Tiger terror, bikini bribery, vegetarian meat, see-through loos, monkeys with human brains, and the man who thought taxi was spelled a-m-b-u-l-a-n-c-e

Bonuses for bikini-clad bathers anger South Korean women's group

AFP

A local government campaign to attract more bathers to a South Korean beach resort by offering incentives to swimmers wearing bikinis has upset women's rights activists.



Ahead of the peak summer bathing season, Buan County administration southwest of Seoul renamed its Byeonsan Beach Bikini Beach and promised wearers of skimpy swimsuits a 10-percent discount on bills for hotels, meals and beach equipment rentals.

The county put up wall posters with pictures of bikini-clad beauties and the inscription: "Show off your beauty and get a 10-percent discount."

Women's groups denounced the campaign as exploitation.

"This is an outrageous attempt to stimulate the regional economy by exploiting the female sex," said a statement from the association of women activists of North Jeolla Province.

A campaign to attract more visitors should focus on publicizing the southwestern county's "natural beauty instead of the naked female body," it said.

"We are appalled at this preposterous campaign and cannot suppress our mounting anger," it said.

But officials at the Buan county office were unrepentant and said by telephone that they had no plan to stop the campaign.

"I don't understand why they are so angry. This is just part of a publicity campaign aimed at promoting the name of the Bikini Beach. We have no intention to exploit or commercialize the female sex," an official told AFP.

No. Not at all.

Estonians snatch world wife-carrying title again

Reuters

Dateline: Sonkajarvi, Finland - Estonia reigned supreme once again in the wife-carrying world championship on Saturday, as Margo Uusorg sprinted home to win the Baltic country's eighth straight title in the offbeat competition.

Forty couples from 10 countries gathered in the remote Finnish village of Sonkajarvi to complete a 253.5-metre-long obstacle course. A man must carry a woman, not necessarily his spouse, through a pool and across hurdles.

The few rules require a minimum weight of 49 kg (108 lb) for the "wife" and state that all contestants must have fun.

Uusorg, 25, completed the course in 59 seconds with friend Egle Soll, 23, clinging to his back in the trademark "Estonian Carry" -- hanging upside down with her legs clenched around his neck.

Uusorg's prizes were his partner's weight in beer and a high-tech mobile phone.

It was his fourth victory, and the third in a row for his family. Brother Madis won in 2004.

"We don't have a secret, we just try to run fast and hope the legs work," said Uusorg, who works in Stockholm as an embassy driver. He warned that the family would be even stronger contenders next year when brother number three, Urmet, takes part.

"He holds the Estonian record for the 800 metres," Uusorg said.

Uusorg and Soll received first prize from the hands of visiting U.S. basketball legend Dennis Rodman, who declined to compete, saying he lacked both a wife and proper training.

"I'm not in shape ... It could hurt the back," said the former Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons forward. But he promised to train for next year. "I'll carry the kids around the house or something," he said.

Some 9,000 people came to view the event, set deep in forests and lakes a couple of hours' drive from the Arctic Circle. It began in 1992 as a purely Finnish contest based on local legend, according to which wife-stealing was once commonplace in the region.

Pete's Peach of an excuse

Ananova

Pete Doherty says his shambolic Live 8 act was down to Peaches Geldof squeezing his bum before he went on stage.

Critics accused the singer of being high on drugs as he stumbled, looked confused and forgot his words, says the Mirror.

But the Babyshambles star insisted it was all down to Bob Geldof's 16-year-old daughter: "I wasn't lost for words and I wasn't out of it on drugs.

"Just before I went on stage Peaches squeezed my bum hard and whispered something rather suggestive to me. It left me in such shock I didn't know where I was.

"Bob Geldof has organised this amazing global event, I was facing 210,000 people, the cameras are rolling, and f***ing Elton John is dueting with me.

"And Bob's daughter has secretly made a pass at me. It's all I can think about. It did my head in. I didn't think Bob would be very happy."

Doherty - wearing streaky mascara and struggling to keep his granny hat on - was booed as he forgot the words to T-Rex's Children of the Revolution.

But Peaches said: "I was starstruck. His performance was the most passionate of the night."

Pete admitted he was puzzled why Elton had taken him under his wing.

He said: "He seems to love me a bit. I can't think why. He knows how to have a good time and knows I like a crack. I hope we'll do more performances together." (:/)

I think he means "he knows I like crack". Surely.

Hong Kongers don't know what to do between the sheets

AFP

Dateline: Hong Kong - Hong Kongers usually rank near-bottom of the international list of lovers and a social worker may have discovered why: they don't know what to do between the sheets.

Grace Wong of the southern Chinese territory's Family Planning Association said the number of inquiries at her agency rocketed 50 percent last year, with many clients claiming to have no idea how to have sex.

"Some married couples are not familiar with their body parts," Wong was quoted as telling the Sunday Morning Post. "They don't know where their sex organs are.

"They don't know the physical changes associated with sexual response, like males getting an erection," she added.

Regular international surveys by condom manufacturers have found the city is less than amorous. Durex's last poll found Hong Kongers get it together 79 times a year, while the French manage it the most, at 137 times.

Another poll even suggested Hong Kong men prefer to go to work rather than have sex.

The frenetic work ethic in the former British colony is usually blamed for interfering with the course of nature.

But the paper said sociologists believe Chinese sensibilities, which deem discussion of sex even in school as taboo, are responsible. (:/)

And now, apropos the Finger In The Wendy's... turns out it happens everywhere...

Applebee's says it may have found
source of fingertip in salad

AP

Dateline: Kansas City, Mo. - Applebee's International Inc. says an internal investigation has discovered that a former employee at a Jefferson, La., restaurant cut the tip off his thumb a year ago and that likely is the fingertip found by a customer now suing the restaurant chain.

May Deal Chambers Johnson of Jefferson Parish claims she found a fingertip in a to-go salad she bought at the restaurant a year ago. She filed suit against the Overland Park, Kan.-based chain on June 24 in Jefferson Parish District Court, seeking unspecified damages.

In a statement released Saturday, Applebee's said "while some facts are still unclear, we now believe a former employee at this restaurant accidentally cut the very tip of his thumb last year." The company said the man described the cut as "roughly the size of a sunflower seed."

In its statement, Applebee's said it wanted to apologize to Johnson.

"We deeply regret this isolated incident from last year," the statement said. "Food safety remains our top priority." (:/)

Goof Puts Man in Major Poker Tourney

AP

Dateline: Killeen, Texas - A computer goof has Robert Guinther headed for a seat at the
World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas later this week.

Guinther, 65, entered what he thought was a $10 online poker tournament, but midway through he realized that he had accidentally clicked on a World Series of Poker satellite tournament with a $100 entry fee and it was too late to back out. He went on to win, defeating 180 other competitors and earning a spot in the WSOP $10,000 no-limit championship.

The tournament, which begins Thursday, will involve more than 6,600 players who either qualified by winning a satellite tournament or paid the $10,000 entry fee.

"This is the dream of a lifetime," Guinther said. "I watch these guys on television all the time, and I'm excited about the chance to sit down and play with them."

Guinther's son, Rik, kept tabs on his father's progress from his home computer in San Antonio and had to explain just what the victory meant.

"When I won, I let out a big Yes!" Guinther said. "I just thought I had won $11,000, but then my son told me over the phone, 'Dad, you've just won a seat in the World Series of Poker!' I screamed so loud, you wouldn't believe it."

Guinther, who settled in Killeen after retiring as an Army sergeant first class in 1985, says he's a little nervous about the next step but knows he'll be fine once play begins. (:/)

Wouldn't it be great if he won?

Motorcyclist recovering from injuries after plastic wrap prank

AP

Dateline: Wyoming - A western Michigan motorcyclist is recovering from injuries after crashing into plastic wrap that had been stretched across a roadway as a prank.

Jim Anderson suffered a fractured rib and internal bruises after he hit the industrial-strength wrap at about 1:20 a.m. Saturday while riding his Harley Davidson home. The 48 year old said he thought the plastic wrap was fog.

Wyoming, Michigan Police say three teenage boys told police they put the wrap between two sign posts as a prank not expecting something as small as a motorcycle to come down the street.

Police haven't decided whether to charge them. (:/)

Teacher Attire Becoming a Touchy Topic

AP

Dateline: Los Angeles— Teachers are expected to bear long days, challenging students and demanding parents. Now, apparently, some teachers are baring too much of themselves.

School boards and superintendents increasingly are pursuing dress codes for teachers. At issue is the same kind of questionable attire most often associated with students.

In some districts, teachers can get dressed down for wearing skimpy tops, short skirts, flip flops, jeans, T-shirts, spandex or baseball caps. Spaghetti is fine in the cafeteria, but shirts supported by spaghetti straps are not welcome in the classroom.

District 11 in Colorado Springs, Colo., for example, prohibits sexually provocative items. That includes clothing that exposes "cleavage, private parts, the midriff or undergarments," district rules say. (:/)

Teachers need to be told not to reveal their "private parts"?

Picture story

Toilet troubles WFMU Internet Radio

Would you use this loo?





For more about the Exhibitionist Excreter:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/02/my_bathroom_is_.html

SCI/TECH

If the wine talks to you, maybe it's time to stop

Reuters

Dateline: Rome - Who needs a sommelier? A "talking" wine label could soon tell consumers in Italy everything they want to know about a particular bottle -- from its production history to the kind of food it should accompany.

"The idea is to bring the oenologist to the table so that each wine can explain itself in the first person," said Daniele Barontini, whose Tuscan company Modulgraf is putting the final touches on the product to be launched in November.

"We envision our talking wine label in restaurants, wine stores and at vineyards that offer wine tasting," he told Reuters Wednesday.

The new "label" would consist of a chip implanted in the bottle that could be listened to with a small device about the size of a cigarette package in the wine shop or the restaurant.

"It could tell you how to enjoy the wine, where it came from, everything you'd hear from a sommelier," Barontini said. "You could even have music." (:/)

New hamburgers 'grown in laboratory'

Reuters

Laboratories using new tissue engineering technology might be able to produce meat that is healthier for consumers and cut down on pollution produced by factory farming, researchers said.
While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels.

But a new study conducted by University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to do it.

Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.
Advertisement:

Using another method, scientists could grow muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature. The resulting tissue could be used to make processed meat such as chicken nuggets or hamburgers.

"There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat," Matheny said in a statement. "For one thing, you could control the nutrients."

Meat is high in omega-6 fatty acid, which is desirable, but not in large amounts. Healthful omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in walnuts and fish oils, could be substituted.

"Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn't need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat," Matheny said.

Raising livestock requires million of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land. Meat grown from tissue would bypass those requirements.

The demand for meat is increasing worldwide, Matheny said. "China's meat demand is doubling every ten years," he said. "Poultry consumption in India has doubled in the last five years."

Writing in this month's Physics World, British physicist Alan Calvert calculated that the animals eaten by people produce 21 per cent of the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. He recommends people switch to a vegetarian diet as a way to battle global warming.

"Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels," he said in a statement. (:/)

Left-handed human race to make the world a better place

Pravda

Scientists say that the number of left-handed individuals grows rather fast in the world today

Specialists calculated that every tenth human being is left-handed. The total amount of lefthanders living in the world reaches over 600 million. According to experts' estimates, there will be a billion of left-handed people living on planet Earth by 2020. The world will be different against the background of such a trend, scientists say.

"The number of left-handed babies that were born in 2005 doubled the amount of left-handed children, which saw the light in 1990," doctor of biological sciences, Alexander Dubov said. "Mankind is changing slowly. However, it is not about degradation of the human civilization at all. Quite on the contrary, people become more perfect," the professor said.

Latest research works conducted in many countries of the globe showed that the IQ level of left-handed people is higher in comparison with the one of right-handed individuals. Every fifth outstanding person is left-handed as a rule. Furthermore, the people, who can boast of having extraordinary abilities, are left-handed too.

"There are a lot of extrasensorial individuals among them," doctor of medical sciences, Alexander Lee said. "We checked the supposition. There are hardly any right-handers among those, who have the gift of remote viewing, telepathy, or X-ray viewing," the doctor said.

Right and left-handers are virtually different types of people with their own special mindsets and perception of the world. "They get along with each other perfectly, but there is a hidden evolutionary struggle taking place between them, which reminds the struggle between primeval humans, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal men. It seems to me that left-handers will eventually win the fight owing to their anomalous abilities," scientist of anomalous phenomena, Pyotr Chereda said.

Modern scientists have already concluded that the left-handed human race will change the world; the humanity will become more intellectual and extrasensorial.(:/)

The Sinbin

Woman drove on three wheels, police say

AP

Dateline: Sparta, Wis. Her vehicle was missing a tire, and a large chunk of her right front rim was sitting in the second-story bedroom of a nearby home.

But Darkalena Large told Sparta police Monday evening that everything was fine and she wanted to continue driving home.

Large, 43, told police her car handled a little odd after someone hit her in a fast-food parking lot just after

8 p.m., but she said she got it under control and decided to head home, police said.

Officers said Large was intoxicated and her car was stuck on a curb when they caught up with her at West Wisconsin and South Court streets about 8:17 p.m. Monday. Witnesses told police Large smashed into another car in the McDonald's parking lot on South Black River Street, then sped off.

When a front tire came off, Large continued on the rim, which then shattered, but Large sped on, leaving a deep gouge in the concrete and dragging metal and part of the brake drum down the street, police said.

Witnesses said they saw flames coming from the right front wheel as Large drove by.

While talking to Large, a nearby resident told police a large chunk of her tire rim had sailed through the window of their second-story bedroom. The chunk of metal had jagged, sharp edges and was too hot to touch 20 minutes after the incident, according to police.

Large was booked Tuesday into the Monroe County jail on charges of operating while intoxicated, hit and run and recklessly endangering safety. She also is accused of destroying some of the arresting officer's paperwork at the jail. (:/)

Nice.

Man Lights Himself on Fire to Propose

AP

Dateline: Grants Pass, Ore. - To prove his love, a 38-year-old man set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his girlfriend to marry him.

About 100 people gathered to watch Todd Grannis perform the flaming stunt on Monday, which involved wearing a cape soaked in gasoline.

Grannis climbed up a 10-foot scaffold, was set on fire and then plunged into a swimming pool, dousing the blaze. Emerging unscathed, he got down on one knee and proposed, as a friend standing nearby slipped him the engagement ring.

"Honey, you make me hot," he told his sweetheart, Malissa Kusiek. "I hope I'm getting the point across that I'm on fire for you."

Kusiek, who has been dating Grannis for several years, said "yes," but added that she was a little angry because of the danger.

"At first I was mad, because I thought, 'He's not a stuntman,'" Kusiek said. "Then, of course, the tears started flowing. Of course I said yes. I was so thrilled."

Grannis said he came up with the stunt through the help of his friend, professional stuntman Eric Barkey. Barkey pulled out a photo of himself on fire and said, "You could do that," Grannis said.

Grannis met Kusiek, the owner of a local hair salon, when she cut his hair.

"I kept telling her sometime before I'm 50," said Grannis, who co-owns an Internet wholesale company. "She wasn't expecting it. She had no clue." (:/)

Ohio man charged with exposing his breasts

AFP

Dateline: Chicago - An Ohio man with the breasts of a woman has been charged with indecent exposure after he was spotted shirtless.

"He's a guy. He's real tall, and he's got a full set of breasts," assistant Cincinnati solicitor Kevin Donovan told the Cincinnati Post.

Jerome Mason, 23, was spotted shirtless by police at 1:00 am on April 22. Since then, the 6-foot, 200-pound man's case has floundered in the courts because he has failed to meet with his court-appointed attorney.

But public defender Michael Welsh said the charges really ought to be dropped.

"It's not illegal for a man to expose his breasts," Welsh told the Cincinnati Post.

"It's also not even technically illegal for a woman to expose her breasts (in public)," he said Thursday. (:/)

Drunk called ambulance for lift home

Ananova

A Japanese man has been jailed for repeatedly calling an ambulance to take him home after going out drinking.

Satoshi Nakagawa, 55, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after trying the tactic 50 times a year, reports the Mainichi Daily News.

Judge Hidenaga Manabe said: "He committed a selfish crime by obstructing the highly urgent duties of ambulances."

The final straw for Nakagawa came last June when he was sitting down on a road in Takamatsu and asked a passerby to call an ambulance for him.

An ambulance dispatched by a local fire station arrived, and Nakagawa demanded that paramedics take him home.

The ambulance, however, headed for the fire station, not his home, which prompted Nakagawa to poke one of the paramedics in the cheek.

Nakagawa had called for an ambulance about 50 times a year since August 2003, police said. (:/)

Tanzania declares war on poor quality toilet paper

AFP

Dateline: Dar Es Salaam - Concerned for the comfort and hygiene of its citizens, the Tanzanian government is warning the toiletry trade of legal action for producing or selling sub-standard toilet paper in the east African nation.

The country's chief regulatory body, the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), says it will take manufacturers or distributors of toilet tissue to court if their products do not meet national requirements for softness, size or alkalinity.

"It has come to our notice that there are firms manufacturing and selling sub-standard toilet paper," said Charles Ekelege, a senior TBS official, adding that sanitary concerns were not the bureau only reason for the crackdown.

"The production of sub-standard things like toilet paper is not only bad for the manufacturer but could tarnish the country's image," he told AFP at the ongoing 29th Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair.

The TBS has taken advantage of the fair to make manufacturers, importers and vendors of consumer products aware of the importance of adhering to national and internationally accepted standards for their products, Ekelege said.

The bureau said at the weekend that only one toilet paper producer in Tanzania was currently manufacturing rolls that met TBS requirements. (:/)

US TV ruining Australia's 'mateship and booze' culture

AFP

Dateline: Sydney - Australia's unique slang culture based on "mateship and booze" is under threat from American television shows, an historian said.

The "larrikin" culture, typified by the unofficial national anthem Waltzing Matilda, is fading, said Richard Magoffin, the author of a book on the song.

A larrikin is defined in the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary as a "hooligan" or "one who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions". It is often a term of admiration in Australia.

Walzing Matilda, a simple song about a swagman (thief) who commits suicide, encapsulates the true Aussie spirit which involves "talking in opposites" to turn disaster into humour, Magoffin told the Australian Associated Press.

"We call a tall man Shorty, a red-headed bloke Bluey, a big fella's called Tiny and you can call your best mate a proper mongrel bastard," he said.

"Anzac Day commemorates a dreadful military disaster and we sing a silly song about a suicide. It all suits us because we are a silly lot."

But it is an attitude worth hanging onto, he said. "An extreme amount of television is dumbing down Australia and we don't want to turn into a little America."

"I met a kid the other day who had never heard of a schemozzle (brawl, commotion or muddle) ... another bloke at the pub called me buddy and I said, 'it's mate'." (:/)

There was a great piece in the Grauniad recently written in Strine - but sadly, using the G's CRAPPY Verity-powered search, I can't find it. As usual.

Sport

British journalist Bob McKenzie acknowledges the crowd as he runs semi-naked around the track before the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone race track in Northamptonshire, central England, July 10, 2005. Two years after a kilted Irish priest ran out on to the track and caused havoc at the British Grand Prix, McKenzie jogged out in front of 100,000 Formula One fans on Sunday. Daily Express reporter McKenzie declared last year, when McLaren were slow and struggling with repeated engine failures, that he would run naked around Silverstone if the Mercedes-powered team won a race in 2004.

Completely Terrifying

'Human-brained' monkeys

News.com.au

Monkey magic ... one day you really may be able to talk to the animals, if a human/monkey 'chimera' developed a human-like brain

Scientists have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.

An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.

The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.

These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.

Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes.

This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.

The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.

"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics. (:/)

Very. Very. Frightening.

This next one isn't funny (well it is and it isn't) but it is downright weird.

Pet fish leaps into boy's mouth, chokes him to death

Harian Metro/Asia One

Little Samiun Ahmad had fallen in love with the four small fish that he had caught a few days ago.

The 8-year-old insisted on keeping the fish as pets, not realising that he would choke on one of them in a freak accident that would cost him his life.

His father, Mr Ahmad Johari, 43, a rubber tapper in Kedah, told Harian Metro: 'Samiun brought home four puyu fish that he had caught at Sungai Gunung Rambai.

'I asked his mother to fry the fish, but he refused as he loved the fish and wanted to rear them. I never expected that the fish would take his life.'

Samiun choked to death yesterday afternoon when one of the puyu fish (climbing perch) leapt into his mouth and got lodged in his throat.

The fish was about 7cm long and 4cm wide.

Mr Ahmad said: 'The fish slid into his throat and Samiun squeezed his throat to try and get the fish out, but failed.' (:/)

Dear. Lord. Be very afraid of all fish.

More Sinbin

Drive-through robber in U.S. gets bank loot

Reuters

Dateline: Chicago - A bank robber behind the wheel of his car on Tuesday sent a note through a vacuum tube to the teller at the drive-through window at a branch of Chicago's LaSalle Bank and the teller obliged, returning an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.

The exchange was completed through the bank's pneumatic tube communications system, in which canisters are passed back and forth between motorist and teller.

The FBI said it was investigating the drive-through theft. (:/)

Hero Of The Week

Barcelona president does striptease in airport dispute

Reuters

Dateline: Madrid - Barcelona president Joan Laporta has apologised after he stripped to his underpants during an argument with security staff at the city's airport.

An eyewitness told Spain's daily ABC that Laporta had become incensed with staff after the alarm on the security scanner sounded three times.

The irate Barcelona president was reported to have hurled his shoes into the air and then taken off his trousers after being asked to walk through the scanner again and again.

"I would like to apologise if any Barcelona fan felt offended," Laporta was quoted as saying in sports daily Marca on Tuesday.

"I was just trying to sort out a situation that occurred because the alarm kept going off.

"I would like to make it clear though that I did not lose my head nor did I insult anyone ... but I am really sorry that the incident caused such a fuss." (:/)

Cops On The Rocks

Man Tunnels Out of Trailer to Elude Cops

AP

Dateline: Minot, N.D. - Police say they spent several hours surrounding an empty trailer home here, after a man escaped by tunneling out the house and calling a cab.

"We negotiated and everything and nobody was there," said Sgt. Darin Egge. "Our negotiator talked about an hour to nobody."

Egge said police responded to a domestic disturbance at the mobile home at about 7:30 a.m on Tuesday. A woman at the home told police a man had a rifle and was threatening suicide, he said.

SWAT team members later surrounded the home.

Sgt. Winston Black said the man apparently crawled through a hole in the mobile home's bathroom floor, and then through the trailer's skirting.

"He was definitely there, " Egge said. "We figure he slipped out before the SWAT team got there."

Egge said the woman distracted police by pounding on the doors with a sledge hammer, to allow officers entry.

"She was taking up the attention of officers," said Egge, who was on the scene.

SWAT team members fired pepper spray into the mobile home at about 11:30 a.m., Egge said. "We searched and he was gone," he said.

Egge said police later found out the man ran to a nearby business and called a cab, which dropped him off at a gas station in town.

Police were still looking for the man Tuesday night.

Egge said police believe the man was not armed.

"We found his rifle," he said. (:/)

That's all right then!

Radio Uproar, As DJs Give Tips
About Hurting Police Officers

KSDK.com

The beat goes on at KATZ radio, 100.3 on the FM dial. But the radio station finds itself at the center of a major controversy, due to on-air comments about hurting police officers.

Wednesday morning, KATZ personalities "DJ Kaos" and "DJ Silli Asz" gave their audience tips on how to disarm and injure police officers. One bit of advice told people to fight for the officer's radio so he can't call for help.

O'Fallon Missouri police sergeant Tom Otten is livid. "They need to be fired, absolutely, they need to be fired. And I think there needs to be a public apology to officers on that radio station."

KATZ owner Clear Channel Communications suspended the employees for two days, and stressed in an apology that the station "takes pride in supporting and assisting local law enforcement whenever possible." The employees must also do a ride-along with police to see how they do their jobs.

St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa called on-air comments wrong and inappropriate, but seemed willing to forgive. "They made a mistake. I'm willing to move on and forget about it." (:/)

Idiots Of The Week

Men Hospitalized After Purposely Driving Into Bee Yard

AP

Lake County, Fla. -- Deputies said some young men chose the wrong place to vandalize. They drove right into beehive colonies to see what would happen and the result was what you might expect. Several of them were taken to the hospital.

Beehives sit in David Miksa's vandalized bee yard.
"By throwing it off, the bees got all stirred up and come up in the air after 'em," explained beekeeper David Miksa. "It's very upsetting. We have a lot of work to re-do, to fix up the hives."

Two boxes make up a colony, with 25,000 to 30,000 bees in each one. So it's not the best idea to drive into them and see what happens. But Miksa said teenagers usually try it at least once a year.

"There's no excuse to be near the bee yard that close," Miksa said.

The bee yard is hidden away inside acres of orange groves. But deputies say 18-year old Adam Tyson, 20-year-old Jason Krueger and two younger teens found them anyway, backing their truck right in. But then their truck got stuck in the sand and they had to call 911 when hundreds of thousands of bees started swarming.

"A lot of 'em were probably just trying to get back to their home and their home was mashed all over the ground," Miksa explained.

All of the boys were stung. At least two went to South Lake Hospital for treatment. Miksa said, with millions of bees in his hives, the boys could have been killed.

"I don't want to see anybody get stung up bad and I think it's a lesson to be learned by anybody who wants to try to mess around with beehives that the possibility of being hurt is definitely there," Miksa said.

The trespassing charges the four already face are sort of like traffic tickets, but deputies said they could also face a more serious charge of criminal mischief for disturbing the hives.

Miksa said the damage to his hives could cost him up to $5,000. Many of the bees were queens that were disturbed in the middle of the mating season. (:/)

Ow.

Tiger tales swish through Atascosa

San Antonio Express-News

Dateline: Pleasanton — For six months, something has been prowling the countryside along FM 3006 in northern Atascosa County, snatching up dogs, roosters and calves.

One night in early May, rancher Brian Beam was baling hay on his tractor when he says he came face-to-face with what could be the culprit: a full-grown tiger, he said, lurking along the creek running through his 27-acre property.

"It was huge," Beam said. "I threw (the tractor) into reverse and I was gone. It just took off down the creek."

The cat was waist-high with orange fur and black stripes, Beam said.

He rallied two neighbors, grabbed some guns and flashlights and took off in pursuit of the creature, which Beam now blames for the March disappearance of two of his calves.

"We never could catch up to him, but we found a bunch of hair and tracks," he said.

While searching Gallinas Creek with Beam for an hour and a half, Jake Turner, 19, said he found "huge" tracks in the mud and orange and black fur stuck in a fence that crosses the creek.

Despite Beam's story — and other unusual events reported in recent months by neighbors — some remain skeptical that the beast is anything more than a rural legend.

"We have no substantiated reports of loose tigers whatsoever," said David Soward, chief deputy at the Atascosa County Sheriff's Department. "Everything I've heard is like fourth- and fifth-hand information. And none of this has come directly to the Sheriff's Office."

As for Beam, he no longer goes anywhere on his property without a loaded, long-barreled SKS rifle perched on the front seat of his pickup, and his wife has stopped venturing beyond the back lawn.

Bobcats and mountain lions are indigenous to this region. Tigers are not. They're the largest members of the cat family and typically roam Southern Asia.

But a tiger in Atascosa County makes perfect sense if someone was raising it, said Mark Turner, Jake's father.

"I saw (a man) drive by, and he was going real slow," said Turner, recalling an January incident in front of his house on north of Pleasanton. "Then he backed up and came over and asked me if I had seen a tiger. He told me they had one that had gotten away from them."

The man, whose name Turner could not recall, said the tiger was his son's "pet" and had escaped from a pen, Turner said.

Keeping wild animals — including tigers — is a Class C misdemeanor in Atascosa County. The government doesn't regulate ownership of exotic cats as pets, but anyone who breeds or raises a tiger needs a federal permit.

And while nobody else in the area has reported seeing a tiger, some believe it has made its presence known.

Across the creek, just beyond the strip of thick brush that flanks its now bone-dry banks, Manuel Rodriguez has had seven dogs disappear since January.

"At night, they bark and they run out to the woods," said Rodriguez, 73, resting in the shade with his two remaining dogs, a pit bull and a terrier. "I come out and shine a spotlight, but I don't see nothing. I go back in, and the next day, one's gone, two's gone. They just disappear."

Rodriguez has lost dogs in the past, but never at this rate, he said.

Just downstream from Rodriguez's property, his nephew lost some animals of his own. Standing on the porch of his trailer home, Ray Rodriguez spoke of five game roosters that vanished from his 50 acres last month.

"These things were gone," he said. "There were feathers all over the place, but they were totally gone."

Nearby was a mysterious sway in the thick nylon cords of his fence.

"It wasn't no coyote," Ray Rodriguez said. "It wasn't no raccoon. My fence is pretty tight, so whatever came over there must've been pretty good-sized."

About a mile up FM 3006, another alleged attack occurred in May, this time leaving a bloodied victim behind. Ray Casarez noticed two horses — a stallion and a 20-year-old mare — had broken from their pen on his 400-acre ranch.

"Something had to scare them pretty much, because these horses went right through the fence," Casarez said. "I went looking for the mare, and I found her with her chest wide open. There were scratches on her neck. She couldn't move because of the gashes being so deep and the loss of blood."

The stallion was unharmed. The mare survived, but is crippled. Casarez still doesn't know what nearly took her life.

"A pack of coyotes ain't gonna scare the horses, because the horses will attack coyotes," he said. "Mountain lions are not big enough to take down a 16 and a half (hands high) horse."

Scott Schmidt, the Pleasanton veterinarian who tended to the mare, believes she received her wounds from the pen's netting and single strand of barbed wire.

"What spooked it, I don't know for sure," Schmidt said. "But its injuries were from running through the fence."

But the mare's wounds also are consistent with a tiger attack, according to Richard Gilbreath, director of the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary near Fort Worth.

"A tiger's going to grab a horse by the neck," said Gilbreath, who has worked with big cats for 15 years. "They kill by suffocation around the neck."

If a tiger were in the area, it would prowl mostly along the creeks, where there's water, cover from the sun and animals to eat — such as South Texas' ubiquitous feral hogs and deer, Gilbreath said. Tigers' ranges in the wild can be up to 500 square miles, he said.

"If you're talking about a tiger that's been raised in captivity, you might throw all this out the window, because they haven't been taught to hunt," Gilbreath said. "... So the only thing they're going on is pure instinct. But he's going to have to eat somewhere, somehow."

The chances of a human becoming a tiger's entrée are unlikely, as long as the animal is left alone, Gilbreath said. Still, he calls a roving tiger "very dangerous."

"The problem is, people will agitate him, they'll startle him," Gilbreath said. "And it depends on if he's hungry."

Should someone encounter the beast, Gilbreath recommends leaving it alone or calling the sheriff.

"Don't approach it. Don't get into its space," he said. "Don't stand in front of a window, because it'll go through a window." (:/)

Christ on a stick! I actually loved FARK.com's sell for this link though:

Aside from many dogs missing, orange fur stuck in fences and a guy asking if anyone has seen his lost tiger, sheriff determines that "there's no facts or evidence to support that there is a loose tiger"

Scared yet?

Headline Of The Week

Trotsky icepick dug out at last

Metro

Ewww!

And Finally

For This Inventor, The Perfect Beer
Is All About the Tap

WSJ/byline Jonathan Eig & Bryan Gruley

Dateline: Chicago -- Matthew Younkle was a senior at the University of Wisconsin in Madison when inspiration struck. What the world really needs, he decided, is a three-second beer.

He was not the first college student to dream of ways to get to his alcohol more quickly. What set Mr. Younkle apart is that he chose, soberly, to follow through.

Ten years later, Mr. Younkle, 31 years old, is president and chief technology officer of TurboTap, a company marketing a finger-sized nozzle that attaches to standard beer faucets and pours draft beer at least twice as fast as traditional systems do, and with less spillage.

"I think this will change the way beer is poured," says Tom Geordt, director of training and business development for Micro Matic, a California maker and distributor of kegs, faucets and other beer-related equipment. If Mr. Geordt is right, pouring a draft could become as simple as flicking a light switch. Tilted cups and overflowing beer suds would be things of the past.

As an engineering student in college, Mr. Younkle concluded that gravity, not bartender incompetence, was to blame for long beer lines. Beer, like any liquid, accelerates as it leaves the tap. The force generated upon impact with the bottom of a cup causes the beer to foam. Too much force means too much foam. Too much foam means wasted beer and wasted time.

Mr. Younkle decided to create a nozzle that slowed the descent of the beer and reduced the force of its impact. He produced a prototype in college and won an inventor's prize in a campus competition. And after several more years of R&D ("research and drinking," he says), Mr. Younkle felt he had perfected his invention. The 41⁄2-inch stainless-steel nozzle attaches to a standard beer tap and reaches to the bottom of a glass, like an extra-wide straw. Each pour produces a half-inch head -- or "collar of foam" -- Mr. Younkle says. TurboTap can pour 16 ounces in 2.5 seconds. Normal is about eight seconds.

Once he found a way to pour the beer faster and with just the right amount of foam, he had to make certain that the new delivery system did nothing to change the product's taste. To that end, he hired members of the Chicago Beer Society, self-proclaimed beer geeks who sample microbrews and dwell on their subtlest characteristics. The beer aficionados tasted TurboTap Budweiser and regular tap Budweiser in a double-blind study.

"Most of us are not used to tasting Budweiser," says Randy Mosher, a beer society member who participated in the test. "There was a lot of, 'Let's see if the foam texture seems better or worse,' and 'How's the hops aroma?' But ultimately we couldn't tell the difference."

The draft-beer business has enjoyed little innovation in recent years. A pint of beer is poured today in most bars almost exactly as it was 100 years ago. Beer, powered by carbon dioxide, flows from a keg beneath the bar, through a tube and out a brass faucet, where a bartender tilts a glass at a 45-degree angle to help reduce the foam. There are still those who see no reason to change.

"I'm a bit of a romantic," says bartender Mike Miller, slowly pouring a Scottish ale at the Duke of Perth on Chicago's north side. "There are some things that are still nice to have the classic way."

Some naysayers wonder about sanitation. "That's kind of disgusting, the tap's in your beer," says Kevin Reichert, 21, of Oak Brook, Ill. "I worked in a bar, and I know they don't clean that every day."

But some people in the business of pouring fast and selling cups of beer by the thousands are more enthusiastic. "I've been looking for something like this forever," says Curt Radle, director of concession operations at Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs play. Though he declines to say how much beer pours every season at Wrigley, Mr. Radle says the ballpark has one of the sports world's busiest beer-concession businesses. Since he installed TurboTap, he says, beer costs have fallen between 3% and 5%. In about half a season, the devices have already paid for themselves, he says.

For the moment, he's running the taps at about half their top speed. He says he might gradually ratchet up the speed by adjusting the pressure of the carbon dioxide, but he's in no hurry.

"People get their beer here fast enough," he says, adding that it was the increased yield per keg that persuaded him to install TurboTap, not the promise of a faster pour. Stadium vendors say they're getting six to eight additional cups out of each keg -- or $30 to $40 in added revenue -- since TurboTaps were added.

With a beer in each hand, the 22-year-old Cubs fan Ernest Walther stood in the centerfield bleachers on a hot summer night and said he was impressed with how quickly the beer had been flowing. "My sister's been getting them," Mr. Walther said, nodding at his cups, "and I noticed she's been fast as hell." (:/)

Indeed. Until next time...

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