840597854.html) is not clear whether this is the actual décolleté, but it makes a fair point for the driver anyway. :sweatdrop:

[InsaneApache]

I can't see the problem. :inquisitive: :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

Go Frexas

[Strike For The South]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/17/prison.parachutes.ap/index.html

Strange Us troops land in a prison. Scandolus

[drone]

Warning - link has picture of chalk-based nudity!
Pagans have a cow over Homer (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007320865,00.html)
PAGANS have pledged to perform “rain magic” to wash away cartoon character Homer Simpson who was painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.

The 17th century chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant is believed by many to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.

Many couples also believe the 180ft giant, which is carved in the hillside above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, is an aid to fertility.

A giant 180ft Homer Simpson brandishing a doughnut was painted next to the well-endowed figure today in a publicity stunt to promote The Simpsons Movie released later this month.

[drone]

Sorry for the double post, but this one was amusing, in a pathetic, "we're so screwed" kind of way. And it's .Org friendly! :2thumbsup:

Gah! Poll: 'None of the above' leads GOP field (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/17/presidential.poll.none.ap/index.html)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- And the leading Republican presidential candidate is ... none of the above.

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner among Christian evangelicals. Such dissatisfaction underscores the volatility of the 2008 GOP nomination fight.
.
.
.
More Republicans have become apathetic about their options over the past month.

A hefty 23 percent can't or won't say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.

Giuliani's popularity continued to decline steadily as he faced a spate of headline headaches, came under increased scrutiny and saw the potential entry of Thompson in the mix; his support is at 21 percent compared with 27 percent in June and 35 percent in March.

The former New York mayor is running virtually even with Thompson, who has become a threat without even officially entering the race. The actor and former Tennessee senator has stayed steady at 19 percent. McCain, the Arizona senator who is revamping his nearly broke campaign, clocked in a bit lower at 15 percent, while Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, remained at 11 percent.

None of the top candidates has a clear lead among Christian evangelicals, a critical part of the GOP base that has had considerable sway in past Republican primaries. Giuliani, a thrice-married backer of abortion rights and gay rights, had 20 percent support -- roughly even with Thompson and McCain who have one divorce each in their pasts. Romney, a Mormon who has been married for three decades, was in the single digits.

Among the legions of undecided Republicans is Barbara Skogman, 72, a retired legal assistant from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She isn't at all excited about any of the prospects.

"I'm looking for a strong honest person. Do you know of any?" she joked. She had an easy time detailing why she was queasy about each of the most serious contenders. "Isn't that sad?" Then she reached a conclusion: "I just don't know."

[English assassin]

Not strictly weird, this, but I was amused.

As cycling fans will know, this years Tour de france began in England, and the first stage took the riders through God's own county, Kent. As it happens I was there on holiday that week. How did Kent celebrate this event? Well, the entente was indeed cordiale, with villages along the route displaying tricoleurs and union flags, smiling crowds, French food, and so on.

So, how did Kent's largest conurbation mark the event?


To commemorate the Tour de France visiting Medway on Sunday 8th July, Fort Amherst will be hosting a Napoleonic Battle, British Redcoats against the French all weekend

Yes, that's the way to make the French feel welcome, dress up as Redcoats and shoot the **** out of them.:laugh4:

Don't mention the (Napoleonic) war...

[Ronin]

Continuing on the Tour de France motive

2 German TV stations stop transmitting event (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/18/business/tour.php)


German cyclist gets busted for doping....German TV stations throw a hissy fit and stop broadcasting the event....how mature... :inquisitive: :dizzy2:

[Gregoshi]

Talk about doping...

[ShadesPanther]

Continuing on the Tour de France motive

2 German TV stations stop transmitting event (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/18/business/tour.php)


German cyclist gets busted for doping....German TV stations throw a hissy fit and stop broadcasting the event....how mature... :inquisitive: :dizzy2:

Yeah, you wonder what the German TV stations are smoking....

[drone]

Cheney is going to be President! (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001039.html?hpid=moreheadlines)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush will undergo a routine colonoscopy Saturday and temporarily hand presidential powers over to Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House said.
The good folks in the WaPo photo department should be congratulated here, that pic of Bush is...appropriate. ~D

There are so many jokes here, I don't know where to start.

[Gregoshi]

A lot of people have been hoping Bush would get it in the end...dreams can come true. I'm sure Cheney's behind Bush all the way. :2thumbsup:

[Lemur]

I don't see why people are freaking about Cheney. Dick's a stand-up guy, and if Bush needs to lay down for a while, Dick's steadfast uprightness will see us through.

Too easy, really.

[seireikhaan]

Lol, nice picture of Bush in that article. It looks like he's trying to pass a kidney stone.:laugh4:

[Don Corleone]

I don't see why people are freaking about Cheney. Dick's a stand-up guy, and if Bush needs to lay down for a while, Dick's steadfast uprightness will see us through.

Too easy, really.

I wonder if Dick Cheney has it in him to pull a Roger Mortimer, while Bush is uhm, 'assuming the position'? :help:

[Lemur]

As long as we're beating up on America, let's do it in style:

Wal-Mart is selling beach flip-flops (http://consumerist.com/consumer/dangerous-defects/woman-receives-severe-chemical-burns-from-flip-flops-walmart-tells-her-to-complain-to-manufacturer-280572.php) that give severe chemical burns. They're still on sale, so hurry while supplies last! (And really, at $2.44 per pair, you should be paying them for the privilege of burning you.)


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/flipflopsa.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/kerrysfeet.jpg

[English assassin]

Here's that décolleté!

Unlike that Australian source, the Francophone press, in its desire to present their discerning intellectual audience with the relevant facts at all times, shows a picture that presents this case from a factual and objective point of view.
Be warned though that, at least according to the bus driver, the following image is Not Safe For Work:

https://img63.imageshack.us/img63/9007/decollete987564da6.jpg



tbh, the article (http://www.kisa.fr/Debora_C_trop_sexy_72686840597854.html) is not clear whether this is the actual décolleté, but it makes a fair point for the driver anyway. :sweatdrop:

I make no apologies for reviving this one. Did anyone else notice that, as well as a very fine decollete, the article had possibly the most one sided poll in the whole history of the internet? Vis : Ëtes vous pour ou contre les décolletés sexy ? Réagissez à l'article

In a FRENCH newspaper to boot, just in case the "Oui" vote needed any more boosting. :laugh4:

[Gregoshi]

Wal-Mart is selling beach flip-flops (http://consumerist.com/consumer/dangerous-defects/woman-receives-severe-chemical-burns-from-flip-flops-walmart-tells-her-to-complain-to-manufacturer-280572.php) that give severe chemical burns.
Silly - you wear them when you forget to put sunscreen on your feet. The chemical burn covers up that embarrassing non-sun-burned white stripe you'd get with regular flip-flops. Your feet have a nice, red, uniform appearance. :yes: Now you have another reason to wear flip-flops aside from that cool flip-flop sound. ~:cool:

[Pannonian]

Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKN1930510020070720?feedType=RSS)

[Louis VI the Fat]

Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKN1930510020070720?feedType=RSS)Best post ever!!!!! :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

OMG, this just changed my life! I'm going to find his medical record and take it with me whenever I have to deal with one of those creepy little sadists again. :eyebrows: ~:wave: :tomato: ~:thumb: :bounce: :elephant: :dancing:

[ShadesPanther]

Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKN1930510020070720?feedType=RSS)

The Irony.......:laugh4:

Where to begin.....?

[InsaneApache]

I bet it was Chirac. :laugh4:

How about this one for journo of the year?


The draft of the forthcoming Housing Green Paper suggests it is "not realistic" to prevent all future development in flood-risk areas.

The government has refused to comment on the document dated 18 July, but said it would hold an inquiry into the leak.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6911119.stm

God, how I miss Tony.

:laugh4:

[Lemur]

High-tech spy squirrels invade Iran. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902453_3.html)

"A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country's borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes. According to the announcement made by Iranian intelligence officials, alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task.

"Fixing GPS devices, bugging instruments and advanced cameras in the bodies of trained animals like squirrels, mice, hamsters, etc, are among modern methods of collecting intelligence. Given the fast speed and the special physical features of these animals, they provide special capabilities for spying operations. Once the animals return to their place of origin, the intelligence gathered by them is then offloaded. . . ."


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/994Squirrel_Shoots_Back.jpg

[Louis VI the Fat]

In a surprise move, and no doubt after long and careful deliberation, the Italian parliament (http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Italian-becomes-language--of-Italy/2007/03/31/1174761796665.html) has at long last decided that the official language of the Repubblica Italiana will be...Italian.

The decision led to heavy protests from both Italy's large communist party and far-right movements.

[drone]

Freeway fondue after cheese truck goes up in flames (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2007/07/19/4352486-ap.html)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A tractor-trailer hauling blocks of cheese erupted in flames today, turning much of its cargo into freeway fondue.

No one was hurt, but boxes containing hundreds of kilograms of provolone, cheddar, American and other cheeses clogged the burned truck and littered the side of Interstate 80 north of downtown Sacramento.
Let the puns begin!

[InsaneApache]

That's so cheesy, I camembert it.

[Gregoshi]

The driver must have been asleep at the (cheese) wheel.

Too bad the truck didn't Jack-knife in Monterey.

[Pannonian]

Did it crash because it cheddar wheel? I can't imagine the deBrie that must have been flying everywhere. Stil, tons of cheese lying around must have meant he didn't go hungry.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Gah! I wouldn't believe anything from-a-journalist. Edam well be accurate this time.

[Whacker]

I have absolutely nothing to say, CAN say, about this.

Just click. (http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/03/03/japanese-live-octopus-wrestling-and-biting/)

[seireikhaan]

I have absolutely nothing to say, CAN say, about this.

Just click. (http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/03/03/japanese-live-octopus-wrestling-and-biting/)

Oh, wow. WTF??!! That's just bizarre. Where do you people find this stuff? Are you just bored?

[InsaneApache]

Most of us are on psychotropic drugs. It helps to remember that when you read the backroom.

[TB666]

I have absolutely nothing to say, CAN say, about this.

Just click. (http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/03/03/japanese-live-octopus-wrestling-and-biting/)
That's absolutly fricking disgusting :inquisitive: :dizzy2:

[Csargo]

Not sure what's going on there, but it's safe to assume their's something wrong with this guy.

[Andres]

Nude blonde, gold stilettos and a Ferrari.. (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2323884120070723?feedType=RSS)


BERLIN (Reuters) - A mysterious blonde paid a visit to a petrol station shop in the small eastern German town of Doemitz on Sunday -- wearing nothing but a pair of golden stilettos and a thin gold bracelet.

The tall, slender woman strolled into the shop in the town of Doemitz on the warm afternoon and bought cigarettes, petrol station employee Ines Swoboda told Reuters on Monday.

"I wasn't surprised because she's come in naked before -- she's a very nice woman," Swoboda said, adding none of the other customers was bothered. The woman could have faced charges of creating a public disturbance if anyone had complained.

A quick-witted customer did, however, snap pictures of the woman believed to be about 30 years old as she walked back to a waiting Ferrari and climbed into the passenger seat. Several of those photos appeared in the German media on Monday.

Enough reading already! This belgian newspaper has pictures of the woman:

Warning! Link to pictures of naked woman.

http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_534017.html?wt.bron=categorieArt2

[Marshal Murat]

Pastor's Blastphemous Death (http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=883b642c-4de6-4af3-8a3d-f7febe1f6ed8)

Shocking!

[edyzmedieval]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/25/large_bar_bill/

Talk about spending...

[Pannonian]

Prisoner found guilty of masturbating in his cell (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2135251,00.html)


It is a verdict likely to cause great consternation to lonely prisoners throughout the US penal system. A prisoner in Florida has been found guilty of indecent exposure for masturbating alone in his cell.

Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, was sentenced to a further 60 days in jail on top of the 10-year term he is currently serving for armed robbery, the Miami Herald reported yesterday.

One might call this "losing the toss".

[English assassin]

Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, was sentenced to a further 60 days in jail on top of the 10-year term he is currently serving for armed robbery, the Miami Herald reported yesterday

Its a modern day Achillies and the Tortoise, this. Supposing he bashes his bishop twice a week, by the time he has served his sentence for armed robbery, he will be looking at serving an extra 171 years for monkey-spanking. If he gets to the end of that, it will be time to start a 2923 year stretch, (although by then presumably his eyesight will be so bad he would have to live in some sort of institution anyway.)

[Pannonian]

Its a modern day Achillies and the Tortoise, this. Supposing he bashes his bishop twice a week, by the time he has served his sentence for armed robbery, he will be looking at serving an extra 171 years for monkey-spanking. If he gets to the end of that, it will be time to start a 2923 year stretch, (although by then presumably his eyesight will be so bad he would have to live in some sort of institution anyway.)
I suppose he'll have to try getting through to the end by avoiding getting through to his end.

[English assassin]

Proof that cats are in league with satan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6917113.stm)



US cat 'predicts patient deaths'

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.
Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours

Staff now alert the families of residents when he sits down next to their ailing loved one.

Yeah, "alerting" the families is nice. But how about shooing the feline angel of death away instead?

[Marshal Murat]

I like the idea. Gives you time to cope with the thought of death.


The fool-proof way to prevent death?
Lock the door.:laugh4:

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Have they considered that maybe Oscar doesn't predict death, but that instead he is the carrier for some undiscovered, deadly disease?

[English assassin]

Have they considered that maybe Oscar doesn't predict death, but that instead he is the carrier for some undiscovered, deadly disease?

Simpler than that I think. Oscar waits until everyone is out of the room, then he flicks the off switch on the life support machine. Classic case of Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy.

[drone]

Once the cat has chosen a "victim", put it in a box with a canister of cyanide gas and a trigger mechanism going to the patient's heart monitor. If the patient's heart stops within a few hours, the cat dies. Otherwise, Oscar is free to go.

Not really sure what this accomplishes, but an old Austrian scientist would approve. ~D

[Andres]

Police lose scooter OAP in 8mph chase. (http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/news/tm_headline=police-lose-scooter-oap-in-8mph-chase&method=full&objectid=19516683&siteid=109975-name_page.html)


Jul 25 2007
by Sam Beattie, Evening Gazette

THIS plucky pensioner led police on a low-speed chase around Middlesbrough - and then gave officers the slip.

https://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t2/AndresTheCunning/wheelchair.jpg

The lukewarm pursuit started after he caused traffic chaos by crawling down the fast lane of a busy dual carriageway.

Police asked the stubborn senior citizen to pull over. But he defiantly cranked his battery-powered mobility scooter up to its top speed - 8mph - and somehow managed to escape their attention.

Engineer, Ian Hardy, from Darlington said he couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched the chase unfold on the A1032 Newport Bridge Approach Road on Monday afternoon.

“It was just incredible,” said Ian, of Darlington, who captured the action on camera. “It was so bizarre. He came along in the outside lane with a queue of traffic behind him and a panda car to his left.

“Most motorists were having a bit of a laugh. It was so strange. You don’t expect something like that on a busy road. It was like a bit of a circus.

“The police tried to pull him up but he issued them with a lot of profanities.”

Then the determined OAP veered onto the Cannon Park roundabout where he gave red-faced officers the slip.

“They asked us, ‘scuse me - have you seen a bloke on an electric scooter?’,” added Ian, who was on a walk at the time.

“The two in the police car looked a bit sheepish to have lost a battery-powered scooter. I bet they’ll be the toast of the nick.”

A police van joined the pursuit and when cops eventually caught up with the pensioner, he was escorted to safety.

“Where they went from there, I can’t imagine,” said Ian.

Cleveland Police confirmed that the man eventually pulled over and officers spoke to him and helped him get out of harm’s way.

Traffic cop, PC Steve Garner, who was not involved in the chase, said the scooter was road legal, although some are not.

“There are two types - class two and class three. Class two is limited to 4mph and generally stays on footpaths. Class three is limited to 8mph and can go on roads or footpaths.”

[Csargo]

Oh man...

[KukriKhan]

To express the idea of "ain't ever gonna happen", we use phrases like 'when pigs fly', and 'when Hell freezes over'.

The Romans used to say "when a mule foals".

Well, watch the skies for avian porkers, my friends, because:

Mule gives birth (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12260255)

[Pannonian]

I'm not sure whether to post this in the Movies review thread, but I figured it wasn't Frontroom material, so I might as well post it here.

Teeth bares chastity (http://www.theage.com.au/news/film/baring-teeth-of-chastity/2007/07/25/1185339070723.html)


Even before anyone had seen it, Mitchell Lichtenstein's film Teeth was the talk of the last Sundance Film Festival.

A comedy featuring a girl with teeth in her vagina, a gynaecologist who loses a hand in the workplace and a rottweiler eating his master's penis was always going to be the talk of the town, especially in Utah.

What's wrong with the director, that he should dream up something like this?

[InsaneApache]

It's that old joke isn't it?

A very naughty one at that. PM for details. :sweatdrop:

[Haudegen]

The great heroes of our times still seem to like a drink or two ... :2thumbsup:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/07/26/astronaut.drinking.ap/

[Gregoshi]

It give a new meaning to the term "blast off".

[discovery1]

That's not news. Us aerospace engineers are huge boozers.

Aerospace engineers, we might not have any oxygen but we are still getting tanked.

[Gregoshi]

Hindsight is always 20/20. Some things about the space program make more sense now.

1) We should have figured out this drunken astronaut thing when we sent "Buzz" Aldrin to the Moon.

2) Light beer was probably developed by NASA for drinking in the 1/6th gravity of the Moon.

3) The explosion onboard Apollo 13 was probably a keg malfunctioning in the extreme cold of space.

[discovery1]

First rockets were fueled by booze don't you know?

[Gregoshi]

Thus the origin of the phrase "getting lit"?

[edyzmedieval]

:laugh4:

Classic!

[ShadesPanther]

"Free Derry" Corner is going Gay! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6919655.stm)

[Gregoshi]

That's very open-minded of the town. You can almost feel the pride in the Derry air.

[edyzmedieval]

Truly, you can feel the love in the air, eh boys and girls? :smitten:

[Lemur]

Keeping with the free love theme: do it for Mother Russia! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=471324&in_page_id=1770)


Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

There's much more in the article proper, but I just love the concept of a sex camp for teens. I mean, stuff has always gone on at camp, but it's amazing they've made it official. Russia should be glad to have its very own lebensborn.


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/putinyouth270707_468x258.jpg

[English assassin]

That's very open-minded of the town. You can almost feel the pride in the Derry air.

Pun of the year, surely? :laugh4:

[InsaneApache]

Centurions of the Ninth Legion spotted three Brigantes stealing lead from a roof in Eboracum, but the thieves escaped before the might of the Roman army could catch them and throw them to the lions.

An entire legion pursued the Brigantes, who are nowadays known as Yorkshiremen, through the streets of the city now called York, but failed to catch them.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2176967.ece

Nice one Centurian. Bloody Romans. :laugh4:

[English assassin]

Rome thought it had subdued the Brigantes when it moved the Ninth Legion from Lincoln, its northernmost garrison in Britannia Inferior, into the wild territory beyond the Humber in AD71. Nearly a century later it was sent further north to disperse other barbarian hordes and disappeared completely at the hands of what would today be called Northumbrians, Scots, or other untamed persons unknown.

No comment....

[InsaneApache]

No comment....

:laugh4:

[drone]

Centurion Maximus Gluteus, who is known to his family and friends as Keith Mulhearn, was discussing the implications of antisocial behaviour with two fellow officers when they noticed activity on the roof of a nearby library.
What was the Legate's name? Biggus Diccus?

[InsaneApache]

He has a wife you know......:laugh4:

[InsaneApache]

At last good weird news.

DR. Frankenschtein was onto summat....


The severely brain-injured patient, who is now 38, was unable to communicate, swallow or make co-ordinated movements for six years, before doctors revived him from this mini-mally conscious state (MCS) with a revolutionary therapy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2182621.ece

Now where did I leave Egor.......:whip:

[Gregoshi]

Now where did I leave Egor.......:whip:
You mean Igor. :idea2: Or do you mean Al Gore?

That is great news BTW.

[InsaneApache]

You mean Igor. :idea2:

I have a hunch it's Egor. :laugh4:

[Gregoshi]

I have a hunch it's Egor. :laugh4:
:laugh4:
What hunch? :laugh4:

[edyzmedieval]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2176967.ece

Nice one Centurian. Bloody Romans. :laugh4:

I keep my opinion that you Brits are a bunch of weird people. What has that small patch of water between Europe and you guys done...

:laugh4:

[Fragony]

Busted! Lol, american has been arrested for having sex with traffic signs.

Traffic signs?? :inquisitive:

[Banquo's Ghost]

Busted! Lol, american has been arrested for having sex with traffic signs.

Traffic signs?? :inquisitive:

It wasn't a No Entry sign then? :stop:

I know I'm going to regret this, but you did not provide a link as evidence for this frankly outrageous slur.

(Thanks the patron saint of moderators...)

[Papewaio]

One way!
Slow down, heavy petting ahead!
Keep to the right, now a little to the left.

[Fragony]

It wasn't a No Entry sign then? :stop:

I know I'm going to regret this, but you did not provide a link as evidence for this frankly outrageous slur.

(Thanks the patron saint of moderators...)

hehe no entry :laugh4:

Babelfish away;

http://www.nieuwnieuws.nl/archives/2007/08/amerikaan_betrapt_met_verkeers.html

[Banquo's Ghost]

It's always the same isn't it?

All the signs indicate you're on a Freeway, but then you get Stop followed by No Through Road. Then you have to go Slow until they Give Way.

[Fragony]

Standing on the corner is kinda suspect of course.

LOL Negroes for sale @Marktplaats.nl (auction site)

http://www.nieuwnieuws.nl/archives/images/6cfzy4p.jpg

Do we ever learn?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Standing on the corner is kinda suspect of course.

LOL Negroes for sale @Marktplaats.nl (auction site)

http://www.nieuwnieuws.nl/archives/images/6cfzy4p.jpg

Do we ever learn?

Well, at least there's a precedent.

Rent A German (http://www.treib-stoff.com/rentagerman/)

~;)

[ShadesPanther]

mmmm banana laxative (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6932216.stm)


I'm sure he was peeled off eating all that.

[Caius]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2176967.ece

Nice one Centurian. Bloody Romans. :laugh4:
Interesting, Romans are coming back...

And I will be able to be called Caius without a problem.

[lars573]

On-air bottom pincher gets police warning (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070803/odds/odd_britain_television_pinch_dc)

LOLERSKATES! :laugh4:

[KukriKhan]

On-air bottom pincher gets police warning (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070803/odds/odd_britain_television_pinch_dc)

LOLERSKATES! :laugh4:

The EweToob (http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=E3f6WMSXQNg) vid of the offense.

[Lemur]

Don't Make Me Puke You! (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292271,00.html)

Link (http://www.homelandsecurity.org/snapshots/newsletter/2007-07.htm#sick) to the Homeland Security bulletin.

Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up

Monday, August 06, 2007

It looks like a big flashlight — but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.

Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator," according to a DHS online newsletter.

The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at.

"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," says IOS President Bob Lieberman. "Vlad [IOS top scientist Vladimir Rubtsov] calls it 'the evil color.'"

Phase 1 of the contract — creating a working prototype — has already been completed, and Phase 2 will begin this fall as researchers at Penn State's Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology put the puke-saber through its paces.

"Phase 3 will be our shrink phase," Lieberman said, admitting that the prototype, 15 inches long with a 4-inch lens, is too large and heavy to be comfortably carried on a belt.

DHS hopes to equip police, Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen with the barf-beamers by 2010.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I wonder if they'll call closing your eyes resisting arrest.

CR

[Lemur]

Fat Australians endanger mortuary workers. (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSSYD6622320070806?feedType=RSS)

Pathologists are calling for new "heavy-duty" autopsy facilities to cope with obese corpses that are difficult to move and dangerously heavy for standard-size trolleys and lifting hoists.

The bodies presented "major logistical problems" and "significant occupational health and safety issues," according to a separate study, which found the number of obese and morbidly obese bodies had doubled in the past 20 years.

Specially designed mortuaries would soon be required if the nation failed to curb its fat epidemic, providing "larger storage and dissection rooms, and more robust equipment," said Professor Roger Byard, a pathologist at the University of Adelaide.

"Failure to provide these might compromise the post-mortem evaluation of markedly obese individuals, in addition to potentially jeopardizing the health of mortuary staff."

In the past year, there have also been requests for larger crematorium furnaces, bigger grave plots as well as super-sized ambulances, wheelchairs and hospital beds.

[seireikhaan]

You can thank the American Embassy, McDonalds, for that.

[Lemur]

Sorry, good weird news is showing up faster than I can post it.

Florida state representative explains offering oral sex to man in park (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-allentape0307aug03,0,1892734.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout): "I was just playing along."

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he "was about to be a statistic" and would have said anything just to get away.

So he just happens to be in a park late at night, and out of uncontrolled fear of black men, the first thing he can think of is to offer a blowjob. Reeeeeealy.

Why oh why can't our state legislators come on out and admit that they crave hot black studs? Is that so hard?

-edit-

Update: His homepage (http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=4204) lists his recreational interest as "watersports." No, I'm not making this up.

[Gregoshi]

So he just happens to be in a park late at night, and out of uncontrolled fear of black men, the first thing he can think of is to offer a blowjob. Reeeeeealy.

I'm sure he was thinking of JFK - "ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Nothin' wrong with that. :laugh4:

[CountArach]

Australian political party is promoting a campaign of civil disobedience against daylight saving. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/07/1998248.htm)


Some National Party members in Western Australia are promoting a campaign of civil disobedience against daylight saving.

Western Australia is only one year into a three year trial of daylight saving, but the Albany branch of the National Party will move a motion this weekend calling on members to ignore the trial for the rest of its duration.

Their motion will be debated at the Nationals' State Conference in Geraldton.

It calls on National Party members to actively promote ignoring daylight saving and keep clocks the same, outside Perth.

Nationals' State President Wendy Duncan says the motion, which would effectively create two different time zones in Western Australia, reflects people's strong opposition to daylight saving.

"I think it indicates that people are pretty disappointed," she said.

"I suppose that their representations, the 66-thousand signatures on petitions have just fallen on deaf ears in the Government and I guess it's a hint of civil disobedience over the whole issue."

"I would imagine there'd be some interesting implementation issues but this is a resolution that's come from our grass roots and deserves debating."

and for the icing on the cake:

There will also be a motion calling on the State Government to reopen the six regional police stations which were recently closed.

[lars573]

Rhinoceros party suing feds for $50 million over election rules (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/que_rhinoceros_party)

MONTREAL (CP) - The Rhinoceros party is trying to fight its way back from political extinction with a $50-million lawsuit against the federal government.

Self-appointed party president Brian "Godzilla" Salmi filed suit in Federal Court in Montreal Tuesday over the 14-year-old election reform laws that stripped the Rhinos of registered party status.

Salmi says he will run under the Rhino banner in a federal byelection in Montreal's Outremont riding, slated for Sept. 17.

The party lost status after federal electoral reforms came into effect in 1993 requiring parties to run candidates in at least 50 ridings at a cost of $1,000 each.

Salmi promises to rename the country Nantucket, if elected.

He has legally changed his name to Satan and, officially, the lawsuit is filed under Satan versus Her Majesty The Queen.

Best line in the article.

Salmi promises to rename the country Nantucket, if elected.

He has legally changed his name to Satan and, officially, the lawsuit is filed under Satan versus Her Majesty The Queen.

:laugh4:

[InsaneApache]

LOL :laugh4: :2thumbsup:

[Lemur]

Satan versus Her Majesty? Now that's a pay-per-view event I would watch.

In sad Weird News, not news of the sad exactly, but definitely a blow for Weird News fans everywhere, the Weekly World News has closed shop. Never again will I see headlines about how Elvis is a live and living in Jenna Bush's body. Never again will batboy greet me as I struggle with a cartload of diapers. In memoriam, Weekly World News. We will miss you.


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/bat-child-found-wwn.jpg https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/500ft_jesus.jpg https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/apebaby.jpg https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/Clinton_alien.jpg

[Gregoshi]

In sad Weird News, not news of the sad exactly, but definitely a blow for Weird News fans everywhere, the Weekly World News has closed shop.
'Tis sad news. That publication has given me a few memorable laughs in the checkout line.

[InsaneApache]

"Saddam & Osama Adopt Shaved Ape Baby", has to be the tabloid headline of the year winner. :laugh4:

[Papewaio]

[QUOTE=CountArach]Australian political party is promoting a campaign of civil disobedience against daylight saving. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/07/1998248.htm)

The National party in WA are idiots, pure and simple. The idea that ones curtains will fade quicker with daylight savings, that cows will get confused with respect to milking, that milk delivered to ones door will go off because of daylight savings are all ideas that these lot hold to their hearts.

Without a doubt in the IQ stakes they missed out.

For the record my parents are in rural WA and can't stand these morons.

[naut]

California Drug Dealers? (http://stopthedrugwar.org/in_the_trenches/2007/aug/06/press_release_marijuana_dealers_#1)

Huh?

[AntiochusIII]

California Drug Dealers? (http://stopthedrugwar.org/in_the_trenches/2007/aug/06/press_release_marijuana_dealers_#1)

Huh?Wicked.

I wonder where did they get that nifty one billion dollars from.

[InsaneApache]

District Judge Nick Sanders was told that as Tiger Woods was due to tee off at the Open Golf Championship last year Mr Roberts ran around the green with just a toy squirrel covering his genitals and a golf ball between his buttocks. :laugh4:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6935605.stm

His solicitor said that he'd turned over a new fig leaf. :laugh4:

[drone]

Mark Roberts deserves a knighthood at some point. :yes:

[Gregoshi]

...and a golf ball between his buttocks
Mr. Roberts almost got a hole in one...

[Kongamato]

Giant Lego Man fished out of Dutch seas
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0787011420070808

[InsaneApache]

Three councillors from Europe who sailed across the English Channel on a homemade raft to deliver a goodwill message were arrested on arrival.

and quite right too. :laugh4:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6938748.stm

[Gregoshi]

A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating toward the beach from the direction of England."

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.




Three councillors from Europe who sailed across the English Channel on a homemade raft to deliver a goodwill message were arrested on arrival.


Interesting contrast in treatment of cross channel visitors... :laugh4:

[edyzmedieval]

Oooh, she knows where it came from. The woman must have some 1337 mad skills in geography. :laugh4:

[Lemur]

Man has surgeon "whittle" his thumbs ... so he can type more easily on his iPhone. Yikes! (http://northdenvernews.com/content/view/922/2)

Surgically alters thumbs to better use iPhone

Written by James Benfly, Wednesday, 08 August 2007

Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Brae is a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs surgically altered in a revolutionary new surgical technique known as "whittling."

"From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses," explains Martel. "Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it's saving me in frustration - that's priceless."

"This is really, on the edge sort of stuff," explains Dr. Robert Fox Spars, who worked on developing the procedure. "We're turning plastic surgery from something that people use in service of vanity, to a real tool for improving workplace efficiency."

The procedure involved making a small incision into both thumbs and shaving down the bones, followed by careful muscular alteration and modification of the fingernails. While Martel's new thumbs now appear small and effeminate in comparison to his otherwise very large hands, he says he can still lift "pretty much anything I could lift before the surgery - though opening spaghetti sauce jars has been a problem. That was a big surprise."

[Gregoshi]

The iThumb...great.

[Papewaio]

While Martel's new thumbs now appear small and effeminate in comparison to his otherwise very large hands, he says he can still lift "pretty much anything I could lift before the surgery - though opening spaghetti sauce jars has been a problem. That was a big surprise."

You know a chocolate flavoured vibrator that could open jars and kill coakroaches would replace men... this guy is one step down on that ladder. :clown:

[Hepcat]

Lamb born with 7 legs

WELLINGTON, New Zealand --A lamb born with seven legs will have to be euthanized, local media reported Thursday.

The animal has three hind legs, two forelegs and two extra legs that hang useless behind its forelegs.

Veterinarian Steve Williams at the Canterbury Vets clinic in the rural town of Methven said the lamb, born Friday, also was missing a portion of its bowel and so would have to be destroyed.

"To keep it alive is probably inhumane really," Williams told the Ashburton Guardian newspaper.

Williams said he believed an error during embryo formation had resulted in the lamb being born polydactyl -- with many legs -- a condition that occurs once in several million sheep.

Dave Callaghan said he was surprised the find the seven-legged lamb on his farm along with its mother and normal twin sibling.

"I have never seen anything like that," he said.

Here is the link with a picture:
http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2007/08/02/lamb_born_with_7_legs_in_new_zealand/

I actually find it quite sad, that poor lamb. It was on the news 2 days ago that they had put it down.

[Papewaio]

Yeah, I read that I thought it was rather sad... particularly as it had a twin.

Reminds me of my last couple of months on the farm in NZ before moving to Aus to become a city kid. A ewe had twins, one running around like lambs do... the very picture of spring... the other sickly and no matter what I did I could not get it to feed so it died... I'd like to have a punchline, but for some reason that little life had a much larger impact on me then I expected... and it was other twenty years ago and I still can remember the hollow feeling.

[naut]

revolutionary new surgical technique known as "whittling."
That's not revolutionary, that's just carpentry that's been converted over to surgery!

[Banquo's Ghost]

Looks like the thumb-whittling was a hoax (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/13/no_thumbs_whittled/).

[Lemur]

I feel so dirty and used (http://northdenvernews.com/content/view/925/2/) ...

Editor's Note

Written by Guerin Lee Green
Saturday, 11 August 2007

Strangely, while many readers have grasped that "Surgically alters thumbs" represents satirical social commentary, many on the internet, alas, have not.

Careful reading of the piece makes it clear to any critical consumer of information that the piece is pure humor and not news or reported as fact.

Among the points of the piece: that U.S. society accepts plastic surgery and decorative deformation of the human body for vanity, but not other reasons (consider the Bonds steroid stories); that technology has become a new cult phenomena, in which items are praised or ridiculed based upon tribal allegiances instead of functionality and performance (and we are members of the Cult of the Mac- iPhone division); and we like to pretend that some of our writers have a sense of humor.

For those who have "debunked" the HUMOR piece, thanks for pointing out that there are no muscles in the thumbs (BTW, there are muscles in the thumb), and that the timeline from iPhone release to successful surgery is pure fantasy. Also "whittling"?!?! Come on, pollexplasty, from the Latin for thumb, pollex, perhaps, but not whittling!!

Additionally, many commentators have derided Mr. Martel for stupidity first and foremost, which may indicate something about their credulity. In an era when fake news, like Paris Hilton, has crowded out real news and public debate, the lesson is that skeptical consumption of information, whether from the North Denver News, the New York Times, or the National Review, is a must.

By the way, for odd skeptics, the North Denver News is a monthly community newspaper serving Northwest Denver, with about 35,000 readers. The North Denver News is entering our sixth year of publication, and along with our sister paper, The Cherry Creek News, are the largest community news presence in Denver. Our web presence, which features stories from the paper as well as other news, satire and commentary, is updated several times weekly, and will do about a million page views in calendar 2007.

FYI, there is no Thomas Martel (aka Tommy the Hammer) or Dr. Ben Fox Spars. The Fox of course, is reference to Fox News (aka Faux News). James Benfly is fictive as well, the nom de plume of one of our writers. And thanks to Franz Kafka, who must be smiling upon this whole episode.

[Husar]

:laugh4:

Being the most critical reader here, i of course, ahem, didn't even read the article, I tend to trust my fellow orgahs to post the best excerpts here anyway. And it pays off, I myself would most likely not have found that it was a hoax, except maybe by reading the original article, which I didn't.:dizzy2:

Anyway, thumbs do have muscles, at least if there are hairs on the thumbs.

[Gregoshi]

Now knowing it was a "humour" piece, I still find whittle humour in it. You'd think thumbthing in it would be funny. Same can be said for this post, come to think of it...

[ShadesPanther]

Senegal are over the Moon (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6944088.stm)

:laugh4:
Only an Irishman..

[drone]

Click here for Wide Open Beaver (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070808/od_afp/swedenanimalsoffbeat)
Swedish grandmother hospitalised after beaver attack

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.

[Lemur]

Are they sure it was a beaver? I hear the British have been releasing man-eating badgers all over the place ...

[Gregoshi]

Ward, I'm worried about the Beaver.

[Crazed Rabbit]

This couple was playing with the wrong gun while having close quarter relations...
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6877561

Louisiana man shot while having sex involving a firearm

LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) - Shortly after midnight Thursday, one Lake Charles man died while engaged in sexual behavior involving a firearm.

The Calcasieu Parish sheriff's office has charged 36 year old Kimberly Grosset with negligent homicide in connection with the shooting death of her boyfriend.

Officials say she and 49 year old Robert White were engaged in consensual sexual behavior when he was shot in the head with a gun at his McCindy road home.

No bond has been set.

Crazed Rabbit

[Gregoshi]

Well that certainly answers the question "is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

[Lemur]

Biker fails to notice missing leg (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22242930-5001028,00.html)

From correspondents in Tokyo
August 14, 2007 12:03pm

A JAPANESE biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2km, leaving a friend to pick up the limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, yesterday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

[drone]

I'm guessing his shifter was on the left. :fainting:

I get a mental picture of him coming to a stop, putting his legs out to hold up the bike, and falling over...

[TB666]

Click here for Wide Open Beaver (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070808/od_afp/swedenanimalsoffbeat)
Swedish grandmother hospitalised after beaver attack

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.
They are working with the octo-squids.
The squids can't enter our water so they use the beavers instead.:help:

[Lemur]

I'm not going to make any of the obvious puns surrounding a wide-open beaver. I will, however, discuss the importance of stem cell research.

We need it to make new, more natural vaginas (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18942828/).

Doctor builds new, more natural vagina

Operation uses stem cells to help women with rare congenital syndrome

ROME - An Italian doctor has reconstructed vaginas for two women born with a rare congenital deformation, using their own cells to build vaginal tissue in the lab for the first time.

Dr. Cinzia Marchese of Rome’s Policlinico Umberto I hospital, giving details of the operations on Wednesday, told Reuters a 28-year-old woman who underwent the first such operation a year ago now has a healthy vagina.

“She has got married and is living a normal life,” said Marchese, whose study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction.

The second operation was carried out on a 17-year-old girl on Tuesday and the first signs are that the cells taken by biopsy from the area where her vagina should grow and provide mucosal tissue.

Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.

The two women had a condition called Mayer-Von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4,000 to 5,000 female infants.

Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. The patient often has a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth.

“Usually the syndrome is diagnosed when they are young and they try to have sexual intercourse for the first time and it hurts,” said Marchese.

Often embarrassed to talk about it with their parents when they are young, MRKHS sufferers often “live the rest of their lives with no normal sexual life, even though they are normal women with normal feelings,” she said.

Stem cells generate new tissue

So far, surgeons have been able to correct the condition by reconstructing a vagina out of grafted skin or from intestinal tissue, but the surgery is highly invasive, lengthy and painful. And it takes a long time to grow a normal mucosal wall.

Such women, if they have healthy ovaries, have been able to achieve pregnancy by artificial insemination but would then need a surrogate mother to carry the fertilized eggs and give birth.

“What we do is to take a little biopsy of 0.5 cm from the place the vagina should be, “ Marchese said. They used an enzyme to break down the tissue and then let the immature cells, called stem cells, generate new, mucosal tissue on their own.

t took about 15 days to get a thick enough layer to transplant into the patients, Marchese said.

Marchese, a 47-year-old professor of clinical pathology and biotechnology, studied the use of stem cells to build sheets of skin in vitro to provide skin grafts for burn victims at Harvard Medical School with the technique’s pioneer, Howard Green.

“When I came back to Italy I modified this technique for mucosal vagina tissue,” she said, adding that its success could be good news for women with cancer and other vaginal complaints.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, score another one for non-embryonic stem cell research.

~;p

Crazed Rabbit

[Don Corleone]

Giant Lego Man fished out of Dutch seas
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0787011420070808

My God, what are the Octosquid up to now? They've enslaved Legoland, and are using the residents as marines... is there any hope? :help:

[Don Corleone]

Click here for Wide Open Beaver (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070808/od_afp/swedenanimalsoffbeat)
Swedish grandmother hospitalised after beaver attack

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.

Must resist temptation :sweatdrop: .... urge to make beaver jokes almost unbearable :sweatdrop: .... ARGH!!!! :sweatdrop:

I'm sorry, I just have to ask. Wouldn't it be more likely for a woman to be a participant in a beaver attack, not a victim of one?

In any case, it's a shame that they've decided to destroy all beavers in the area. If the Swedes don't know how to get along with their beavers, send them over to the USA. There's plenty of guys who could get along just fine with Swedish beavers.

Stop me... :help:

[Gregoshi]

We need it to make new, more natural vaginas (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18942828/).

Why, oh, why do I see the sex toy industry having a field day with this? Throw out the batteries and buy your very own Pet Vagina®...:wall:

[Gregoshi]

:laugh4: Don, you're on a roll with the Legoman and beavers...

[ShadesPanther]

The Danes apologise for raiding Ireland in the 9th Century (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6947005.stm)

[Don Corleone]

It was fairly emotional all right, it was very hard to keep the tears back

Wow. And here I thought you micks were a tough lot... choking back tears over an apology for viking raids 1000 years ago? ~:mecry:

Just kidding. The guy quoted was one of the 2 Irish sailors that made the voyage, and the quote relates to how joyful he was to sail into harbor after the arduous journey.

[Gregoshi]

I'd like to apologize to the Wooly Mammoths for us helping them into extinction.

[InsaneApache]

My ancestors never killed a woolly mammoth in their lives. So, it's got nowt to do with me. :laugh4:

Mastodons might be another story. :laugh4:

[Gregoshi]

My ancestors never killed a woolly mammoth in their lives...Mastodons might be another story. :laugh4:
Are you going to take that Master Don?

[InsaneApache]

:laugh4: Slick mate, very slick. :laugh4:

[English assassin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6940289.stm

A double delight for me, not only to introduce the Org to the Double-Nosed Andean tiger hound (an animal which might, just might, supplant the giant squid in my affections), but also to inform you that we in Blighty are still producing explorers with names like Colonel John Blashford-Snell.

If he doesn't travel the world in a small biplane, with his trusty Webley service revolver on one hip, and a flask of whisky on the other, I'm a Frenchman.

[InsaneApache]

Bonjour. :laugh4:

[Gregoshi]

...introduce the Org to the Double-Nosed Andean tiger hound (an animal which might, just might, supplant the giant squid in my affections)...

I'm tellin' the squids.:listen:

As for the double-nosed dog, two noses doesn't make one smell any better, but that's just my two scents on the matter. :2cents:



If he doesn't travel the world in a small biplane, with his trusty Webley service revolver on one hip, and a flask of whisky on the other, I'm a Frenchman.


Bonjour. :laugh4:

You two crack me up.

[naut]

:laugh4:

[Lemur]

Apparently, we News of the Weird aficionados aren't the only ones saddened by the loss (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601293_pf.html) of the Weekly World News:

All the News That Seemed Unfit to Print

By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; C01

Somewhere in Kalamazoo, Elvis weeps: The Weekly World News is folding.

The Weekly World News was not one of those sleazy tabloids that cover tawdry celebrity scandals. It was a sleazy tabloid that covered events that seemed to occur in a parallel universe, a fevered dream world where pop culture mixed with urban legends, conspiracy theories and hallucinations. Maybe WWN played fast and loose with the facts, but somehow it captured the spirit of the age -- and did it in headlines as perfect as haiku:

"DEAD ROCK STARS RETURN ON GHOST PLANE!"

"BLIND MAN REGAINS SIGHT AND DUMPS UGLY WIFE!"

The most creative newspaper in American history, the Weekly World News broke the story that Elvis faked his death and was living in Kalamazoo, Mich. It also broke the story that the lost continent of Atlantis was found near Buffalo. And the story that Hillary Clinton was having a love affair with P'lod, an alien with a foot-long tongue. And countless other incredible scoops.

None of these stories was, in a strictly technical sense, true, which explains why the Weekly World News never won a Pulitzer Prize. But in its glorious heyday in the late 1980s, the supermarket tabloid amazed and amused a million readers a week.

But that was then. Now, with circulation plunging below 90,000, American Media, which owns WWN, has pulled the plug. The Aug. 27 issue will be the last. After that, the Weekly World News will be as dead as Elvis, maybe deader.

WWN's cult followers are mad. How mad? Almost as mad as Ed Anger, WWN's perpetually enraged right-wing nut-job columnist. Anger started every column by announcing exactly how angry he was. "I'm madder than Batman with a run in his tights." Or: "I'm madder than a gay football hero on a date with the homecoming queen." Or his favorite: "I'm pig-biting mad."

"I'm pig-biting mad at the demise of Weekly World News," says Joe Garden, features editor of the Onion, a satirical newspaper much influenced by WWN. "They really knew how to take hold of a premise and go as far as humanly possible with it. It was beautiful."

"12 U.S. SENATORS ARE SPACE ALIENS!"

In 1999, somebody taped that WWN story to a wall in the Senate press gallery, where it amused the press corps, although some scribes griped that the paper had underestimated the number of aliens in the Senate by at least three or four. Reporters loved the Weekly World News. Many fantasized about working for it and casting aside the tired old conventions of journalism, such as printing facts.

"Mainstream journalists read WWN and dreamed about killing the county sewer-system story they were working on and writing about a swamp monster or a 65-pound grasshopper," says Derek Clontz, who was a Weekly World News editor for 15 years.

In fact, most of WWN's writers really had escaped from mainstream newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times. They figured life at the Weekly World News would be more fun -- and they were right.

"It was electrifying," says Sal Ivone, who worked at the New York Daily News before jumping to WWN. "Every day you'd go into the office and somebody would make you scream with laughter."

"It was just a hoot," says Joe Berger, who covered Congress for the Oregon Journal before escaping to WWN in 1981.

"We were the Beatles of fake journalism," says Clontz.

* * *

CRAZED DIETER

MISTAKES DWARF

FOR CHICKEN!

The story of the Weekly World News is as bizarre as any of the articles it printed. Well, maybe not quite as bizarre as "PLANE MISSING SINCE 1939 LANDS WITH SKELETON AT THE CONTROLS," but pretty bizarre.

It all began in Lantana, Fla., in 1979, when the National Enquirer, America's premier tabloid, bought new color presses to replace its old black-and-white presses. The Enquirer's owner, a former CIA agent named Generoso Pope, couldn't bear to leave the old presses idle, so he founded Weekly World News as a sort of poor man's Enquirer, running celebrity gossip and UFO sightings that didn't quite meet the Enquirer's high standards.

"Early covers tended to be dominated by a gigantic celebrity head -- not headline, head -- like sitcom king John Ritter's head the size of a beach ball," Clontz recalls in an e-mail. "Circulation didn't top 200,000 until then-editor Joe West named my brother Eddie managing editor and gave him sweeping powers over content and presentation. From that point on, it was Katy bar the door."

Eddie Clontz was the mad genius behind WWN. A 10th-grade dropout from North Carolina and former copy editor at small newspapers, he imbued the WWN newsroom with his unique philosophy of journalism: Don't fact-check your way out of a good story.

"If we get a story about a guy who thinks he's a vampire, we will take him at his word," Clontz told the Philadelphia Inquirer before he died in 2004.

Clontz's philosophy of creative credulity led to wonderful stories that excessive fact-checking would have ruined. For instance, WWN ran more Elvis and Bigfoot sightings than the more finicky newspapers did.

"If a guy calls and says Bigfoot ran away with his wife," Ivone says, "we wrote it as straight as an AP story."

"In the '80s, WWN was 85 percent true," says Derek Clontz. "We simply revved up and played big the wild, odd and strange stories that mainstream media overlooked or were too persnickety to run."

One day, Eddie Clontz spotted a tiny newspaper story about a Florida undertaker who was arrested for selling body parts to research scientists. With a little reporting and a little creativity, it became a WWN classic: "FLORIDA MAN SCREAMS FROM THE GRAVE, MY BRAIN IS MISSING!"

In those days -- they could be termed WWN's semi-factual period -- the tabloid employed a squad of "clippers," who read scores of local newspapers and clipped out the weirder stories.

"They would give me a stack of clips and I'd get on the phone and call people," Berger recalls. "If a guy in Omaha got hit by 30,000 volts of lightning and lived to tell the tale, I'd call the poor sucker and get his version of the story and run it. It was all factual."

But too many facts can ruin a good yarn, so Pope and Clontz encouraged their reporters to embellish a bit. The reporters complied and started spicing up stories with lovely details that came straight from their imaginations. Gradually, true stories became half-true stories, then quarter-true stories, then . . .

"It wasn't like overnight we decided to start running fiction," Berger says. "We just added a few facts to a story and got away with it, and it went on from there."

WWN's writers had stepped out onto that proverbial "slippery slope" you hear so much about, and they gleefully slid down it, riding right to the bottom, giggling all the way. Soon they were producing "FAMED PSYCHIC'S HEAD EXPLODES" and "ELVIS TOMB IS EMPTY" and "HEAVEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY HUBBLE TELESCOPE," which was illustrated by an actual photo from the Hubble, enhanced just a wee bit to show a shining city so lovely it made dying seem like a small price to pay for admission.

As the stories got more creative, circulation soared, reaching nearly a million copies a week by the end of the '80s. Staffers debated how many of the readers actually believed the stories and how many were hipsters reading it for laughs.

"It is my belief that in the '80s and into the '90s, most people believed most of the material most of the time," says Derek Clontz.

Eddie Clontz kept telling writers: You've got to give people a reason to believe. To do that, Berger says, they would write their weirdest stories in a very straight, just-the-facts-ma'am style. And they'd quote experts explaining how this strange event could occur. Sometimes the experts actually existed.

"I remember a story about a guy who went on a diet, and he got so hungry that he chased a dwarf down the street with a hatchet because he mistook the dwarf for a chicken," Berger recalls. "I'm pretty sure I wrote that story."

He's also pretty sure it was totally fictitious. But it had to seem true.

"We would explain to people how it was possible that a guy could get so hungry that he'd mistake a dwarf for a chicken," Berger says. "We'd interview a psychiatrist about it and quote him. And if we couldn't find one, we'd 'find' one."

WWN writers quoted sources identified as "a baffled scientist" so often they started joking about a institution called the Academy of Baffled Scientists.

In their quest to make fake news seem real, WWN's writers found an unexpected ally -- reality. The real news reported in real newspapers in those days frequently rivaled anything that WWN writers could concoct. For instance:

Americans elected a president who'd once co-starred in a movie with a chimpanzee. Rich women hired "surrogate mothers" to bear their children. The Soviet Union suddenly dropped dead. Scientists invented a magic pill that gave men erections. California cultists committed suicide, believing that the Hale-Bopp comet would carry them to heaven. Lurid details of a president's sex life were released in an official government document. Religious fanatics hijacked airplanes and flew them into buildings. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California. Scientists studying DNA revealed that humans were 98.6 percent genetically identical to chimpanzees.

And on and on. Reality was getting so weird, it was tough for the folks at WWN to keep up. But they gave it their best shot.

* * *

BUTTERFLY MAN

INVENTS HUNGRY

SPACE ALIEN!

"I have no shame," says Bob Lind, talking about his decade as a writer for the Weekly World News. "I make no apologies. It's not something I try to hide."

Bob Lind. Bob Lind. The name sounds familiar. Isn't he the guy who . . .

Yes. He's the guy wrote and sang "Elusive Butterfly," an achingly romantic folk-rock ballad. Across my dreams, with nets of wonder, / I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. It was a huge hit in 1966.

By 1991, though, Lind was out of the music business and working as an Everglades guide, giving airboat rides to tourists. He also wrote short stories and screenplays but he couldn't sell them. A friend suggested he write for the tabloids. Lind hated celebrity gossip but he figured writing about aliens and Bigfoot might be fun. For months, he pestered Eddie Clontz for a job and finally Eddie gave him a two-week tryout. He passed the test and went on to write some WWN classics, including "SPACE ALIENS ATE MY LAUNDRY."

"I loved it," Lind says. "The music business is accountant dull compared to the creative fun we had."

They worked in an office in the back of the National Enquirer newsroom, behind a partition installed because Eddie Clontz's yelling disturbed the serious journalists at the Enquirer. Actually, everybody yelled. First, somebody would yell out an idea for a headline, then everybody else would yell out better ideas. The yelling was exceeded only by the laughing.

"There were days when I would leave work," Lind says, "with my stomach and my face hurting from laughing all day at the ideas being kicked around."

Lind witnessed the birth of Bat Boy, who became the tabloid's most beloved character and the subject of an off-Broadway musical. It happened in 1992, when Dick Kulpa, WWN's graphics genius, was playing around with Photoshop, trying to turn a picture of a baby into a picture of an alien baby. He gave the kid pointy Spocklike ears, big wide eyes and fangs. Ivone looked at it and said, "Bat Boy!" and Eddie Clontz turned to his brother Derek and said, "Do it!"

Derek concocted the story of a creature, half bat and half boy, captured in a cave in West Virginia. "BAT CHILD FOUND IN CAVE!" was the headline on the first story. But there were more, many more as the little tyke escaped and was recaptured again and again, constantly fleeing from the FBI and a brutal bounty hunter named Jim "Deadeye" Slubbard, who vowed to stuff him and hang him over his fireplace.

"Eddie fell in love with Bat Boy," Lind says. "He was one of the most in-depth characters we dealt with. He could be mean, he could be spiteful, but he could also be kind. And every once in while, he would be captured by the FBI and held in an undisclosed location near Lexington, Kentucky."

One day -- Lind swears this is true -- Eddie Clontz got a call from an irate FBI agent complaining that the bureau's switchboard was swamped with calls demanding that they free Bat Boy.

"Eddie said, 'I'll never do it again,' " Lind says, "then he hung up the phone and went on to the next Bat Boy story."

In the spirit of Eddie Clontz, we won't risk ruining that story by fact-checking it with the FBI.

Lind was constantly amazed at the letters that came in from readers. "You can't believe what people will believe -- and what they won't," he says.

Back in the '90s, for example, WWN published "HILLARY CLINTON ADOPTS ALIEN BABY" and illustrated it with a Photoshop picture of a smiling Hillary cradling a hideous but cute alien baby.

"We got a letter," recalls Lind, "and it said: 'Do you think we're so stupid that we believe that's Hillary holding that alien baby? Hillary's too cold to adopt an alien baby. You put her face on somebody else's picture.' "

Lind pauses to let that sink in. "So you realize that this person accepted the idea of an alien baby being found, and that somebody was holding it," he says, "but she couldn't believe it was Hillary."

* * *

DEAD AT 28:

TABLOID MEETS

GRUESOME END!

It sure was fun while it lasted. But then something happened.

"It turned to [bleep]," says Lind. "The guy who took over didn't understand what it was."

The guy who took over bears the delightfully Dickensian name of David Pecker. In 1999, Pecker bought American Media, which owned the National Enquirer, the Star and the Weekly World News. Changes were made and soon a lot of WWN's old-timers were gone -- Eddie Clontz, Ivone, Berger, Lind, Kulpa -- replaced by young comedy writers.

"He wanted to hire comedy writers," Ivone says. "But it's not just comedy. It's a different skill set."

Gradually, WWN changed. Bat Boy became a comic strip, one of several strips in the new WWN, none of them very comic. The new editors also added lame advice columns by "Lester the Typing Horse" and "Sammy the Chatting Chimp." Ed Anger remained and he was still "pig-biting mad" but he wasn't so funny anymore. Circulation plummeted.

"It was like seeing someone you love wither up and die," says Berger.

The old-timers say Pecker ruined the Weekly World News. What does Pecker say?

Nothing. He's not talking. Neither is anybody else at WWN. On July 24, the company issued a brief statement announcing that WWN was folding "due to the challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace."

"Unfortunately, we are not doing any interviews," says Richard Valvo, a PR man for the company. He says he knows of no plans for a party or a wake or even a greatest hits album.

Weekly World News, a tabloid that screamed in joyous horror for 28 years, is dying with barely a whimper.

The old-timers grumbled, but not for long. They were too busy telling old stories of old glories.

Derek Clontz remembered the time WWN ran a picture of a gorgeous British model -- "Top Model Jilly, we called her" -- who was desperately seeking a "regular guy" to be her boyfriend. Needless to say, plenty of WWN readers eagerly volunteered to help.

"A guy by the name of Norman sent a photograph of himself and asked us to forward it to Jilly," Clontz recalls. "It was a Polaroid and it showed him backed against a wall between hanging tragedy and comedy masks. There was a model of a '57 Chevy on the table beside him and three encyclopedias of the type you buy one a week from the supermarket for $1. He said he had a 'nerve problem' and was unemployed, but he would treat Jilly right if she would be his girl, to which he added, 'I don't smoke, drink or do drugs, either, Jilly, but I will if you want me to.' "

When WWN dies, what will Norman read? For that matter, what will Elvis read as he passes the long, lonely nights up there in Kalamazoo?


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/GiantSquid.jpg

[Crazed Rabbit]

Men use snakes to collect on debt:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3496750

Gregoshi, take it away.

CR

[Gregoshi]

Some rattle tail probably turned them in.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Pet camel kills Australian woman (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6954728.stm).

I imagine that her reticence gave him the hump.

[Banquo's Ghost]

The headline of the week and its only Monday:

Dwarf superglues todger to hoover (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/20/dwarf_hoover_incident/).

[InsaneApache]

:laugh4: Captain Dan, the penis man. :laugh4:

[Gregoshi]

This just in...Captain Dan, "The Demon Dwarf" changes his moniker to "The Dirt Devil". Said Capt'n Dan, "I'm just tryin' to clean up me act." At a press conference, Dan's agent said, "We know all of Captain Dan's fans are pulling for him as they have a special attachment to him."

[edyzmedieval]

:laugh4: Captain Dan, the penis man. :laugh4:

:laugh4:

@camel article

Never allow an animal to hump you kids. Tis is what happens.

[InsaneApache]

In forest areas of Madagascar lemurs can make up more than 50% of their diet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6955014.stm

You'd better keep your wits about you Lemur. :laugh4:

[drone]

Pet camel kills Australian woman (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6954728.stm).

I imagine that her reticence gave him the hump.
Where's Mithrandir? :inquisitive:

[Banquo's Ghost]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6955014.stm

You'd better keep your wits about you Lemur. :laugh4:

Probably a lot of fossa 'bout nothing, but if I was Lemur I'd avoid Cornwall.

:stupido2:

Actually, I'd avoid Cornwall whoever I was...

[Gregoshi]

Just curious Lemur, at what age were you microchipped? How about your little ones? :laugh4:

[Andres]

Watch out! He's got a vibrator! (http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1280573,00.html)

Jailed For Robbing Bookies With Vibrator

A robber who held up a bookmakers with his girlfriend's Rampant Rabbit vibrator has been jailed.

Nicki Jex, 27, concealed the sex toy in a carrier bag and pretended it was a gun during the raid on the Ladbrokes shop, in Leicester, on December 27 last year.

A member of staff at the Narborough Road branch handed over more than £600 in cash when he pointed it at her, Leicester Crown Court was told.

Jex, of Braunstone, pleaded guilty to the robbery, which was captured on a CCTV camera inside the shop.

Sentencing him to five years behind bars, Judge Philip Head said: "It's right to record that you did not have a firearm.

"But you pretended you had and intended that those you confronted believed that you did, and it must have been truly terrifying for them at the time."

Tim Palmer, prosecuting, told the court: "The defendant pointed the item in the carrier bag at the cashier. She immediately assumed it to be a firearm.

"In fact, what was contained within the carrier bag was the defendant's girlfriend's vibrator."

The cashier handed over £613 in till contents and other money, the court was told.

But as he made his escape, the shop's only remaining customer, Wayne Vakani, followed him outside and tracked him to a nearby pub.

Thanks to the customer, the defendant's hat, worn in the robbery and containing his DNA, was discovered nearby.

When he was arrested he denied any involvement in the robbery, but changed his plea later.

[Lemur]

Mock all you like, but with my handy microchip, I can be scanned at any one of two thousand participating veterinary clinics, and returned to my rightful owner.

[The_Mark]

Watch out! He's got a vibrator!

Had he pulled the trigger on the trembling robbery victims he himself would've been somewhat shaken.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Watch out! He's got a vibrator!

:no:

I don't know what the world's coming to.

[Papewaio]

Why hasn't anyone quoted Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from the Simpsons?

As the robber runs off the shopkeeper should have shouted out:

'Please come again.'