Women have their day, how to win a drinking contest, 'tangy' cookies, eyeball jewellery, and tank you (no, tank you!) Norway, for everything

International Women's Day Special Edition

This week saw International Women's Day celebrated on Monday. In the UK, for some reason, this day is almost entirely unknown, and uncelebrated. Hence, I'm sure, the following comments I got in my office when pointing it out. "What do you mean, women don't earn as much as men? They just take our money." And "they take all the money in a divorce." And "why isn't there an international Men's day?"

Yes yes, there there, the nurse'll be round in a minute.

Getting it off your chest

(Reuters/pic AFP/William West)

A topless woman protester shouted with the slogan "get your colonist shame off my breasts" as Britains Prince Charles (not pictured) walks through Civic Square in Wellington March 8, 2005. Another woman minutes earlier, had also shouted at the prince and bared her breasts before being led away by security [the one pictured, I think. Right on!]. (/)

Apron-wearing women storm parliament

(Ananova)

Protesting women wearing aprons and waving kitchen utensils invaded a parliament building in Brazil.

They staged their protest at Sorocaba after a local MP made sexist comments, reports Estado de Sao Paulo.

Waldomiro Raimundo de Freitas was responding to a group of women complaining about nepotism in parliament.

He said: "For the sake of your babies, please housewives, stay at home! Cook for your families, take care of your husbands."

Eight women's groups combined to stage the protest after his comments were broadcast by a TV station. The MP has since apologised for his remarks. (/)

Shopping mall gives away handymen to women shoppers

(Ananova)

A Chinese shopping mall gave away handsome handymen to female customers on International Women's Day.

Any woman who spent more than £120 at the mall could take a handyman home to do three hours housework.

But, although many women qualified for the promotion, only three actually took up the chance to take one home.

The shopping centre, in Guangzhou city, selected ten male workers from its staff for the promotions, reports Southern Net.

One of the men, who normally works as an administrative officer in the mall, said he was not too keen on being given away as a gift.

But he promised to "persuade himself to do something meaningful for women on their festival". (/)

Russian cops say it with flowers

(Ananova)

Russian police stopped women drivers to hand out flowers instead of speeding tickets to mark International Women's Day.

Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said his men had been ordered to be "totally gallant towards women" to mark the occasion.

"Policemen will take care not to spoil the Women's Day celebrations," Mr Chekalin pledged.

"Depending on local tradition, policemen in some Russian cities have been asked to stop female drivers to present them with flowers."

He also confirmed that policemen would not fine women for minor traffic offences to mark the day. (/)

Mix-up costs man wife and mistress

(Ananova)

A Romanian man lost his wife and mistress in one night after buying both a personalised gold necklace and mixing up the gifts.

Petru Cioaba, from Focsany, bought identical necklaces for his wife and his mistress and had their initials and a personal message engraved onto each one.

But he mixed up the necklaces, and after he left his wife the necklace one morning as a surprise present for her and went to work, he got a message from a lawyer saying she was filing for divorce.

Cioaba said he hoped his wife, to whom he has been married 20 years, would not go through with the divorce, local daily 7Plus reported. (/)

Housewives star troubled by desperate men

(Ananova)

Marcia Cross has been inundated with offers from straight men who want to convert following reports that she's gay.

The Desperate Housewives actress, who later issued a statement denying the rumours that she is a lesbian, now also wants to make it clear she's not desperate.

The 43-year-old single actress, who plays sexy redhead Bree Van De Kamp on the hit show, told the New York Post that at a Hollywood party recently she was approached by one man who whispered, "I heard you were gay. Let's get a room and prove that wrong."

Marcia says she replied, "Sorry. I'd much rather be gay than sleep with you just to prove I wasn't." (/)

Girls, it's all about you. (A belated) Happy IWD. Oh, just to get your backs up, though:

S.Africa turns women footballers into ladies

(Reuters)

Dateline: Johannesburg - South Africa's female football team will be coached in etiquette and given tighter T-shirts in a drive to soften their image and attract sponsorship ahead of a 2007 World Cup bid.

A top women's football official said on Wednesday that female players who dressed and acted like men were giving women's football a bad name and needed to nurture their feminine side by wearing more shapely kit and sitting like ladies.

"They need to learn how to be ladies," Ria Ledwaba, head of the women's committee at the South African Football Association (SAFA) told Reuters. "At the moment you sometimes can't tell if they're men or women."

The national team would be given a more shapely kit to emphasise their femininity on the pitch and would swap dowdy track suits for skirts and jackets when travelling.

"Obviously they can't wear skirts on pitch... but they will be given outfits made for women, with female shirts that are shaped for breasts," Ledwaba said.

SAFA would also hold etiquette workshops to turn the players -- often plucked from the streets of South Africa's sprawling townships with no schooling -- into "national assets".

"We need to teach them etiquette and the importance of being a role model," said Ledwaba. "There are mothers out there who won't let their daughters play football because they think they'll start acting like boys."

The efforts to soften the team's image are part of a drive to attract hot new talent to the team, which has never competed in a world tournament, and to lure sponsors ahead of the 2007 women's World Cup.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter last year courted controversy when he urged women players to wear tighter shorts to distinguish them from men. (/)

Now, TAR readers may recall that last week's Sports section was only really there to put the words "Sepp Blatter" in. This is no coincidence. Ladies, TAR doesn't have Sepp's personal email (oh, but I wish I did), but you can tell FIFA exactly what you think of his ideas by emailing contact@fifa.org, and if that doesn't work, email FIFA's press office at media@fifa.org.

"National assets"… well I did laugh I admit.

Gossping wife locked in pigsty

(Ananova)

A Romanian man has caused controversy by locking his gossiping wife in the pigsty.

Puiu Dobrica from Andreiasu, Vrancea county, says he wanted to cure her of chattering all day with her friends.

He waited until his wife Aurelia went in to the sty to clean it one morning, and then locked the door from the outside.

The woman spent a whole day and night in the pigsty until her son released her the next morning.

Mr Dobrica, a barber, said: "I don't see where the problem is. I never neglected my wife.

"I fed her two times by a hole in the roof. I just hope I won't see her spending time gossiping again." (/)

Dominican man dies after winning contest to drink the most tequila

(Canadian Press/AP)

Dateline: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic - The 21-year-old winner of a competition to drink the most tequila died Monday and three other contestants were gravely ill in the hospital, officials said.

Ricardo Garcia drank more than 50 shots of tequila Sunday night at a Santo Domingo disco to win the prize worth $400 Cdn at a Mexican night celebration.

But he was taken ill, hospitalized and died within hours, apparently from heart failure brought on by alcohol poisoning, said public prosecutor Jose Hernandez Peguero.

Three other contestants remained in serious condition in the hospital, family members said.

"The doctors told me that they were reserving their prognosis but that all his vital signs were under control," said Santiago Abreu, father of contestant Edilberto Abreu. (/)

A tequila-drinking contest is not a contest you want to win.

Egg has tail

(Ananova)

An egg in China has been found with a tail.

The egg, found by chef Wang of at his restaurant in Anyang city, Henan province, is normal size, but has a tail that is 3 cm long.

It is not known why the egg has the tail reports Dahe Daily.

Wang says he wants to hatch the egg and see what will come out. (/)

I don't. And does that mean he's going to sit on it? I wouldn't f*cking sit on an egg with a tail if you f*cking…

Teen Sends Student Semen-Frosted Brownies

(AP)

Dateline: Coeur D'Alene, Idaho – A teenager has agreed to admit to three counts of disturbing the peace after anonymously sending semen-frosted brownies to a fellow student. The recipient shared the treat with two other teens, police said.

They said the 17-year-old Coeur d'Alene High School student was upset after a prank in which the other student put peanut butter in his cheese sandwich days before. He told a school resource officer that "he hated peanut butter and it made him more mad than he could explain," according to the police report.

The teen later told School Resource Officer Jeff Walther that he got the idea of putting his semen on the brownies from the movie "National Lampoon's Van Wilder," in which characters send pastries filled with dog semen to a fraternity house.

The student was arrested and booked into a juvenile detention center. He has since been released on a judge's order that he has no contact with the students who ate the brownies.

The victims' parents were notified and the children were tested for anything that could have been transmitted through the body fluid, although Panhandle Health spokeswoman Susan Cuff said the chance of the students' health being affected would be "extremely remote." (/)

Five-inch knife found in man's head

(Ananova)

Dateline: Poland – Hospital staff treating a retired school teacher for a headache found a five inch knife blade wedged in his head.

The discovery was made after doctors X-rayed Leonard Woronowicz to see if he had cracked his skull in a fall while climbing over a stool in his kitchen four days earlier.

Instead they found a blade that had penetrated the 61-year-old's head just below his right ear. It had snapped off at the handle without touching any major blood vessels or nerves - or causing any lasting damage.

He said: "I thought they might give me an aspirin, instead they pulled a five inch knife blade out of my head."

Woronowicz, from the Polish town of Wojnowice, said he had tripped over the stool while doing work in his kitchen.

He said: "I had some tools and other gadgets scattered on the kitchen floor where I had been doing the work when I tripped. The blade from the kitchen knife must have pierced my head then. My head hurt a bit, but I was convinced that it was from the fall. There was a small gash on the side of my head near my ear, but I thought it would soon heal and did not make much of it. I put a plaster on it and left it."

He added: "I didn't even guess what had happened when the next day I wanted to cut a piece of bread but couldn't find the kitchen knife. Despite carefully searching the room I could only find the handle. But I forgot about it as my headaches got worse over the next few days, and I decided to go to a hospital."

Local doctors were bewildered at the sight of the X-ray pictures and immediately called for an ambulance to take the patient to the Bialystok regional centre hospital in Northern Poland.

Surgeons pulled the five inch blade out of his skull in an operation that took just a few minutes. The blade had gone into his head from the side near his right ear.

Dr Marek Rogowski from the Bialystok hospital said a surgeon could not have made a better job of placing the knife so that it missed all vital bones, nerves and blood vessels. He said: "We have found objects in patients' bodies before, but this is unprecedented." (/)

Makes me shudder. Though I am, as TAR readers will know, truly fascinated by these stories. The next one, however, just makes me grip my seat and go 'bluuuuurrggghhHH!'

Illinois lawmakers take on 'eyeball jewelry'

(Canadian Press/AP)

Dateline: Springfield, Illinois - Some Illinois lawmakers want to make sure the twinkle in your eye doesn't come from jewelry.

Repulsed by a body modification offered at a Dutch institute - where tiny metal hearts and half-moons are surgically embedded in the whites of the eye - one lawmaker has proposed banning the practice in Illinois.

A House of Representatives committee Thursday approved legislation that would make it a felony to implant jewelry in someone's eye.

"I don't think anybody should be messing with the eyeball," Democratic Representative Kevin Joyce said Friday.

The procedure involves making a tiny slice in the membrane covering the eye and slipping in a small, flat piece of metal. The result is a shiny shape in the white of the eye. The procedure is performed under local anesthetic.

Dr. Janak Koirala, assistant professor of medicine at Southern Illinois University, said he is concerned about the possibility of infection or other damage - risks that would last as long as the person kept the jewelry in their eye.

"It's not like piercing the skin," he said.

In the United States, at least one California-based doctor is offering the procedure, but a tattoo artist said lawmakers are giving the issue more attention than it deserves.

"Most people in the Midwest, when it comes to body modification, are very conservative," said Kevin Veara, the 43-year-old owner of Black Moon Tattoos.

He conceded, however, that as tattoos become more mainstream, people in Europe and the U.S. coasts are undergoing more daring and possibly dangerous body modifications - larger and deeper piercings through various body parts.

"It's like you're not a freak anymore if you have a tattoo," Veara said. "To be a freak you've got to step up a little bit." (/)

OH DEAR GOD! I'm going to be sick. But at least I won't die before I'm paid off:

Heaven Can Wait, Court Tells Dying Man

(Reuters)

Dateline: Rome - A man given six months to live by his doctors has been told by an Italian court to come back in 14 months to hear the outcome of his demand for insurance damages.

Carmelo Cisabella, 39, has an inoperable spine disease and is anxious to pick up some $596,300 in already-agreed damages from his insurers to help ease his final months of life, the Il Messaggero newspaper reported Tuesday.

In a bid to speed up the process, Cisabella turned to the Sicilian courts to put pressure on the slow-moving insurers, but was told to return next year to hear their decision.

In his frustration, he chained himself to the gates of the law courts to bring attention to his plight.

Il Messaggero said Cisabella's woes dated back more than a decade when he was left paralyzed by a motorcycle accident. Confined to a wheelchair, he subsequently developed a lethal infection of the spine.

The insurance claim dates back to the road crash.

Italian justice is notoriously slow and it takes on average 3,041 days to obtain a definitive sentence in a civil case. (/)

Doctors remove wedding ring from penis

(Ananova)

Romanian doctors have removed a man's wedding ring from his penis.

The patient, who is married and has two children, told doctors he had a one night stand with another woman.

He couldn't say how the ring got onto his penis but suspected the mistress wanted to embarrass him because he fell asleep during sex.

Doctors said the man, from Rovinari, Jiu county, whose name was not revealed will recover after the incident.

They said it was not the first time they had to save people from embarrassing situations.

In another case, a man came to hospital with his penis stuck in a cola bottle.

"He looked like a very respectable person. We managed to remove the bottle without harming his sexual organ," a urologist told Opinia Oltenien newspaper. (/)

Rocky Mountain Irony

(AP/header SFGate)

Dateline: Aspen, Colorado – A man taking an avalanche awareness class died after being trapped in a slide outside the boundaries of the Aspen Highlands ski area, sheriff's officials said.

The man died within a half-hour of being pulled alive from the avalanche Sunday, said Ann Stephenson of the Pitkin County sheriff's office.

His name, age and hometown were not released until his family could be notified. Officials were investigating the death.

The man was in a group of six people who were part of a class sponsored by the backcountry expedition company Aspen Expeditions, Stephenson said. A man answering the phone at Aspen Expeditions referred all questions to authorities.

It was not clear what triggered the avalanche. (/)

Norway in the news

Ski-jumpers leap into trees for contest

(AP/byline Doug Mellgren)

Dateline: Oslo, Norway - Unlike most ski jumpers, entrants in a Norwegian competition this weekend will lose points for any smooth and graceful landings on the snow.

These jumpers will be aiming for the trees. And the higher they land, the better their scores may be.

The unofficial Norwegian tree ski-jumping championships are being organized for the second time in southern Norway's mountains by a group of mountaineering enthusiasts, who are hoping that roads closed by snow don't stop them.

"It isn't really all that dangerous," Oeystein Lia, one of the organizers, said Friday. "It usually goes pretty well."

Most end up with at least a few bumps, scratches and bruises.

Lia said 11 people had signed up for Saturday's competition in the Hallingskarvet wilderness area, about 200 kilometres, west of Oslo.

He said he was out driving in search of a good spot that could be reached by car, since some of the roads are closed.

Another of the organizers, Vidar Eggimann, said not even that would stop them: "We have skis. We can walk. The contest is on."

The idea is to take flight from a mound of snow, fly through the air and land in a tree. To qualify as a completed jump, the skier has to hang onto the tree without falling to the ground.

"You really have to dare to give it your all in the jump, so you end up near the top of the tree," said Lia. "If you don't, you can slam right into the trunk."

The higher parts of the trees are thinner, and bend under the weight of the skiers, while, according to tips published by the group, there are three possible reasons "the tree felt like hitting a lamp post."

"A) The tree is too big. B) You hit it too far down the trunk because you didn't jump hard enough or C) You're a wimp," the tree-jumpers' troubleshooting guide explained.

Qualifying demands were not especially stringent.

"Even relatively faint-hearted people, it seems, can complete a tree ski jump as long as they have skis on," said the group's website. "The higher up the tree, the softer the landing."

The tree-jumps are inspired by old Norwegian traditions with a new twist.

In the 1800s, skiers would race down mountainsides, usually arcing around natural obstacles like trees. The toughest skiers, though, would jump over the branches of some trees.

Lia, 33, and his cohorts just changed the rules a little, so those jumps have to end in the trees.

Last year's champion, Eldar Heide, won gold with a jump that included a graceful landing about two metres up the trunk of a small birch. (/)

I wrote to Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper, to find out what had happened but they'd missed the story. Which is a shame. They've been lapping this up, though:

Tanks again! Or, Tanking you, tanking me

(Aftenposten.no)

(Photo: Knut Falch / Scanpix)

Last week, a military tank rolled over a private car driven by a couple leaving a ski center in Nord-Trøndelag. [But] on Monday morning a family was rudely awakened when another armoured tank rammed into the wall of their house in the same area.

The family home at Høylandet in Nord-Trøndelag was damaged when the CV-90 tank, driving through the neighbourhood in connection with a NATO exercise, encountered a patch of ice.

A military spokesman said the tank went into reverse when it began to slip on the ice, but then hit the house at aroung 5:30am.

The NATO exercise called "Battle Griffin" has been underway in the area for the past week, leading to an unusual amount of military vehicles.

Commander Thom Knustad told news bureau NTB that the operation requires military personnel "to operate close to houses in the local area."

He said there were no reports of injuries when the tank hit the house.

[The week before,] Knut Okkenhaug, 57, had a startling brush with death when an errant tank flattened half of his car.

The accident took place around 6 p.m. on Wednesday while Okkenhaug and his wife Elise were driving home downhill from Bjørgan Ski Center. The couple suddenly found themselves facing a Norwegian Leopard tank [pictured, crushing a different car with frightening ease] out on maneuvers.

"We stopped the car after driving all the way out to the side, to where the snow is plowed off, but the tank just continued towards us without stopping," Okkenhaug said.

"Then the tank drove up over the left side of the hood of the car and continued over the front window and roof, half a meter into the car. The tank driver clearly hadn't seen us. I leaned as far as I could into my wife while I felt the roof being pressed down into my left shoulder," Okkenhaug remembered.

"Then my left cheekbone was pressed against the roof and I shrunk down as far as I could. It was quite cramped and looking back it is incredible that I survived. I said a bad word when I understood the tank wasn't going to stop, when it was over me I can't remember what I thought," Okkenhaug said.

The 40-ton tank didn't stop until it had finished driving over the vehicle. (/)

Undertakers leaflet OAP homes

(Ananova)

Undertakers in a Romanian town say business is booming after they started leafleting old folks' homes.

The firm has announced record sales since handing out leaflets advertising special discounts on coffins, funerals and graveside crosses.

Pensioners at the Retirement Home in Botosani, in northern Romania, have been calling up the cut price undertakers since finding out about the discounts.

Wooden crosses for 70 pence and coffins for £17 - half the usual price - have proved most popular, local media reported. (/)

Man fails to kill himself, or be killed

(Sydney Morning Herald/byline John Silvester)

A man who was too scared to commit suicide instead took out a contract on his own life - but the two men who were paid to do the job failed in their attempt to kill him, police say.

The man, 30, knew the two young men and paid them $5000 each to kill him. Police said he told the men, both 18, he wanted to kill himself but feared he would botch the job. His plan was to take sleeping tablets, then if he was still alive 10 minutes later his paid assistants were to beat him to death with an iron bar.

Last Friday, the three men drove in the victim's Ford sedan to Gembrook in the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne. They first searched for a cliff where they could dispose of the corpse, but after failing to find anywhere suitable decided the victim's body would have to be hidden in bushes instead, police said.

The victim took two boxes of prescription sleeping pills. But instead of quietly slipping into a coma he began to convulse on the ground. The two other men grabbed the large iron bar they had brought with them and struck him two or three times on the head. Satisfied he was dead they left, not bothering to roll the body out of sight.

But the victim had both an iron stomach and a thick skull. He was later found, bloodied and disoriented, staggering down the road. He was taken to hospital, then transferred to a psychiatric ward at another hospital as a non-voluntary patient.

The two young men, who have no police record, have been interviewed by detectives and are believed to have made full admissions. The victim's car was recovered from outside their house.

It is understood the failed killers spent the money they were paid for the job on alcohol, Cuban cigars and mobile phones. They are expected to be charged on summons with attempted murder. (/)

Dinosaurs return to Earth, courtesy of Japanese robotics

(AFP)

Dateline: Tokyo - Two dinosaurs which lived in North America 70 million years ago have come back to roam the world, albeit in a much easier-to-handle size, compliments of Japanese scientists.


AFP Photo

Robot replicas Tyrannosaurus rex and Parasaurolophus, capable of strolling one kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) an hour, will greet visitors at the six-month World Exposition which opens this month in the central Aichi region.

Evoking a scene from the movie Jurassic Park, the Expo site will ring with screams from the dinosaurs. Organizers will air noises on the speaker system, as the robots' own voices are not expected to be loud enough for a large crowd.

"It is fun to watch the robots because they look so real," said Masatoshi Otake, a spokesman for the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

The institute and another body funded by the Japanese state, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development, jointly developed the dinosaur robots, which took one year and 180 million yen (1.7 million dollars) to build.

While the robots are made in proportion to their prehistoric inspirations, they are much smaller.

The 3.5-meter-long (11.6 foot) T-Rex robot weighs about 87 kilograms (190 pounds) with a height of 1.5 meters, compared with its prehistoric inspiration which was 14 meters long and weighed five tons.

The Parasaurolophus robot is 3.5 meters long, 1.6 meters high and weighs about 85 kilograms (187 pounds), much lighter than the real dinosaur's 4.5 tons.

The Expo, an international showcase of technology and innovation which Japan expects to draw 15 million visitors, will be open between March 25 and September 25 in Aichi, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Tokyo. (/)

That's still 190-pound, 5-by-11ft robot T Rex! Imagine the carnage! And that's just if it falls over! Though, at least you'd know it had killed someone…

Japanese Siblings Live With Dead Parent

(AP)

Dateline: Tokyo, Japan - Police on Tuesday questioned three siblings after it was discovered they had been living with the decomposed corpse of their father for nearly a decade, an official said.

Police found the body of Kyujiro Kanaoka lying on a futon bed at the family's home in Itami city in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan, said a prefectural police spokesman, who declined to be identified.

Kanaoka's three elderly children, all in their 70s or older, told police they thought their father was still alive but that one of them recently had consulted a relative about the possibility that he might be dead, the spokesman said.

Police were investigating the cause of Kanaoka's death. Judging from the condition of his decomposed body, Kanaoka may have died as long as 10 years ago, the spokesman said.

Had he been alive, the man would be 107 years old. Hyogo prefecture had registered Kanaoka as its oldest living resident, public broadcaster NHK said. (/)

Swiss driver rapped for nighttime speeding spree

(AFP)

Dateline: Bern - A young Swiss driver who was caught breaking the speed limit 19 times in a night was stripped of his driving licence, fined and given a suspended prison sentence.

The 19 year-old had removed his number plates to avoid being identified as he repeatedly drove through two fixed speed traps near the Swiss capital Bern at speeds up to 40 kilometres per hour (27 miles per hour) above the limit.

However, a policeman who had dealt with him a day earlier recognised the car on the speed trap photographs, which included snaps of passengers making obscene gestures.

The youngster admitted he had drunk seven or eight beers before the speeding spree.

A court in Bern fined him 1,000 Swiss francs (650 euros) and handed down a four-year suspended prison sentence, while the passengers were ordered to appear before a minor's court. (/)

Cold, cold heart

(AP)

Dateline: Boulder, Colorado - Over the last three years, the cryogenically frozen body of a Norwegian man has become the centerpoint of a quirky winter festival in a small Colorado mining town.

"Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel, who died in 1989, was frozen by his grandson and stored in a shed in Nederland, a town 35 miles northwest of Denver that began celebrating "Frozen Dead Guy Days" in 2002 to increase tourism.

Now the man's daughter, 75-year-old Aud Morstoel, is hoping Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja will help her secure a visa to attend the festival. The royal couple also have been invited by Nederland's Chamber of Commerce to visit and "partake in the fun and parody of the weekend."

Aud Morstoel was invited to serve as the parade marshal for the March 11-13 celebration, but her application for a visa has yet to be approved, her son said.

Trygve Bauge, who submitted the request to Norway's king and queen, said his mother's application has been held up in part because she was convicted for drunk driving in Colorado and she overstayed her last visa before returning to Norway.

"They should have given us this a long time ago," he said Thursday from Norway.

Bauge, who froze his 89-year-old grandfather in hopes he can someday be revived or cloned, was deported in 1994 for immigration violations. His mother returned shortly thereafter, four months after her visa expired.

A caretaker has replenished the ice when necessary since Bauge was deported. (/)

After last week's Gummi Roadkill story, you'd have to go one better wouldn't you?

Chicken, Krispy Kreme trucks collide on U.S.20

(Fort Wayne Journal Gazette/spotted AP)

Food groups collided early Tuesday in LaGrange County, when a tractor-trailer rig hauling live chickens struck a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts truck, police said.

The trucks and their loads of fresh fare were traveling on U.S. 20 about 3:10 a.m. when the crash occurred near 11700 East U.S. 20, less than a half-mile west of the Steuben County line, LaGrange County Sheriff Greg Dhaene said.

Some of the chickens were killed but others were corralled, re-caged and placed onto other trucks for transport, said Deputy Ron Fennell. None of the doughnuts escaped the confines of their box truck. No humans were injured, Dhaene said.

"It's a junk food eater's worst nightmare," Dhaene said. "It's just a good thing it didn't catch fire because then we would have had fried chicken." (/)

More animals!

Drugs, weapons, alligator, body armour, piranhas seized in raid on fortified drugs den

(Beloit Daily News, byline Jen Scherer)

The Beloit police tactical unit busted down the fortified doors of a drug house Saturday in the city's northwest side, seizing drugs, weapons, body armor and an alligator.

Five people inside were taken into custody, though three were released without charges. Jose L. Quintero, 23, is tentatively charged with a variety of drug and weapons offenses and Stephanie R. Losching, 18, has been tentatively charged with cocaine possession, Beloit Police Capt. Bill Tyler said.

Tyler said the house was fortified with steel reinforced doors and a surveillance system. Because of the reinforcements, it took police a few extra seconds to get into the home.

"We were concerned because the primary target had a weapons history," Tyler said. "The fact that they had a surveillance system was concerning. We knew they would be aware of our presence."

Several "distraction devices" were deployed during the execution of the search warrant.

"We had to basically smash down the front doors," Tyler said. "It was quite difficult to gain entry but the unit did gain entry and we were able to secure all the persons in the residence."

Tyler said that when Quintero was arrested, there was ballistic body armor and a semi-automatic handgun nearby. "Those are items typically found in homes that are your more determined drug houses," Tyler said.

A stun gun was also recovered at the scene, and agents seized a 2001 Lexus SUV and two other vehicles, as well as a quantity of cocaine and marijuana.

In searching the house, agents discovered a 2-foot alligator in a cage in the basement and some piranha, which were seized and turned over to the Rock County Humane Society, Tyler said, [though he] could not say what the purpose of the alligator was.

"It was a snappy little thing though," Tyler said. (/)

So, the cops picked up: guns, armour, man-eating fish, a pretty scary reptile, a stun gun, a Lexus and some lesser cars, and a whole bunch of coke and grass. That is a f*cking serious weekend in, n'est ce pas? And I love the idea of smashing someone's door down being a 'distraction device'…

The Health Hazards Of Low-Riding Pants

(Wireless Flash)

Dateline: Palo Alto, California – Fashionable short skirts and baggy jeans that hang below the belt are turning the current generation of youngsters into prime candidates for hip replacement surgery.

According to posture expert Jean Couch of the Balance Center in Palo Alto, California, the low-rise fashions have "ruined the structure of the human body."

She says young boys who wear baggy jeans have to spread their legs wide to keep their drawers from falling down, changing the alignment between their hips and legs in a way which wears out the hip socket and could cause arthritis later in life.

Short skirts are no better, because girls have to keep their knees together and that throws their leg bones and hips out of alignment in a similar way.

Couch calls the trend "a catastrophic problem" especially because it's harder to correct bad posture in young people because their bones are so malleable.

Her solution? "I propose they get different pants," Couch says, adding, "someone needs to change what's cool." (/)

"Girls with short skirts have to keep their legs together"…

Smelly Readers Banned From Library

(AP)

Dateline: San Luis Obispo, California -- A new county law aims to keep readers from reeking. Libraries in San Luis Obispo County have had their own rules banning offensive body odor since 1994, but the policy became law after the Board of Supervisors last month adopted an ordinance that lets authorities kick out malodorous guests.

Visitors to 14 libraries and a bookmobile also could be asked to leave for fighting, eating, drinking, sleeping, playing games, and printing or viewing illegal materials on library computers.

"The point is to make the library a comfortable, safe place for everyone to use," said Moe McGee, assistant director of the San Luis Obispo City-County Library.

A strict code of conduct, officials argue, is needed to ensure one patron's right to use a public library doesn't infringe on the rights of another.

Yet the law can raise tough questions for librarians, said Irene Macias, Santa Barbara's library services manager.

"What is bad odor?" Macias asked. "A woman who wears a strong perfume? A person who had a garlicky meal?" (/)

Rules out most of my office and half of Italy, too.

Al-Qaeda plot to kidnap actor

(variously Daily Telegraph, Australia and Imdb.com et al)

In one of the more bizarre terror plots hatched by al-Qaeda, Australian actor Russell Crowe was the target of a kidnapping scheme as part of a "cultural destabilisation plan".

Crowe has revealed he was approached by the FBI in the months leading up to his Academy Award win for Gladiator in 2001 and warned, vaguely, of the threat: "That was the first [time] I'd ever heard the phrase al-Qaeda. It was about - and here's another little touch of irony - taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural destabilisation plan."

Detectives guarded the actor at the London premiere of Proof Of Life and FBI agents shadowed him at the Golden Globe.

He jokes, "I never fully understood what the f**k was going on. Suddenly it looks like I think I'm f**king Elvis Presley, because everywhere I go there are all these FBI guys." (/)

Reported elsewhere, making the front page of the Grauniad with the f-word intact - but that was the best quote I found. I doubt anyone really thought that Crowe was f*cking Elvis Presley though. I mean, that's just sick.

Last week TAR carried the story that the wonderfully named Tawny Peaks (not, surprisingly, her real name) was going to sell one of her notorious implants. Bidding when TAR went to web was at a measly $71, but I needn't have feared…

The view from distant peaks

(Reuters)

Dateline: Miami - A former stripper once cleared of battering a customer with her enormous breasts sold one of her silicone implants on eBay to the same company that recently bought a grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary.

Internet casino company GoldenPalace.com won the bid for the infamous implant at $16,766 on Saturday, according to the eBay Web site and the seller, known professionally as Tawny Peaks. She advertised a 69-HH bra size before her implants were removed in 1999.

There was no word yet on what the online gambling company planned to do with the implant.

Last year GoldenPalace paid $28,000 for a 10-year-old, partly eaten grilled cheese sandwich with an image many likened to the Virgin Mary. The company sent the sandwich on a national publicity tour, encased in clear plastic.

Peaks has retired from the entertainment business, and put one of the implants up for auction last week. She said she was overwhelmed and exhausted by the flood of e-mailed bids.

"It's over and I'm happy," said Peaks, now a homemaker living in the Detroit area.

Peaks said she has since become "kind of a recluse."

"My old fans don't really know what I look like now," she said. (/)

Erm, no, because you no longer have t*ts the size of full-grown badgers, love.

Police raid over Home Alone hamster

(Reuters)

Dateline: Berlin - A German man who went on holiday left his stereo and lights on so that his pet hamster would not feel lonely in the empty apartment, a police spokesman said after breaking into it over fears the man may have died.

The spokesman for police in Bremen said on Monday police broke open the door after being alerted by neighbours that loud music was playing non-stop for five days and the lights were left on. No one answered the door when they knocked, police said.

"There was a fear the occupant might have been disabled or dead," a police spokesman said. "All we found was a pet hamster. The occupant was away on holiday. A friend of his arrived and said he left the music on so the hamster wouldn't feel lonely."

The spokesman said the friend of the occupant, who is still on holiday and not reachable, told police she visited every few days to feed the golden hamster food and provide water. She promised to turn the music down and come by more often. (/)

Ok now, the next one I'm convinced AFP's been spoofed on…

Malaysia dreams of batik cosmonaut, munching roti canai in space

(AFP)

Dateline: Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia aims to send a piece of local culture and a famous delicacy into the heavens when its first astronaut shoots into space in 2007 [local reports say].

The National Space Agency plans to send a chef and a fashion designer to the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration to research how to prepare "roti canai," a flat Indian bread, to eat in space and as well as making spacesuits from traditional batik, reports said Wednesday.

"We will have a program called 'Batik in Space' and we will also launch a program called 'Roti Canai in Space' to see how we can bring Malaysia delicacies up to the space station," the agency's director-general Mazlan Othman was quoted as saying by The Star.

"We will research ways to bring our astronauts' favourite food into space."

Russia will send Malaysia's first cosmonaut into space in October 2007 as part of a scientific mission aboard the International Space.

The two countries signed a deal to send Malaysia's first cosmonaut into space onboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft during a visit to Malaysia by Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2003. It is part of a billion-dollar deal for 18 Sukhoi 30-MKM fighter jets.

Two Russian experts are expected to arrive in Kuala Lumpur month to help select candidates.

If the Malaysian astronaut selected is Muslim, Mazlan said they would also consult an Islamic cleric to help determine prayer times in space and the direction of the Mecca for prayers. (/)

Erm, down, surely?

Brie Fly

Doctors give useless crap to tsunami victims

(WSJ/spotted in Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird)

Some of the well-intentioned donations for victims of the December tsunami are bewilderingly inappropriate (such as ski jackets and Viagra), according to a February Wall Street Journal dispatch from Sri Lanka. Relief workers are being distracted by shipments of, for example, moisturizing gel, sweaters, women's dress shoes, Arctic-weather tents, and thong underwear. Crucial medicines were in short supply, but not Valium, anti-depressants, or drugs with labels in languages that local doctors could not read. As the Journal wrote, some doctors "appear [just] to have unloaded their sample bins." (/)

The last thing the tsunami victims need is moisteriser, surely?

Headlines Of The Week

Jetset ministers face CO2 purge

(Metro)

Five million goldfish prepare to die as
Iran marks new year

(Reuters)

Miss Cellany Corner

Live Free Or Die!: imp.

1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates.

2. A slogan associated with Unix in the romantic days when Unix aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the windmills of industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from the fascist design philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on competing operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early Unix developers, used to give out fake license plates bearing this motto under a large Unix, all in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued collector's items. In 1994 DEC put an inferior imitation of these in circulation with a red corporate logo added. Compaq (half of which was once DEC) continued the practice.

And Finally

When Oral Sex Results in a Pregnancy: Can Men Ever Escape Paternity Obligations?

(FindLaw/byline Sherry Colb) In a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend, Richard O. Phillips has alleged that about six years ago, he engaged in oral sex with her.

Unbeknownst to Phillips, he says, his girlfriend, Sharon Irons, allegedly saved the resulting semen and used it to inseminate herself. A pregnancy resulted, Irons gave birth to a baby, and DNA tests proved Phillips to be the genetic father.

Though Phillips allegedly did not learn of either the pregnancy or the birth until some time later, a court nonetheless ordered him to pay approximately $800 a month in child support.

Irons disputes Phillips's claims and asserts that she conceived her child in the ordinary way. For purposes of this column only, however, I will assume the truth of Philips's allegations.

Phillips's suit originally contained allegations of theft, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. An Illinois Appellate Court, however, dismissed the theft and fraud claims a few weeks ago, allowing only the emotional distress action to go forward.

The facts of this case raise significant questions about the contours of a man's right -- if any -- to avoid paternity.

…When Phillips - according to his version of the facts - engaged in oral sex with Irons, did he truly assume the risk that he would have a child?

Would anyone??!?! Read all about Colb's analysis at FindLaw.com.

Until next time…

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