Millionaire's Fair, eating wasps, a new slant on Cell Block H, birthday criminal negliegence, and when gay penguins just can't see eye to eye any more

I've been so busy this week I've actually gone BLIND. Any coding errors are therefore not entirely my fault...

Tar Diary

World Beard and Moustache Championships

Berlin, Germany -- Saturday, October 1, 2005

The next World Beard and Moustache Championships will take place in Berlin, the capital of Germany, on October 1, 2005. Host for this event is the Berlin Beard Club, which is pulling out all of the stops to provide all contestants and spectators with an unforgettable experience and is hoping to set a new participant record. Meanwhile, the host club's star member Karl-Heinz Hille is looking to defend the overall world championship title he earned at the last championships, held in Carson City, Nevada in 2003. Hille was also the overall champion in Sweden in 1999.

World Wide Weird

A Mall Made for Millionaires

Moscow Times

Igor Tabakov / MT

Moscow may have more billionaires than any other city in the world, but what about those with a mere million to their name?

The Millionaire Fair is not a chance to buy one of those young millionaires -- and there were 88,000 declared millionaires in the country at last count. Instead, it offers a brief glimpse -- at 1,000 rubles per visit, or $250 for VIP tickets -- of a luxury lifestyle few will ever touch, including the opportunity to buy a helicopter, a Bentley, a whole island, hair-transplant surgery or a dress that literally smells of money.

The fair, which runs through Wednesday, was founded by Yves Gijrath, the general director of Gijrath Media Group, in Amsterdam three years ago and brought to Moscow together with Independent Media, which publishes The Moscow Times.

Housed in Crocus Expo, next to the Crocus City shopping center on the Moscow Ring Road, the Millionaire Fair has turned the exhibition center into a mall for the rich for a few days. Instead of piped music, Bryan Ferry sang live to visitors on the opening night, even if they seemed more interested in the buffet.

The attributes of luxury were everywhere: expensive cars, helicopters with prices starting at a quarter of a million dollars, furs, bodyguards, women with cheekbones you could cut diamonds on and dangerous black cats -- a young panther was an essential part of one stand selling suitcases.

When asked what the panther had to do with suitcases, its handler said after a brief pause, "Exclusive panther. Exclusive suitcase." She carried on scratching the panther, which promptly fell off its exclusive suitcase.

"I was impressed," said Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanayevsky Blanco, the millionaire businessman behind the Rostik's chain and other restaurants. "Ten years ago, this would never have happened. It's like a century has gone past."

Some 6,000 to 7,000 people were expected to visit the fair on Sunday alone, said co-organizer Derk Sauer, the CEO of Independent Media.

"It's spectacular. The exhibitors are really excited," Sauer said, adding that millions of exhibits had been sold by late Sunday. "Last night, an island was sold, and that is $10 million."


Igor Tabakov / MT

Moscow might be remembered for Forbes magazine's 2004 report that named it the world's billionaire capital, with 33 billionaires. New York, in comparison, boasted 31.

Just having money was not enough for some people on opening night.

"It is mainly New Russians here. It is not Muscovites," said one man, who said he was a real estate millionaire but refused to give his name as he stood watching with a cynical eye on the opening night. "Mainly, it's people who want to eat for free.

"It is only the nouveaux riches, and they don't understand the price of money," he said. "They see, come and buy. A real person with capital will find what he wants at a cheaper price. That's the position of a millionaire."

Others found the whole affair distasteful.

"It is an illusion, like everything in this country," said Eldar, a banker who would not give his last name and conceded that he was not a millionaire.

"I find the selling of Lamborghinis strange, considering the state of the roads in the country," he said. "It is stupid. Where can you go in a Lamborghini? Try going to the Tula region.

"The only thing they really want here is a picture of themselves with Putin so they can hang it up," he said, before adding, "and that is very expensive."


Igor Tabakov / MT
Visitors relaxing on sofas with "Where there is enjoyment -- there am I" cushions in the Crocus Expo center.

Indian millionaire Jimmy Kotwani, the owner of Imperial Tailoring, apparently did not feel the same way as he admired a new Mercedes on display. "There are lots of things I'm interested in," he said. "I am fond of diamonds."

"Sit here for five minutes, and you can see how people are greedy for money," said manager Irina Nemets, before stopping to tell a passerby to stop touching the dress made of 500 ruble notes. "They're drawn to it," she said.

"There were rich people here," Nemets said about the opening night. "They also wanted to touch, like children." (:/)

The following brand of story is, as you know, tar's favourite kind.

Puppy Swallows 13-Inch Knife, Survives

AP/Spotter René Millman

Jane Scarola's veterinarian thought the X-ray was a joke. He's seen strange items get into the stomachs of dogs before, things like kebab skewers and small utensils. But a 13-inch serrated knife that somehow was swallowed by a 6-month-old puppy?



That was a new one.

"I was just flabbergasted," the vet, Jon-Paul Carew of Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Elsie, a Saint Bernard puppy, apparently had the blade between her esophagus and stomach for about four days before it was removed earlier this week in a 2-hour operation.
Advertisement

The puppy has an 8-inch scar, but is fine and back with her family. And the knife is back in Scarola's kitchen, albeit this time wrapped in a towel and placed in a cabinet atop the refrigerator.

"I'm going to frame it and give it to Dr. Carew," Scarola said. "He should hang it. Everybody should know what puppies are capable of putting down their throats."

Scarola used the knife to carve a turkey, and placed the blade on the counter - far from the edge.

She thinks one of her six other dogs - four Saint Bernards, a German shepherd and a Labrador - somehow got the knife, which eventually made its way to Elsie.

"She wants to eat everything and anything," Scarola said. (:/)

Wasp catcher eats his prey

Ananova

A Chinese man wasp catcher has become famous for eating the insects he has caught.

Zhong Zhisheng from Shaoguan City, has removed over 100 wasps' nests in the last year, reports Xinhua qouting Shenzen Daily.

The 30-year-old removes wasp nests within five minutes, using only a plastic bag, a bamboo stick and smoke to choke the insects out..

Mr Zhong said: "To me, removing a wasps' nest is like picking a pumpkin and catching wasps is like catching flies."

Mr Zhong, who learned to deal with wasps from his grandpa when he was just 11, does not charge money for removing wasp nests but asks only to be allowed to take the insects home.

He says he enjoys eating fried wasps and drinking alcohol containing wasps and pupae. (:/)

New Car Smell: Don't Inhale

13WHAM.com

One of the best things about having a new car could be bad for you. New research finds that much loved "new car" smell is produced by harmful chemicals.



Cheryl Gardner has just purchased a new Nissan Pathfinder. She said the smell that tells her she's driving a new car just doesn't last long enough.

"I love it. It actually stays in the vehicle for a couple of months," she said.

According to a recent study, that pleasurable scent has been linked to harmful chemicals--volatile organic compound or VOC--which releases chemicals from glues, paints, and vinyl.

The smell inside the cabin of the car can trigger headaches, sore throats, and drowsiness. Japanese manufacturers have been the first to respond by reducing the chemical levels within government guidelines.

Japan's top five car makers have already rolled out cars with lower the VOC levels. Scott Pundt of Dorschel Automotive thinks that's great as long as they don't completely get rid of the scent that represents pride and satisfaction for so many consumers as they drive off the lot. (:/)

Piranha Bites Manila Airport Inspector

AP

A routine check of a shipment at Manila airport turned bloody when a piranha sprung up and bit one of the inspectors.

"I was checking one of the boxes when suddenly, something leaped out of it and bit me," fisheries quarantine inspector Mario Trio told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a report published Tuesday.

The bite left a V-shaped wound on the inspector's finger, and the 34 piranhas in the consignment he was checking — falsely declared as "ornamental fish" from Peru — were confiscated over the weekend, but died two days later, the newspaper reported.

The Filipino consignee faces charges of illegally importing live piranhas, punishable by up to eight years in prison and a fine, quarantine chief Felipe Santamaria said. (:/)

New T-Shirts Urge People Not To Report Crimes

NBC4 TV News

Police rely heavily on the public's help to solve crimes, but a new T-shirt popular in Pennsylvania urges people to "stop snitching."



"I only have two left right now," said Alberto Gonzalez, the manager of the New Style store in Lancaster. "It's a funny shirt because it says what people really want to say."

Gonzalez said "stop snitching" doesn't necessarily mean not reporting crimes to police.

"It could mean anything," he said. "It could mean a brother talking to a sister -- to stop telling on her. A sister telling a brother to stop telling on him."

But some disagree, and think the message is very clear.

"I think it's pretty obvious what that is -- don't snitch. Don't talk to the police, don't talk to anybody in authority," said Capt. John Flemming, of the Lancaster Bureau of Police.

And police don't want that message to get around. (:/)

Beauty contest behind bars

Ananova

Female prisoners at Colombia's biggest prison have been competing in a beauty pageant.



Female prisoners at Colombia's Buen Pastor Prison compete in the Miss Congeniality beauty pageant /Splash

Inmates of Buen Pastor Prison are rivals for the title of Miss Congeniality 2005.

The contestants include armed robber Heidi Leon and drug trafficker Yury Uribe.

They list hobbies such as 'listening to the radio'.

Yury, who was arrested trying to enter the US with half a kilo of heroin in her stomach, was the eventual winner.

"I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we have the community's support and their assistance, not just solving crimes that have already happened, but really being more proactive so crimes don't occur," Flemming said.

"Law enforcement shouldn't rely on the informants so much anyway. They should be able to make their cases without that anyway," said Terrance McNeil, who works at the Sneaker Villa store.

McNeil said his store ordered the shirts about two or three weeks ago, but they don't have them anymore. The mayor of Philadelphia asked the chain's owner not to sell the shirts, so they were pulled from all stores.

"I feel that is wrong because we should be able to sell what we want to sell, and then wear whatever we want to wear," McNeil said.

"Everybody has the freedom of expression," Gonzalez said.

Police don't disagree, and they don't mind the shirts being sold, as long as they're only a fashion statement and not a state of mind. (:/)

How to overcome that sinking feeling in quicksand

Reuters

Quicksand is not the bottomless pit portrayed in Hollywood films that sucks in unsuspecting victims and swallows them whole.

It is true the more people struggle, the deeper they will sink into the soupy mixture but its buoyancy makes it impossible to be completely submerged, scientists said on Wednesday.

"Everybody thinks, thanks to Hollywood, that you can drown in quicksand. Basically if you do a simple buoyancy calculation, the Archimedes force, it is immediately evident that you can't drown completely," said Daniel Bonn, of the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Quicksand consists of salt, water, sand and clay. It is the water content that makes quicksand, which is found near estuaries, beaches and rivers, so dangerous.

"If you tread on quicksand, or liquefy it by moving, it goes from something that is almost completely solid to something that is almost completely liquid," Bonn told Reuters.

He and his colleagues showed that Hollywood had got it wrong by measuring the viscosity, the resistance to flow, of quicksand and its sinking ability.

They also calculated the amount of force necessary to get a trapped foot out -- and found it was the equivalent needed to lift a medium-sized car. Their findings are reported in the science journal Nature.

If someone falls into quicksand they begin to sink and the sand packs densely around the feet, forming a type of trap. In films people sinking in quicksand usually grab on to an overhanging tree branch or are pulled out just as they are about to disappear under the mucky surface.

But Bonn and his team said in real life the victim would sink halfway into the quicksand but would not disappear.

The scientists advised people trapped in quicksand not to panic and to wiggle.

"All you have to do to get your foot out is to introduce water into the sand and if you can do that along your leg by wiggling your leg around, that is the best way to get out," Bonn said. (:/)

Star Trek

Hi-tech beermat tells barman it's time for a refill

AFP

German inventors have devised an interactive beermat that can be used for pub games and tell the barman when it's time for a refill.



The device, created by computer scientists Andreas Butz of the University of Munich and Michael Schmitz of Saarland University, comprises a small, flat baseplate with a traditional cardboard beermat on top.

The plate conceals a pressure sensor and accelaration sensor that react to the weight of the glass and to the position and movement of the beermat on the baseplate.

The sensors relay this data by radio link to the bar, where the signal is interpreted by a computer.

The inventors believe the gadget could be used as a voting device -- for instance to judge the performance of a karaoke singer or to give an opinion on referee decisions on big-screen matches in sports bars.

A "Yes" vote, for instance, could be registered by raising the glass, causing the sensors to move.

A "No" would be registered by raising the glass and then turning the cardboard mat over and replacing it on the baseplate, thus causing a telltale double movement of the sensors.

When the glass is empty, the drinker can use the cardboard beermat to order another beer. The customer conveys the urgency of the request by "flapping" on the sensor with the mat, and by using a stack of mats can express the number of drinks ordered.

The inventors showed off their brainchild at Ubicomp 2005, an conference on "ubiquitous computing" held in Tokyo from September 11-14. The device is also reported in Saturday's issue of New Scientist, the British news weekly. (:/)

Corporate Bollocks

|--------------------------------------------------|
| |
| ACTIVITIES SEWER SYSTEM |
| |
| Between Thursday 29 September and Monday 3 |
| October 2005, activities will take place on the |
| sewerage of the building at Stroombaan 10-12 in |
| Amstelveen. |
| |
| The activities may cause some inconvenience. |
| |
| If you have any questions, please contact the |
| Service Desk Amsterdam, telephone (020-6) 28 80 |
| 60. |
|--------------------------------------------------|

(:/)

Huge thanks to Ted Rees for that.

Criminal Negligence

Criminal Profile: Tillotson

The Bowdoin Orient

"Are you looking in my brain?" the suspect, a 6'4" man with brown hair and blue eyes, asks. It is almost 10:30 p.m. on November 24, 2004.



The room is completely dark. A police officer is examining a man suspected of driving under the influence. The cop shines a flashlight in the suspect's eyes, checking the reactivity of his pupils. The results indicate that the suspect is on some kind of drug; he later admits to having taken large doses of cough syrup.

Lights back on, the officer administers a simple walk-and-turn (WAT) test. The suspect fails to follow almost all the directions, muttering about ninjas all the while.

Suddenly the suspect stands on one foot and lifts his arms in the air. He remains in this position for many seconds, trying to imitate a stance in the film Karate Kid.

After failing the WAT miserably, the suspect asks the cop a question: "Do I qualify as a ninja?"

The suspect is Erik D. Tillotson. He is not a ninja; he is a criminal.

Tillotson was born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1971. He was first arrested when he was 23 years old on charges of "acquiring drugs by deception" and was fined $200 for the violation of the law. Maine State Bureau of Identification records show no other arrests until ten years later.

According to Lieutenant Kevin Schofield of the Brunswick Police Department, Tillotson has become quite familiar to police in the last ten months.

"...the first time we came in contact with him was when a female victim, a Bowdon College student, reported some issues that were sexual in nature and required some police follow-up. As a result of that investigation he was charged with 'violation of privacy,' which is a class D misdemeanor. The case is still pending and has not yet been adjudicated."

After Tillotson's "violation of privacy' on November 07, 2004, he was arrested for "stalking," "terrorizing," and "criminal trespass" a week later. Four days after that, on November 18, Tillotson was arrested and charged with "criminal trespass" again. The same day he was also charged with "violating the conditions of [his] release."

On November 24, 2004, when Erik Tillotson was brought into the Brunswick Police station, arrested for suspicion of driving high on cough syrup and for violating his bail conditions, the evaluating officer, Paul Hansen II, asked if Erik was sick or injured.

According to Hansen, Tillotson "just stared at me blankly before stating, 'I'm psychotic.'" That night he failed almost every drug influence evaluation test administered to him.

Earlier this year, Tillotson was charged with a violation of Brunswick municipal fire code.

Numerous trespass warnings have been issued against him recently. According to Schofield, "There are sixteen different places in the community where we were asked...to give him a trespass warning. ... It seems that the way he engages other [people]...causes alarm."

In a dark room, Hansen shines a flashlight in Tillotson's eyes, checking his pupils.

"The star is fading away," Tillotson says. "I'm fading away." (:/)

Born the same year as me. Yes.

Defense Wants Client's Nickname Barred

AP

A defense attorney has asked a judge to bar any references to his client's nickname "Scuz" in his upcoming murder trial, saying the moniker could negatively influence jurors.

Demetrius "Scuz" Fiorentino, 31, of Coatesville, is charged with the April 2004 robbery and shooting death of Joel "Wellz" Taylor, 19, of Queens, N.Y., during a botched drug deal in a Coatesville crack house in Coatesville.

Defense attorney Laurence Harmelin cited the dictionary definition of scuzzball as "an unpleasant, dirty or dangerous person; creep" and scuzzy as "dirty, shabby or foul in condition or nature."

Harmelin told Common Pleas Judge Phyllis Streitel on Friday that connotations of Fiorentino's nickname would prejudice jurors against the defendant.

Assistant District Attorney Lorraine Finnegan said it would be nearly impossible for witnesses to identify the defendant without using his nickname.

"All of these witnesses are going to have to call him by the name they know," she said. "We're not calling him a scuzzball or scuzzy … it's 'Scuz' because that is his nickname."

Harmelin also asked to have the trial moved out of Chester County, citing publicity surrounding the case. Finnegan wants the trial to stay in the county.

It was unclear when the judge would issue decisions on the requests. Jury selection in Fiorentino's capital murder trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 19. (:/)

Featured product

The Where Is Mommy? Map, and much, much more...
At the Penny Arcade.

And finally

Sex and animals usually find their way into news stories in one, generally unsavoury way. But tar readers will know that we were one of the first to the German Gay Penguin story, and this week there's a similar, sadder story from across the pond. But first, could Panda Porn ever, ever be acceptable? You be the judge...

China kicks off high-tech project to spy on pandas' sex lives

AFP

Chinese and American scientists will use high technology in an attempt to unveil the darkest secrets of the giant panda's sex life, state media said.



Giant pandas are unusually discreet animals, forcing researchers to resort to Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors to find out what's really happening behind the bamboo leaves, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"Giant pandas are inaccessible for long periods of time and traditional observation cannot unravel the ecological mystery of the animals," Wei Fuwen, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua.

"Tracking them with advanced technologies and observing their sex activities might help us find ways to avoid their extinction," Wei said.

The Chinese academy has linked up with the Zoological Society of San Diego for the three-year, 660,000-dollar "Peeping Tom" project at the Foping Natural Reserve in northwest China's Shaanxi province.

Sadly, the curious scientists may find out that not much is going on even when the pandas believe they are alone and unobserved.

A lack of interest in sex is one of the main reasons why the furry animal is endangered, and measures ranging from specially designed Viagra to panda porn movies have done little to change that. (:/)

The Gay Penguins Return (sadly not the German ones though)

New Love Breaks Up a 6-Year
Relationship at the Zoo

NY Times

And Silo and Roy looked so happy together.

The two male chinstrap penguins had found each other in the big city. They had remained faithful. They had even raised a child. But then, not too long ago, they lost their home. Silo's eye began to wander, and last spring he forsook his partner of six years at the Central Park Zoo and took up with a female from California named Scrappy. Of late, Roy has been seen alone, in a corner, staring at a wall.

This tale of betrayal, sexual identity and penguin lust set in Manhattan has reverberated around the world. It has "rocked the gay scene," as the popular blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, wrote in The Sunday Times of London this week.


Silo, right, a male chinstrap penguin, nuzzling with Scrappy, a female. Silo has ended a long-term relationship with Roy
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Silo, right, a male chinstrap penguin, nuzzling with Scrappy, a female. Silo has ended a long-term relationship with Roy, a male, not pictured.

No one was more disappointed than Rob Gramzay, the senior penguin keeper at the zoo, who said simply in an interview yesterday, "They seemed to be a good pair together."

The end actually came 16 months ago. It happened shortly after Silo and Roy gained fame from an article in The New York Times detailing their relationship. Some saw the tale of two male birds raising a child as a parable for our time.

Yet things began to fall apart in May 2004 after the two were kicked out of their nest by two aggressive penguins. They drifted apart, Mr. Gramzay said, and early in the mating season this year Silo found Scrappy, an import from SeaWorld who had been lounging around the aquarium since 2002.

Still, Mr. Gramzay said that humans should not divine too much from the split. "People read so much into the gay thing, and the gay thing is necessarily a human constraint that's put on top of them."

That has not stopped many from doing just that.

At the Web site for Focus on the Family, an influential organization run by radio host James C. Dobson, who has called homosexuality a disorder and advocates converting gays, a commentator, Warren Throckmorten, wrote: "For those who have pointed to Roy and Silo as models for us all, these developments must be disappointing. Some gay activists might actually be angry."

Well, maybe not angry. As Roberta Sklar, a spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, put it: "There's almost an obsession with questions such as, 'Is sexual orientation a birthright or a choice?' And looking at the behavior of two penguins in captivity is not a way to answer that question."

She said the furor over the penguins "is a little ridiculous. Or maybe a lot ridiculous." (:/)

Ahhh. Makes Autumn feel warm, doesn't it? Until next time...

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German Election Special, Rooney toy: is it the new Action Man?, why cerial sticks together, and what computer games your granny might want...

As a busy mum about town, this week I've been juggling the competing demands of a press week, poverty, redundancy and a social life I don't really understand. But then, we all have stress in our lives. But then, you don't do tar as well, do you?

World Wide Weird

Germans see the funny side despite election stalemate

AFP

The country may be in a state of political paralysis and sorely needed economic reforms have been put on the backburner, but the undecided general election is helping Germany to discover its lighter side.



The mess that emerged from Sunday's election has sparked some colourful terms to enliven the normally staid world of German politics and help voters pick their way through the potentially interminable round of coalition negotiations to come.

Perhaps the most intriguing is the prospect of the Jamaican flag flying over Berlin's Reichstag parliament building.

With neither Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats nor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats securing a governing majority, both parties will be forced to find partners to build a government.

And the sunny Caribbean island more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) away from Germany has been bizarrely dragged into the coalition negotiations.

German political parties describe themselves in terms of colours, and when the possibility was raised of the Christian Democrats (black) joining the pro-business Free Democrats (yellow) and the Greens in a coalition, it prompted the country's top TV political journalist, Joerg Schoeneborn, to describe it as a "Jamaica Coalition" because the colours match the island's flag.

Without a new government to report, a grateful press has seized on the term.

The top-selling Bild newspaper pictured Merkel, the Greens' Joschka Fischer and the Free Democrats' leader, Guido Westerwelle, with Rastafarian-style dreadlocks on Tuesday.

Fischer, never one to shirk from a pithy comment in his seven years as foreign minister, poured scorn on the idea of his pro-environment party working with Merkel.

"Can you imagine Angela Merkel with dreadlocks?" Fischer said. "She will not be chancellor."

He also smirked at the idea of the leader of Bavaria's conservatives, the strait-laced Edmund Stoiber, listening to reggae music and smoking a joint.

Radio stations have decided that Bob Marley's "One Love" and its lyric "Let's get together and feel all right," is appropriate for the situation.

And the business daily Handelsblatt highlighted the possibility that Merkel may not get her wish of being chancellor with a cartoon showing the Christian Democrats listening to Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" as they celebrated forming a government without her.

Unfortunately, the Jamaican ambassador to Germany, Marcia Gilbert-Roberts, has stopped seeing the funny side.

She says she was misquoted in saying she would invite a "Jamaica Coalition" government to visit the island and is worried she has inadvertently overstepped the strictly neutral role of an ambassador.

"I didn't invite anyone in particular. Anyone can come. All politicans and all Germans," she told Wednesday's Berliner Zeitung. (:/)

Wrong man pays child support to Peterson mistress

AP

The former mistress of convicted murderer Scott Peterson is back in the spotlight after a DNA test showed that her first child was not fathered by the man who was paying child support.



Anthony Flores, 29, has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years, his attorney, Glenn Wilson, said Wednesday. The father of the 4-year-old girl is actually Fresno restaurant owner Christopher Funch, Wilson said.

No one answered the telephone at Porky's Rib House on Wednesday, and Funch did not have a listed home number. (:/)

Just in there for that almost holy last para.

Japan noodle maker to film TV ad in space

AP

The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world.

Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.

The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow, JAXA said.

The project is part of Japan's push to develop commercial spin-offs to its space program. JAXA did not say how much the commercial would cost, but the agency will be leaving the camera at the space station in the hope of shooting more advertisements.

This is not Osaka-based Nissin's first encounter with the final frontier. In 2002, it announced plans to make "Space Ram," a ramen noodle that homesick Japanese astronauts can eat in zero gravity.

Nissin -- which incidentally also makes U.F.O. brand instant noodles -- is credited with revolutionizing the world's eating habits when chairman Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle in 1958.

The company is now the world's biggest maker of the instant noodles, selling 20 billion packs a year. Japan wolfed down 5.4 billion of those in 2003, or about 42 packs for every man, woman and child. (:/)

Sport

Roo is Over-Reaction Man

The Sun

You’ve heard of Action Man — now here’s Over-Reaction Man, a toy figure of hot-headed soccer star Wayne Rooney.



Toy firm Bandai are adding a 30cm doll of the striker to its Kick-o-Mania range of mini aces.

But though the £19.99 figure has moveable limbs which can deliver a good kick, there is one crucial difference between it and the real thing — it can’t yell, scream or hurl abuse as its lips are firmly sealed. (:/)

More for the headline than anything else...

High school baseball team manager forced
players to run naked for 'mental training'

Mainichi, Japan

A former manager of a high school baseball team forced his players to run naked around a field as part of their "mental training," it has been learned.

The 35-year-old man, whose name is being withheld, became manager of the baseball team at Okayama Sanyo High School in Kamogata, Okayama Prefecture, in July 2002.

He ordered club members to undress when they ran, mostly during night practice sessions.

The manager reportedly insisted that running naked was part of the students' mental training.

School officials initially turned a blind eye but later surveyed baseball club members about the controversial practice.

"We were forced to run naked once last year and another time in June this year," one of the students said.

Officials at the school admitted that they knew what was going on, but didn't take any measures to deal with the issue.

"We thought that players and their parents accepted the method," one school official said.

The school's principal is now saying that running in the nude should have been stopped earlier.

"I heard about it three years ago," the principal said.

After the club failed to report players' cigarette smoking to the Japan High School Baseball Federation in June, three members of the club were banned from the local eliminations of the annual national high baseball tournament.

In response, the school dismissed the manager from his post, and he began working as career advisor for students.

He quit the school on Sept. 1 after hitting a third-year student who ordered younger players to clean their dormitory. (:/)

Picture Story

The world's biggest GameBoy - the GameMan!



spotter - René

Scitech

Scientists explain the ‘Cheerio Effect’

MSNBC

Here’s why floating things tend to clump together

You may or may not have pondered why your breakfast cereal tends to clump together or cling to the sides of a bowl of milk. Now there is an easy explanation.



Dubbed the Cheerio Effect by scientists, this clumping phenomenon applies to anything that floats, including fizzy soda bubbles and hair particles in water after a morning shave.

The effect has been known for some time, but an explanation for non-scientists has been lacking.

Dominic Vella, a graduate student now at Cambridge University, and L. Mahadevan, a mathematician from Harvard University, decided to change that. In a study that appears in the Sept. 15 issue of the American Journal of Physics, Mahadevan explains the Cheerio Effect using three basic concepts from physics: buoyancy, surface tension and the meniscus effect.

Simple physics
Buoyancy determines whether an object submerged in water or surrounded by air will sink, float or stay put. Buoyancy is what keeps ships afloat and balloons in the air. If an object is less dense than the water or air surrounding it, the object floats; if the object is denser, it sinks.

Surface tension is a property that makes the surface of a liquid act like a flexible membrane. It results from various weak forces acting between liquid molecules.

In a glass of water, most of the water molecules are surrounded by other water molecules, and they all pull on one another. But like two equally matched opponents in a game of tug-of-war, the net effect is zero and nothing really happens.

Where it gets interesting is at the surface, where water meets air, and along the sides of the glass.

Water molecules at the surface experience a strong inward pull from water molecules beneath them but only a weak outward pull from the air molecules above. So the surface of the water caves in slightly.

On the edge
Water near the side of a glass behaves differently. It curves to form what scientists call a "meniscus." Depending on the properties of the liquid, whether it is attracted to or repelled by the glass, the meniscus either curves upward (concave) or downward (convex).

For water, the meniscus is concave since water is attracted to the glass. Viewed from the side, the surface of the water looks like a less exaggerated version of a skater's U-shaped halfpipe.

What's all this do to your breakfast?

Place a single Cheerio in a bowl of milk, and its weight will cause the milk beneath it to dip slightly, forming a dent in the once-smooth surface of the milk. A second Cheerio placed into the bowl will form its own dent on the surface of the milk, and if the two Cheerios drift close enough to each other, they will appear to "fall into" one another, as if pulled together by an attractive force.

Cheerios near the edge of the bowl float upwards along the curve of the meniscus to look like they're clinging the edge of the bowl.

In both cases, the movements of the Cheerios are determined more by the geometry of the surface of the milk than by any attractive force acting between them. (:/)

Criminal Negligence

Wheelchair man's alleged robbery foiled

NewsTalkZB

A disabled man has been foiled in his attempts to make a speedy getaway from the scene of his alleged crime.

The man was spotted leaving a South Auckland branch of Countdown in a wheelchair, loaded up with a basketful of groceries.

Witness Greg Stratton was stacking shelves in the supermarket when he saw the man race out of the store. He says staff ran after the man, who sped off down the street.

He says the man sped close to a kilometre up the street, before coming back past the supermarket to a car full of people waiting for him.

He says the man was only apprehended when he fell from his wheelchair. (:/)

Teen loses thumb in Town Hall train drama

AAP

A man was hit by a train in central Sydney when he crawled under it trying to escape from CityRail officers.

The 18-year-old Hurstville man jumped onto the train tracks from platform five at Town Hall station while trying to flee the transit officers about 7.30pm yesterday, police said.

He crawled under a stationary train but lost his right thumb and suffered serious injuries to his left arm when the train pulled away from the station.

The man was taken to St Vincent's Hospital in a stable condition.

After the incident, several of the man's friends got into a scuffle with police officers.

A 20-year-old man was subdued by OC spray and was later charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.

An 18-year-old man was also arrested and charged with offensive conduct. (:/)

Boone Teacher Charged With Student's Sword Injury

The Iowa Channel

A Boone [Iowa] High School teacher faces charges in connection with injuring a student with a sword.

Students and the teacher said a confrontation happened Tuesday night when a group came by his house to engage in a traditional high school prank -- putting toilet paper on his property.

"We were all TPing and stuff and a bunch of kids went to his house. And he came from a neighbor's yard with a sword and was chasing after everybody and hit a kid's hand," said Matt Phannes, a student.

Police were then called to the scene. Authorities said Trenton Kerger was arrested and charged with assault causing injury.

Bill Skare, the Boone police chief, said the sword has been taken as evidence.

It's homecoming week at Boone High School, a time when everyone is supposed to be celebrating. But now a lot of the talk is about the alleged sword incident.

"He's a drama teacher so he has all that kind of thing. So it wasn't on purpose or anything," Phannes said. (:/)

Top tattoos of Missouri prison inmates

(blog, taken from Kansas City Star)

The Kansas City home invasion reported today in which one of the robbers had "KC" tattooed on his neck caused us to look up the most popular tattoos of Missouri prison inmates. See our previous post on this.

We happen to have that data from the Missouri Department of Corrections, though it's somewhat old (1997). Later versions of the department's data omitted the tattoo descriptions.

Here are the most popular inmate tattoos:

Tattoo Inmates
CROSS 1,164
ROSE 550
HEART 533
SKULL 468
EAGLE 440
DRAGON 301
REEPER 172
PANTHER 163
UNICORN 162
STAR 131
WIZARD 127
BUNNY 125
SPIDER 115
BULLET WOUND 107
GRIM REAPER 103

Play with your brain

Optical weirdness

Play with God's brain

Chat with "God"...

TAR-chive

10 FEB - The First TAR

Testicle ripper jailed

The Sun

A jilted woman who ripped off her ex-lover’s testicle with her bare hands was today jailed for two and a half years.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when 37-year-old Geoffrey Jones rejected her advances at the end of a drunken house party.

She yanked off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

But Monti choked and spat it out before a friend handed it back to her former lover with the words: "That's yours."

In a statement read to the court, Geoffrey said: "Amanda attacked me in an unprovoked manner and the attack has ruined my life."

He added: "I cannot begin to describe the pain I’ve suffered."

Monti, from Birkenhead, Mersyeside, pleaded guilty to wounding.

Doctors were unable to re-attach the organ, and the court heard that Geoffrey, a bodybuilder, is so embarrassed by what happened he is planning to move house.

He ended his long-term relationship with Monti, who is 5ft 1in tall, towards the end of May last year.

In a letter to the court, Monti said she was sorry for what she had done.

She added: "I am in no way a violent person.

"I have challenged myself to explain what has happened but still I just cannot remember. This has caused much anguish to me and will do for the rest of my life." (:/)

I just loved that story.

Holy Shit!

Battle robots could join dogs on S.Korea border

Reuters

Armed, six-legged robots may one day work alongside man's best friend on the southern side of the Korean DMZ.

South Korea will spend 33.4 billion won (18.2 million pounds) over the next five years to develop the robots for the heavily fortified demilitarised zone that divides the peninsula, the Communications Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

South Korea envisages the robots performing roles on the battlefield now done by dogs, such as sniffing for explosives and catching intruders, the ministry said.

The robots will stand knee-high to the average adult, mounted on wheels for road missions or on as many as eight legs to get them over uneven terrain, it said. Equipped with firearms, they will be able to carry out combat missions via remote control.

South Korea's Defence Ministry announced plans this month to reduce the number of its troops in uniform by about 25 percent over 15 years and develop more high-tech weapons systems. (:/)

Record Breakers

New record for most Valentines sent to guinea pig

Reuters

Sooty has set a new world record for the most valentine cards sent to a guinea pig.

The three-year-old guinea pig from Wales received 206 cards from as far away as New Zealand to gain a bizarre entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records published on Friday.

Sooty was joined in the ranks of the world's weirdest and wackiest achievers by Briton Paul Hunn who scooped the record for the world's largest burp. Louder than a pile driver, his burps can be heard from a distance of 30 metres.

Not to be outdone, Canadian Christa Rasanayagam set a new record when accompanied up the aisle by no less than 79 bridesmaids aged from one to 79.

American Ashrita Furman found yet more Guinness immortality by pushing an orange one mile with his nose in 24 minutes and 36 seconds.

Furman is no stranger to Guinness, laying claim to a total of 94 official records with such bizarre feats as climbing Mount Fuji on a pogo stick, underwater rope jumping and lighting 27,000 candles on a birthday cake in New York. (:/)

Ow!

Farmer 'breaks' penis

Ananova

A newly married Romanian farmer fractured his penis after ogling his young wife while carrying a heavy sack of grain.

Farmer Gheorghe Popa, 52, from Galati, had been moving the grain sacks to the barn when he stopped to watch his 25-year-old wife Loredana hang up the washing.

He got himself over excited and dropped the sack on his erect penis, snapping vital tendons and ligaments.

Doctor Nicolae Bacalbasa said: "It was a bizarre accident, and he was in a lot of pain.

"We have done what we can for him but he may never regain use of the organ again, at least for sexual purposes." (:/)

And finally

What games do Grannies like?

Gamasutra.com/spotter René Millman

Following in the footsteps of the now recognized highlight of GDC, the game design challenge, host Robin Hunicke explained that the GDCE version of it was going to be more of a remix – a twist on the usual theme. The goal was the same, to approach a hard design problem from a new perspective – and with an important sense of humor still intact.

The theme for the Game Design Mash-up was particularly apt in a development age highly concerned with diversity – devise a game for Granny. Robin laid down the rules of engagement and asked some important first questions: the audience is mainstream, casual, female and gray. How do we reach them? Who is your Grandma? What would she play?

The panel assembled for the event were drawn from a wider variety of game design backgrounds. Demis Hassabis, currently spending a year studying cognitive neuroscience was first to address the challenge. He explained he was going to explain his process, look at the concepts he rejected and then present the idea he had selected. His initial question, "What do Grannies like?"

After apologizing for any stereotyping, he proceeded to generalize at an entertaining pace. Grannies, Demis surmised, like knitting, reading, gardening, reminiscing, telling stories, playing bridge, grandchildren and gossiping. The full-house audience murmured an amused recognition at the selections. He went on to point out that complex controls would be unacceptable and that gratuitous violence, sex or profanity would also be a problem. What is clear is that it should be is social, friendly and in a familiar setting.

Demis then presented the ideas he had rejected. He dismissed the Hobby Simulation, real-time knitting guide and landscape gardening program as being 'too obvious'. His 'War Story Constructor' was a fascinating proposition, using voice input to render the wartime memories of the player in the Half-Life 2 engine. Demis conceded however that this was, 'too fantastical' – although he did flag up the tantalizingly possibility of the constructed levels being released as maps for grandchildren to play; FPS-ing their way through Grandma's memory.

He settled on 'The Village', which he billed as the 'World's first MMO gossip simulator' – or at a pitch level, 'Shenmue meets Sims Online meets Eastenders'. A mission based environment invites players to enhance or decimate reputations of others as they see fit, with AI characters playing key roles within the world and stimulating mission content. To the delight of the audience Demis alluded to the possibility of the kids playing within a game-world that they might find entertaining, creating the kinds of GTA-esque content that Grandma might not be so excited about – but actually unwittingly participating in the Grandmothers game.

Nick James from Bizarre Creations had only had the train journey down to prepare and apologized that he wasn't actually going to pitch a game anyway. He began by answering a few questions. Firstly, he explained that being a Granny is, 'a bit like being drunk', having slower reaction times and poor hand to eye coordination. He went on to conclude that Granny is much like everyone else, in that she wants to be entertained, challenged and interact with like-minded people. He argued that Granny needs games that are relevant to her interests with relevant music and other cultural reference points, that the interface need to be much simpler with larger, bespoke controls. Finally he suggested that the gameplay ideas are actually already out there and what is needed isn't a revolution in gameplay, but in marketing.

He did venture an entertaining suggestion as to what a new 'granny game' might be, 'Ballroom Dancing Revolution' is at the right pace with relevant music but unfortunately requires a dance-mat the size of a gymnasium.

Finally Katamari Damacy designer Keita Takahashi took the podium. He introduced his presentation, "I thought really hard about this one, I haven't thought this hard since I was coming up with the idea for Katamari Damacy. I decided that I wanted to get old ladies playing games and bring a little of the sunshine that they end up losing when they stay indoors all the time back into their lives." The focus of his talk began with the controller, he explained that current hardware designs are inorganic and difficult to understand. He introduced the design of his new controller specifically tailored for the Granny, and a picture of a cat appeared on the screen to great amusement. He explained, "the shape of the cat and the heat waves that it gives out really gets the old ladies going as they get quite cold. They like the cat shape. The cat is designed to be rested on the old ladies knees." The cat controller was met with rapture from the audience as Takahashi went on to explain the gameplay concept.

The game would begin with the family suggesting to Granny that she wear the cat because, for example, her knees looked cold. Embedded in the cat is the capability for it to communicate wirelessly with other cat controllers (on other Grannies' knees) in the neighborhood. When the cat connects to another one, "..the onboard a.i. kicks in." This causes the cat to speak, paraphrased as "meow, meow, grandma, meow". Takahashi explains that the family are required to participate in the game by pretending that they haven't heard anything, because of this – Grandma begins to build the perception that she is able to communicate directly with the cat.

As the dialogue with the cat develops, it suggests that Granny make some soup – but faster than the other granny down the street who has also received the instruction. A competitive element emerges and gradually the cat suggests more and more group activities that Grandma might engage in, culminating in trips to the park. "..So they all go outside and eventually they meet other old ladies with cats and they all become friends. So it's a game that involves the participation and love of the entire family." Takahashi ended the presentation by commenting on the possible production path of the cat, "Namco and Bandai are merging so when I get home I will submit my proposal." (:/)

Indeed. Until next time...

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World's priciest camper, scent of a polder, beauty pageant betting debacle, baseball's magic mud, soda with real urine, and one more use for cats

We at Tar Towers like the Guardian's, sorry guardian's changes so much we've overhauled The Alternative Review. So now at tar you'll find some new sections: Tar Woman, handbag-sized for the hectic life of today's busy woman, and Home On The Strange.

There's also a new, compact look for tar, which we feel reflects the needs of tar's "readers", such as they are. In other words, it's shorter. There are other little changes we've made, too - generally to save time in production and to cut down on my RSI.

We are completely committed to presenting consistently high standards of oddity provision, while extending the tar brand (by making it smaller, easier to read and heavier on the pictures because people's attention spans are now rivalled only by moths).

Thanks for listening.

Alan Goldigger, Editor
tar

World Wide Weird

Greek island town rolls out two-metre newspaper

AFP

Greek newspapers normally resort to offers of free CDs, cars and homes to boost flagging sales, but a publisher on the island of Crete hit upon a format readers cannot fail to notice.



Aimed at a bid for the Guinness Book of Records, the newspaper titled "Chillout" and first published on Wednesday, is 2.10 metres high and 2.95 metres wide (84 inches by 118 inches), the Athens News Agency (ANA) reported on Wednesday.

Four thousand copies of the giant paper will be distributed free of charge in the western town of Chania every Wednesday, ANA said.

'Chillout' will cover cultural and social news.

According to the Guinness Book of Records website, the record for the largest special edition of a newspaper is held by the Belgian Het Volk published in Ghent on June 14, 1993. The newspaper measured 1.42 metres by 0.995 metres (56 inches by 39 inches). It sold 50,000 copes. (:/)

U.S. gas prices fuel "drive offs" by angry drivers

Reuters

A growing number of American automobile owners are so infuriated by rising gasoline prices that they are refusing to pay and speeding off in their cars from gas stations after filling their tanks.

Since Hurricane Katrina disrupted supplies and sent prices soaring, a flurry of what gasoline retailers call "drive offs" have taken place in New Hampshire -- a state whose car license plates are engraved with the motto: "Live Free or Die."

"I think we're seeing an increase in it because of the increase in gas prices," said Lt. Paul Leger of the police department in the state capital Concord, echoing comments by gas retailers across the state.

"We were just experiencing a wealth of drive-offs," Peterborough Oil Company owner Joe Hart said in the Concord Monitor, a New Hampshire daily.

"It's all shapes and sizes and ages of people who, for some reason, think they're shaking their fist at the oil-producing people, but it actually hurts us quite a bit," he said.

Americans have been stunned by record gasoline prices after devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

Gasoline prices vaulted to well over $3 a gallon in many parts of the United States after the hurricane shut down most of the region's oil production and refineries. Gasoline had sold for about $2.60 a gallon before the hurricane hit. (:/)

Who says Yanks don't understand enhanced global warming, heed the geopolitical consequences on a reliance of oil, or have a sense of financial perspective in a world that needs to move to a green economy?

$2.60 a gallon is 57c a litre. 57c is 31p.
$3 a gallon is 66c a litre. 66c is 36p.

And UK prices? It's easy to pay £1 a litre.
£1 per litre is £4.50 a gallon.
£4.50 a gallon is $8.22 per gallon.

Just so we're clear on what the Yanks are getting so annoyed about.

£1m camper van

Ananova

The world's largest luxury camping van, costing more than £1m, has been custom built for an oil Sheik.


(Europics)

Austrian company Action Mobil built the 40ft long vehicle for use on long desert trips, with a huge 13-litre, 600hp engine - which runs at a gas-guzzling 5mph [sic - surely "mpg"? Ed.].

The Desert Challenger took one and a half years to build and includes a large lavishly furnished living room and a state-of-the-art kitchen.


(Europics)

Action Mobil manager Stefan Wirth said: "The client, whose name we will not reveal, will be able to travel the desert together with his family and friends, without needing any outside support for several weeks.

"The Desert Challenger can take up to 4,000 litres of water and up to 2,500 litres of diesel fuel, and there is enough storage to take a considerable amount of food.

"The whole vehicle is entirely hand-made. It has absolutely nothing to do with camping: we used superb materials and expertise from yacht-building and aircraft-building.

"There is a special CCTV surveillance system including two large flat-screens, so that one could record every detail of the outside vicinity." (:/)

I do think about how these stories follow each other, you know.

Burns Bog Fire Means Busy Fire Departments

CKNW/AM980, Vancouver

Smoke from the Burns Bog Fire has fire departments across Greater Vancouver answering one phone call after another.

Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Rob Jones-Cook says well meaning citizens are overloading the system.

'We'd like to ask people not to call.

This is all attributable to the Burns Bog fire.

It is triggering a lot of alarm systems in buildings.

But it's getting to the point where we can not keep up to the telephone calls that are coming in and I know it's a similar story at the E-Comm dispatch centre"

He says by all means, call in if you have spotted a **new** fire.

Don't call in to report the Burns Bog fire. (:/)

Pastry truck crashes, damages restaurant

Macon Telegraph

Early Wednesday morning, a Krispy Kreme truck crashed into two light poles and threw trays of the pastries into the window of Jim Shaw's Seafood Grill on Vineville Avenue.

Richard Lamar Simmons, 36, who was driving the truck, told Macon police he was trying to avoid hitting a dog crossing the street, according to an accident report.

Skipper Zimmerman, owner of the restaurant at 3040 Vineville Ave., said that the 5:08 a.m. accident tore off the side of the truck and that the racks crashed through his window.

No one was in the restaurant at the time.

"I saw a couple hundred doughnuts," he said with a laugh.

"We had jelly on the wall inside and jelly on the wall outside. We're just lucky nobody was hurt," Zimmerman said. (:/)

The smell of the Dutch polder in a perfume bottle

AFP

A Dutch luxury department store is set to launch on Tuesday a new perfume "Essence de Mastenbroek", named after a Dutch polder, which mixes the scents of the farmland and describes itself as an "Eau de Polder".



Commissioned by the SKOR foundation for art and public spaces the perfume was chosen from among different scents created by a perfumer who worked with the basic smells of the polder, the area of low-lying land protected by dykes.

The perfume has "grass scent, hay scent and stable scent", according to the SKOR foundation.

The price of the new perfume is not yet known but the scent comes in a stylish flask not unlike those used in chemistry sets.

Once a buyer gets a bottle of "Essence de Mastenbroek" it will be refilled for free if they come to the Matsenbroek polder were [sic] a special "Source de l'Essence" was set up in a draining station. (:/)

Sounds dih-vine!

Mud eater bugs neighbours

Ananova

An Indian man has become a nuisance to his neighbours because of his habit of eating ther mud.

Barsaatu Lal collects mud in sacks to last him an entire week, reports Asian News International.

The resident of Karimpur Bind, in Uttar Pradesh, says he has been eating mud for the past eight years and prefers it with lime paste and water.

The 35-year-old said: "I was working on my farm one day when I felt this sudden urge to eat mud. I must have eaten only a little bit, but I liked what I ate.

"But slowly, the quantity increased and today I eat nearly two kilograms of mud. I think it really benefits me and I feel immense strength when I eat it."

Barsaatu’s "greed for mud" has reportedly led to frequent brawls with local farmers who resent his habit of scooping up "quality" mud from their properties.

Raj Bahadur, the village headman, said: "We want to request the government to kindly grant him an acre of land so that he digs there only and eats to his gratification.

"We are also thinking of getting him a trolley full of mud so he eats peacefully and does not disturb our farms." (:/)

Home on the Strange

Nightmare is over as study says cheese doesn't cause bad dreams

The Scotsman

Cheese does not give you nightmares at all, according to a new investigation into the truth of the old wife's tale.

But researchers also found that the type of cheese you eat can affect the type of dreams you have.

The study, perhaps unsurprisingly carried out by the British Cheese Board, involved 200 volunteers in a week-long cheese-eating experiment.

After eating a 20g piece of cheese 30 minutes before going to sleep, 72 per cent of the volunteers slept very well every night, 67 per cent remembered their dreams and none reported nightmares.

The British Cheese Board said that their study endorsed scientific fact.

Dr Judith Bryans, a nutrition scientist at The Dairy Council, said: "One of the amino acids in cheese - tryptophan - has been shown to reduce stress and induce sleep so cheese may actually help you have a good night's sleep."

It is not clear where the cheese and nightmares myth originated. It has been linked to Charles Dickens' character Scrooge who blamed "a crumb of cheese" for his night-time visitations in A Christmas Carol.

The myth has also been associated with a 1950s health scare when cheese was found to be problematic for people using a particular antidepressant.

When it came to dream type, it seemed that Stilton caused odd dreams, with 75 per cent of men and 85 per cent of women experiencing bizarre and vivid dreams. (:/)

Britons spend billions of dollars
on gadgets they hardly use

AFP

Britons have spent billions of dollars on household gadgets like sandwich toasters and bathroom scales that they ended up never or rarely using, a study said.

Online home insurance firm Esure, which commissioned a survey by ICM, estimated Britons have collectively spent 9.4 billion pounds (17.17 billion dollars, 13.7 billion euros) during their lifetime on gadgets.

The figures published by esure.com include 4.1 billion pounds spent on gadgets as gifts for friends and family that end up gathering dust. Some 24 percent of those polled admitted they thought they might never be used.

Topping the list of white elephants was the sandwich toaster, with 45 percent of those polled admitted to not using and spending a total of 21.51 million pounds.

Next were bathroom scales, with 31 percent at 14.82 million pounds, coffee machines, 30 percent at 14.34 million pounds, footspas at 22 percent and 10.52 million pounds, electric knives at 21 percent and 10.04 million pounds.

The remaining top ten items were electric tin openers, breadmakers, vegetable preparation devices like potato peelers, soda streams and face saunas.

Nikki Sellers, head of home insurance at esure.com, said: "Many of us are suckers for advertizing and fanatical about keeping up with the latest fads and must-have gadgets.

"But as a nation we're guilty of boxing up and stockpiling our white elephant household gadgets in lofts, garages, wardrobes and drawers, leaving them out of sight and easily forgotten," Sellers said. (:/)

Picture Story

PC meets Aston Martin

Wooden computer equipment - only the Russians would come up with something this tasteless while attempting to make something classy.

Brie Fly

Child Pawn...

Headline TAR (I'm sorry I couldn't resist it)/story AP from Lex18.com

The author of the "Chess for Juniors" series of books and founder of a club bearing the same name has been arrested in Colorado on suspicion of child sexual assault.

Fort Collins police say Robert Snyder was taken into custody after a lengthy investigation. He's being held on 750-thousand dollar bond.

A police spokesman says Snyder is accused of engaging in inappropriate touching and behavior with two of his chess students at his home in the past year.

Snyder, a former Western U-S Chess Champion, taught chess to children ages five to 17 at his home in Fort Collins and accompanied children to chess tournaments across the country. (:/)

Oh, the IRONY.

Weird Science

Amazing fossil puts Scotland's dinosaurs on the map

The Scotsman

DINOSAUR bones and fossils have been found across the world for thousands of years. They were first classified in the 19th century and every year new remains are discovered which add to our knowledge of these fascinating creatures. One of the most exciting finds to date is shortly to be revealed as coming from Scotland.

Dr Neil Clark from Glasgow's Hunterian Museum is a fossil expert, but specialises in dinosaurs.

Last year two locals on the Isle of Skye, Paul Booth and Dugald Ross, found a set of fossilised footprints. Inside one of the footprints was another fossil that has turned out to be one of the most exciting finds in Scotland. The fossil was even more remarkable for being uncovered in a country not known for its wealth of dinosaur remains.

Dinosaur traces were not found in Scotland until recently. The first bone, from an adult Diplodocus-like dinosaur, was found in 1982. Since then progress has been steady, but slow, with the odd bone or fossil turning up regularly.

Dr Neil Clark, palaeontologist and curator of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, acknowledges that Scotland is never going to turn up thousands of remains.

"We find about one bone a year," says Clark. "This means that at the current rate it will take over 200 years to collect a complete dinosaur." (:/)

Sport

Magic mudhole is game's big secret

Reuters

Somewhere along the mudflats of a Delaware River tributary in New Jersey is the spot where baseball's "magic mud" is mined, a location known only to a few and kept secret for decades.



The unique mud is rubbed on every new baseball used by Major League teams to remove the sheen, soften the seams and give pitchers a better grip.

"It definitely changes the way the ball feels," said Washington Nationals pitcher John Patterson. "If you get a new baseball, it's slick, it's hard to hold on to. If you put some mud on it, it gives you a better grip."

Before a game, Nationals ballboy Lamont Poteat "rubs up" several dozen baseballs by dabbing each one with a fingertip-full of mud and massaging it with both hands until its sheen is dulled.

The origins of the mud are swathed in folklore. Asked where it came from, Patterson said: "From the Mississippi." Other players believe it is taken from an Alabama swamp.

In fact, the mud is supplied by a husband-and-wife outfit in New Jersey but the exact site of their mudhole is a closely guarded secret.

The few outsiders taken to the mudhole have been blindfolded and sworn to secrecy.

"You'll never find it no matter how hard you look," said Jim Bintliff, owner of Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. (:/)

Older than the old

Aftenpost.com

Steinar Solli - aged 67 - came out of retirement when his 4th division soccer team suddenly needed an extra man.

Solli played the entire match for Sømna in Nordland, and told newspaper VG he had lost track of how many comebacks he has had. But when one of the players in Sømna's starting lineup missed the ferry to the match, Solli went back into action.

"We have quite a few farmers on the team. It isn't always so easy to get them to come to the away matches," Solli told VG.

Solli is 50 years older than the team's youngest player on the top squad, and 21 years older than the oldest player on their Old Boys team.

Solli is probably the oldest player ever to take part in an official match under the Norwegian Football Federation, but personally doesn't find the record impressive.

"I say it is much worse driving a car. And skiing 30-kilometers (18.6 miles) is much harder," the veteran said. (:/)

Product of the Week

Play with Lego on your computer!

Lego yourselves stupid here.

Education

When human sexuality classes go wrong

Headline TAR/story InsideHigherEd.com

George Washington University chose this summer not to renew the contract of the adjunct professor who had been teaching sexuality to a packed house for 17 years. Schaffer was given no explanation for the decision. But, he said, when he pressed Patricia Sullivan, the acting chair of the Department of Exercise Science, for answers, she told him “maybe you need to look at your student evaluations.”

Two of the spring evaluations, from women who took the course, said that the course was demeaning to women. One of the critiques, which specifically cited a class discussion on shaving pubic hair, threatened a sexual harassment lawsuit. That evaluation also pointed to the “look before you lick” advice that Schaffer includes with his comments on all students’ final papers as “a little humor to teach about safe oral sex,” he said.

The shaving topic came up when Schaffer read part of a paper aloud. He said he gives students the option to put a note on their papers saying they should never be read to the class, and when they are read, he changes identifying information. The paper asked “whether you should or shouldn’t shave pubic hair,” Schaffer said. “Think in terms of if you were to put your mouth on someone’s genitals. Would you want it to be shaved? Is a little topiary work appropriate?” Schaffer said the student who threatened the lawsuit found the discussion about women shaving to be inappropriate. “But I talked about men and women,” Schaffer added. “That’s a question people ask.” (:/)

Well I ask it all the time!

Criminal Negligence

Student cited twice for public urination

News and Observer (N.C. I think)

Chapel Hill police cited the same UNC-Chapel Hill student twice in connection with using a town parking lot as a port-a-john over the weekend.

Police say they found Spencer Michael Killette, 21, of 132 S. Columbia St., urinating Friday night in the town parking deck at 150 E. Rosemary St. That was at 11:50 p.m.

Twenty-eight minutes later, Killette was at it again, according to arrest warrants.

"After being cited and released for urinating in public, Mr. Killette walked approximately 50 feet and urinated inside the town parking deck again," according to the second arrest warrant.

He faces maximum fines of $50 for each incident, plus court costs. (:/)

Company Says Clerk Urinated Into Soda

AP

A [Florida] convenience store worker has admitted urinating into a soda bottle, causing a customer who drank from it to become violently ill, his bosses say.

Lab tests done by Publix on the contaminated Mountain Dew confirmed the soda contained urine, Stevens said.

"It is an isolated incident done by one of our associates," [spokesman] Stevens said. "Whatever measure is necessary, it will be executed and the employee will be dealt with."

The victim, a foreman with a Daytona Beach construction company, became suspicious of the drink after he chugged the beverage last week, his attorney, Daniel Newlin, said

"He vomited three or four times afterward," said Newlin, who did not release his client's name in order to protect the man's privacy.

Newlin said that upon the advice of an infectious-disease doctor, the victim was being tested for diseases such as gonorrhea and hepatitis C.

"We're hopeful that the person who did this wasn't carrying any sexual, or otherwise, virus that could cause him harm," Newlin said. "Unfortunately, the doctors were very concerned." (:/)

Man Learns Brother Next to Him Is Wanted

AP

Nicholas Cerino could recognize one of "America's Most Wanted," - the fugitive profiled on the show Saturday night was sitting in his living room.

Mark Cerino, 41, was identified on the show as a contractor wanted in Florida for allegedly scamming elderly residents after last year's hurricanes.

Nicholas Cerino said he was "just dumbfounded" to hear a warrant had been issued in Brevard County, Fla., for his younger brother, who has been staying at his home in central New York.

Nine people called the show's tip line to report he was at his brother's home, and Mark Cerino was arrested within hours of the broadcast.

Mark Cerino was wanted on charges of contracting without a license during a state emergency. He was being held without bail at Seneca County Jail.

Nicholas Cerino disputed allegations that his brother took money from unsuspecting victims and ran.

"This kid would give you the shirt off your back," Nicholas Cerino, a quadriplegic who owns a motorcycle shop in Waterloo, said in Monday's Post-Standard newspaper in Syracuse. (:/)

Man Allegedly Pedals Away With Pot Plants

AP Oregon

A bicyclist was arrested on drug possession charges this week after a police officer caught sight of him pedaling away with three uprooted marijuana plants under his arm.

Police spotted Dwayne Earl Anthony Etzel, 18, cycling in the early evening Monday with what they described as a "big smile" on his face.

"I see this guy riding up the street with what looked like a big old bush under his arm," said Eugene Narcotics Detective Scott Vinje. "It didn't click right away that it was marijuana. Then I smelled it."

Eztel is in the Lane County Jail on charges of burglary, drug possession, criminal mischief, escape and trespassing.

When police tried to stop him, Eztel allegedly threw the marijuana plants at the officer's car and pedaled off. After catching up with him, the officer used pepper spray to get the cyclist under control. (:/)

Woman complains to cops after hitman
fails to get the job done

Mainichi Daily News

A woman who hired a hitman to murder the wife of her lover, and then complained to police when he didn't do the job, has been arrested along with the hitman, police said.

The murderous intentions of Eriko Kawaguchi, a Tokyo Fire Fighting Department employee, came to light after she complained to police because the hitman didn't carry out the job, although she paid him about 15 million yen.

"I came to know that the wife gave birth and then I felt betrayed (by the lover)," officers quoted Kawaguchi, 32, as saying about her motive for hiring the hitman.

Kawaguchi, from the Tokyo suburb of Tama, phoned Takaharu Tabe, 40, from Kunitachi, after she read Tabe's web page on the Internet in November last year, police said.

In January this year, Kawaguchi met Tabe in Tachikawa, requesting that he murder the wife of her lover.

In due course she paid him a total of some 15 million yen for the murder and the costs of tailing and keeping watch on the target.

Tabe offered to murder the target by taking her on a motorbike into a tunnel and pouring poisonous bacteria over her.

Tabe then showed photos of the home and working place of the woman to Kawaguchi.

He even gave white powder to Kawaguchi and said he used it to murder the 32-year-old target.

But the wife of Kawaguchi's lover was never attacked and recently gave birth.

Six months later, Kawaguchi then went to the Tama Chuo Police Station and made a complaint, police said. Officers are grilling Tabe about the possibility of other murder contracts. (:/)

Animal Magic

Tiger pictured mating lioness

Ananova

A Chinese zoologist has captured a picture of a tiger mating with a lioness.



A Chinese zoologist has captured a picture of a tiger mating with a lioness. Zhao Yunhua took the rare photograph in Shenzhen Safari Park /Lu Feng

Zhao Yunhua took the rare photograph in Shenzhen Safari Park last weekend.

It's not unusual for tigers and lions to breed in safari parks - but it is seldom caught on film.

This year, two tigons - the product of a male tiger and a lioness - and three ligers - the cub of a male lion and female tiger - have been born in the park.

The five offspring are all growing up healthily, reports Shenzhen Evening Post. (:/)

Inventor: I never used dead cats for fuel

Reuters

A German inventor said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats.

Christian Koch, an inventor and patent holder of the "KDV 500" that he said produces high quality fuel, said he can transform waste products such as paper, rubbish and plastic materials into fuel.

But Koch, 55, said there was no truth to stories published in Bild newspaper on Tuesday and Wednesday that suggested he used dead cats as part of the mix for his organic diesel fuel.

"I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish," Koch told Reuters.

"It's an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it's complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I've never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in."

Bild on Tuesday wrote a headline: "German inventor can turn cats into fuel -- for a tank he needs 20 pussies." The paper on Wednesday followed up with a story entitled: "Can you really make fuel out of cats?"

A spokesman for Bild told Reuters the story was meant to show that cat remains could "in theory" be used to make fuel with Koch's patented method.

The author of the story said Koch had never told him directly that he had used dead cats as the story implied.

The website of Koch's firm, "Alphakat GmbH", says his patented "KDV 500" machine can produce what he calls the "bio-diesel" fuel at about 23 euro cents a litre, which is about one-fifth the price at petrol stations now.

"I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture," Koch is quoted saying in Bild, next to a large picture of a kitten. "I have gone 170,000 km without a problem." (:/)

So, erm, crappy journalism then?

Reality TV for sheep

Ananova

Animal rights activists in Croatia have blasted a new reality show on the web where viewers vote on which sheep to save from slaughter.

In the show, shown on www.stado.org, seven sheep in a house in Zagreb are filmed non-stop as famous writers come in and read their works to them.

Viewers then vote on which of the sheep is thrown out of the house. After the 'eviction' the sheep has to be 'adopted' by a viewer or it is sent straight to the slaughterhouse.

Activists from the group Friends of Animals said the reality show was "scandalous" and that people were being pressured into adopting a sheep just to save it from slaughter.

The group have asked state veterinary inspectors to investigate.

But the man behind the show, Sinisa Labrovic, said: "I'm not torturing animals. I just wanted to show how people are used in reality shows and become nothing more than sheep." (:/)

I understand Damien Hirst's been called...

TAR Woman

Miss Italy contestants say betting plan a non-starter

Reuters

A loosening of government gaming rules means that Italians will be able to bet legally on the Miss Italy contest for the first time, upsetting contestants.

"We're people, not objects or, worse, animals," complained Anna Prete, the "Miss Calabria" from the southern region of the same name and one of the many finalists unhappy with the government-sponsored scheme.

"Betting on Miss Italy is really bad," she told Rome daily Il Messaggero ahead of Thursday's final of the beauty pageant.

Miss Italy purists are appalled at what they see is the vulgarisation of a 66-year-old national institution and the competition's founder, Enzo Mirigliani wrote to the government to complain.

Allowing bets "damages the girls' dignity, bringing them down to the level of champion racehorses", he wrote, according to Il Messaggero. (:/)

I'll let the ladies out there with more than half a brain laugh hysterically at this, then shake their heads in despair.

Quote of the Week

"To chop a finger off, that's a bit drastic," Backwell told the ABC. "But I love my footy, and love playing sport, and if that's going to help me to succeed at this level then it's something you've just got to do." (:/)

And Finally...

List of odd names compiled

AP

Horatio Hornblower is an odd name, but consider his siblings: Azubia, Constantia, Jecoliah, Jedidah, Jerusha and Erastus. Rene Jackaman, archive assistant at Cornwall County Record Office, found all those names after coming across a real-life namesake of C.S. Forester's fictional naval hero in county census records.

The Hornblower name has been on record for centuries.

Inspired by that discovery, staff and researchers at the Cornwall Record Office compiled a list of more than 1,000 unusual names found in censuses as well as in births, deaths and marriage records going back as far as the 16th century.

"My all-time favorites are Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane," she said.

Other discoveries included Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney.

Levi Jeans was married in Padstow, Cornwall, in 1797.

Other remarkable duos in the marriage records included Nicholas Bone and Priscilla Skin, joined in wedlock in 1636; Charles Swine and Jane Ham in 1711; John Mutton and Ann Veale in 1791, and Richard Dinner and Mary Cook in 1802. (:/)

Indeed. Until next time...

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News Orleans Appeal, Piano Woman, newswriters all Thai'd up, Animal Magic, German anarchists, Nippon news roundup, sautéed squirrel and much more crap

New Orleans Appeal

New Orleans residents demand help, beer

Headline TAR/story AFP

Dateline: New Orleans (Well, duh) - Many stubborn New Orleans residents are refusing to leave their homes, and some are making their determination to stay in a style that could only come from the hard-drinking, good-time city.

Curt Belton, a Department of Wildlife and Fisheries agent in charge of boats touring the city, told Tuesday of a message found in a wine bottle drifting in floodwaters along Canal Street in the entertainment district.

"To whom it may concern: Please send with immediately, (one) ice cold chest of Coors Light. I'm out at this time. Down to wine. Some shrimp and oysters would also be appreciated. Thank you," said the note, which was signed and gave an address.

Belton said the patrol went to the home and found the author sitting on his front porch.

Between sips of wine, he told them he was staying and had enough wine to last "quite a few days." Belton said he was going to frame the note because it was "pure New Orleans".

The emergency official said that of the 15 to 20 people his patrol encountered in homes on Monday, only one agreed to leave.

"There's just a ton of people still out there," Belton said. "They don't want to come, and the main reason they're giving us is their pets," he said. "It's crazy." (:/)

Quote Of The Week

When you enjoy loving your neighbor it ceases to be a virtue.
Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

HISOAS

Massive shout out to JW and DQ for their restless Headlines In Search Of A Story energy:

Some day my prints will come
Inspector coarse
Cheeses of Nazareth (or Edam and Eve)
Shake your honey maker (or Bee home before midnight)
Formula Juan
(JW)
>

Queen Elizabeth the thirst
Singing in the reign
Queen Kong
(DQ)
>

And this week's special was headlines for the England/NI game for which all the papers thought there was only one headline. There were, however, many more, for example:

SVEN DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

SVEN-D HIM OFF!
(BG)

And, of course,

SVEN WILL IT END?

(:/)

World Wide Weird

Style-conscious China city flags down bald cabbies

Reuters

Dateline: Beijing - In a bid to spruce up the city's image, authorities in China's Nanjing are banning taxi drivers who are bald, wear their hair too long, have moustaches or wear too much make-up, media said on Tuesday.


(photo AFP)

The new rules are part of a 10-point plan to smarten up Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, ahead of October's 10th National Games which will draw viewers from across the country, the Chinese news Web site www.sina.com.cn said on Tuesday, citing the Nanjing Morning Post.

"Male taxi drivers cannot have long hair or strange hairstyles, cannot be bald and cannot grow moustaches or goatees," the report said.

"Women drivers must not use too much make-up and should wear appropriate clothes."

The report did not mention penalties for drivers that break the rules, but did say that cabbies who refused to pick up passengers could be kept off the streets for up to 15 days.

The strict code comes at a time when middle-class Chinese are embracing all kinds of fashion thanks to two decades of market reforms that have rendered the Mao suit a relic of the past. (:/)

Education at Hogwarts costs 1,700 pounds

ANI spotter David Quainton

Dateline: London - Currency experts have revealed that they have calculated the value of galleons, magic money, in JK Rowling's Harry Potter books.

Travelex reckon each gold galleon is worth 5.01 pounds, or 7.39 euros, making Hogwarts an expensive option.

Churning out young witches and wizards for their first year at the school would cost parents about 1,700 pounds, just for the basics.

That means a magic wand would be 35.08 pounds and a superior broomstick, like Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000, would set you back 1,503 pounds.

Saskia van Opijnen, director of Travelex, said they had based their calculations on J K Rowling's books and on interviews with the author.

"This is the first time that we have dealt with a currency from another world. Magic money is a very sturdy currency that could assert itself on the international money market," Opijnen said. (:/)

Mystery woman washed up on Hong
Kong shore, or, But does she play the piano?

AFP

Dateline: Hong Kong - She appeared from nowhere on a rain-sodden morning, sitting naked on a Hong Kong shoreline, unable to speak.

Now she sits in a hospital bed, staring into space, mute and expressionless, her charts naming her simply as "Unknown."

The mysterious appearance of the Western woman last week beside the runway of a disused harbourside airport has put Hong Kong authorities in a bind, the police chief handling the unusual case said Wednesday.

"We've tried interpreters in many different languages and sign-language experts but none of them appear to get though to her," chief inspector Victor Ng told AFP.

Her discovery comes just weeks after the identity was revealed of a mystery man who appeared wandering along a beach in England in April.

The tall, thin man, who refused to speak or respond to written communications in four months under hospital observation, became known as the "Piano Man" after he he reportedly demonstrated a talent for the grand piano.

He was later revealed to be 20-year old German Andreas Grassl after he suddenly spoke for the first time last month. He reportedly admitted pulling the stunt for attention.

So far interpreters have been called in to speak to Hong Kong's mysterious woman in English, French and Portuguese as well as Indian and Pakistani languages.

The woman, believed to be aged between 35 and 45, and who is described as slightly built at 1.6 metres tall and with light brown shoulder-length hair, was discovered Friday.

A government statement said she had been seen earlier wandering nearby streets, but Ng said police were still probing those reports.

"She was found near a golf course and if she had been wandering, someone on that gold course would have seen her. But no one has come forward yet," he said, adding that police were considering the possibility she was an illegal immigrant brought in by boat.

Ng said that for five days now, medical experts and police have been trying to prise from her any indication of her identity. Instead she just stares at the wall and wanders the ward in the hospital where she is under observation.

"She has not said a word, she has shown absolutely no emotion whatsoever," added Ng.

Hong Kong police have appealed to law enforcement agencies all over the world to see if the woman is on any nation's missing person's list.

Ng said she showed no sign of having been assaulted and there was no indication she was under the influence of drugs.

"I would describe her as mentally disturbed, not retarded, but mentally confused by something," he said.

Hong Kong University professor of clinical psychology Sam Ho said it was common in such cases for the subject to have been the victim of a trauma that had sent them into a trance-like state.

"It could be a split of conciousness. The part associated with the trauma is supressed, giving the subject the appearance of disorientation," Ho said. "This is different to schizophrenia because in this case the subject is not completely concious of him or herself."

Alternatively, Ho suggested, she could be suffering from severe psychiatric breakdown or the results of long-term drug abuse.

Ng said police were waiting on immigration officials to see if they could identify her.

He was also expecting medical and psychological tests before deciding what to do next.

"No crime has been committed, so there's nothing to go on. We sent out the tracker dogs to see if they could find her clothes but they turned up nothing.

"It really is a difficult one," he said. (:/)

Truth stranger than fiction on Taiwan TV news

Reuters

Taipei - When the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean region last year, Taiwan's television news channels, like networks around the world, scrambled for the most dramatic footage.

One station was so desperate it showed the soaring tide of China's famous Qiantang River instead. When viewers found out and complained, the station apologised saying it had made a mistake.

Even for Taiwan, where news channels are notorious for sensationalist and exaggerated stories, either poorly sourced or just blatantly faked, this was considered too much.

With eight around-the-clock cable news stations and a dozen others offering regular news programmes on an island of 23 million people, competition is fierce. And this results in irresponsible journalism, industry experts say.

"It's a vicious circle," said Wei Ti from the Campaign for Media Reform, a private body, who teaches mass communication at the Tamkang University.

"There is no genuine competition. Everyone is going after what they see as the most sensational story of the day and broadcasting it over and over again." (:/)

Bloody hell. Thank GOD that doesn't happen here, eh?

Italian rail firm under fire over creepy-crawly trains

AFP

Dateline: Rome - A senior official of Italy's national rail operator was summoned to the transport ministry after several incidents in which passengers complained of being infected or bitten by ticks, fleas and lice on trains, some of them serving Paris.

Trenitalia's Roberto Testore was called to a meeting with a junior minister as officials began an inquiry into Sunday's incident on a regional train from Turin, northern Italy, when passengers in one compartment complained about being attacked by ticks, fleas and other bugs.

A few hours later, passengers on a Paris-bound service from Vintimiglia, near the border with France, halted their train for four hours at Marseille protesting that they, too, had been attacked.

French medical personnel inspected the train and one of the carriages was removed, but some 80 of the travellers refused to get back on board. (:/)

Russian man survives snooze under moving train

Reuters/Interfax

Dateline: Moscow - Even a goods train rumbling over a Russian man's head failed to spoil his peaceful slumber between the tracks, Interfax news agency reported on Monday.

The train driver saw somebody on the line and braked sharply. Rescuers tried to pull the drunken sleeper from underneath the carriages, but failed, and the train had to carry on driving to free him.

"The young man lying between the rails did not wake up ... which apparently saved his life," said railway policeman Vladimir Slaby. (:/)

That is DRUNK. Oh no, hold on, THIS is:

Inebriated Belgian woman dies in cemetery accident

Reuters

Dateline: Brussels - An inebriated Belgian woman died in a freak accident when she ended up beneath a heavy grave stone at a cemetery, local news agency Belga said on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old was on her way home from a bar in the Belgian town of Pulle in the early hours of Saturday when she took a short cut through the cemetery.

But she urgently needed to relieve herself and crouched down between two gravestones. As she lost her balance, she grabbed one of the stones which gave way and landed on top of her.

The public prosecutor's office said she died of suffocation as she was unable to lift the heavy stone. (:/)

Criminal Negligence

Two Men Allegedly Break Into McDonald's

AP

Dateline: Casper, Wyo. - Did they want fries with that? Two men were charged with burglary after they allegedly broke into a McDonald's restaurant and tried to steal food.

Michael Eugene Croley and Christopher Carl Walker, both 18, walked up to the restaurant's drive-through window early Saturday morning and asked for any unsold food the restaurant planned to throw away, Casper police Sgt. Brad Wnuk said Tuesday.

When McDonald's employees told them the restaurant was closed, one of the men allegedly pried open the window and climbed at least part of the way into the restaurant, where workers called 911 and fled into the kitchen.

"The employees were afraid they would be robbed," Wnuk said.

The two were arrested shortly after the incident, and denied any involvement, according to court documents. (:/)

German thief caught after online sale to victim

Reuters

A German thief stole a man's in-car navigation system and unwittingly auctioned it online back to his victim, who had police arrest him, authorities say.

Police in Berlin say the 26-year-old victim spotted the device on an Internet auction site and quickly reacquired what he had reported stolen from his car some two weeks previously.

He informed police, who went to the thief's house posing as the buyers and then arrested the 21-year-old.

"I think the thief got a bit of a surprise," a Berlin police spokesman said, adding the man confessed to the theft. (:/)

Cops say thief dropped his name tag

AP

Dateline: Albuquerque, -- What's in a name? A lot of trouble if you leave it at the scene of a crime.

Police are investigating a recent burglary at a portable school building in Albuquerque where a computer monitor, two printers and other equipment was stolen.

What they found was a restaurant employee name tag near the building at Bandelier Elementary School, according to court documents.

The tag, bearing the name ''Sam,'' was used to help authorities track down Samuel Wilson, 19.

Wilson was being held on burglary charges. (:/)

Police Blow Up Cannonball, Owner Objects

AP

Dateline: Anchorage, Alaska - Yale Metzger wants the Anchorage Police Department to replace his cannonball. Police officers say they blew it up to protect the public.

Metzger said he called police last week to have them examine the cannonball he found in Cordova. Instead, he said, the bomb squad showed up at his home last week with a remote-controlled robot, hauled away the cast iron ball and blew it up.

The police are calling Metzger "an idiot" for carrying the incendiary device around in his truck, then bringing it into downtown Anchorage, where they say it could have sent shrapnel flying for blocks had it exploded.

Metzger, 45, an attorney, found the 4-inch, 8-pound, cast iron ball last summer while excavating property he had purchased. It was unearthed in what most recently was a snow dump.

Metzger put the ball in the back of his pickup, where it rolled around for a year, he said. Over time he began to investigate how a cannonball, a projectile that stopped being used more than a century ago, could have ended up in Cordova.

Once the ball was in Anchorage, Metzger was concerned the ball could be still active. He wanted to know if his cannonball was solid or hollow, and if it was hollow, if it had volatile black powder.

The bomb squad took one look at it in Metzger's garage and treated it like a bomb seconds away from blowing.

"Could it have exploded?" Metzger asked. "Sure. So could a meteor fall out of the sky and hit your truck."

The bomb squad exploded the cannonball at the Anchorage Landfill. Sgt. Jeff Morton said a secondary explosion occurred and a different color of smoke blew out, making it certain that the cannonball had volatile black powder.

Police have not second-guessed their decision to destroy what might have been an artifact.

"We're not going to put a bomb technician's life in jeopardy over a cannonball or anything else," Jennings said. He called Metzger "an idiot" for bringing the bomb into town and for questioning the bomb squad's decision to destroy it. (:/)

Soap opera in court

(Ormskirk) Midweek Advertiser

A pair of washing machine thieves failed to get clean away after they were caught on CCTV wheeling their haul to the train station through the streets of Ormskirk.

Carl T. Bosanquet, 41, of Hollingworth Close, Walton, and Stanley Alan Kellie, 34, of Roughdale Close, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to theft at Ormskirk Magistrates Court.

The soap opera began on Tuesday, August 23, when the two discovered a washing machine outside Ireland's electrical appliance shop in Church Street, Ormskirk, which, they told police, they thought was abandoned.

They took the washing machine and wheeled it through the town in broad daylight to Ormskirk train station, 500m away.

The duo were spotted immediately by town centre CCTV operators and arrested by police as they struggled to load the £250 washing machine onto the Liverpool train.

Mike Flynn, defending, said: "It's something of a sad and sorry story.

"Both gentlemen admit they were looking in bins to see if there was anything of use they could take.

" They saw a washing machine they thought was abandoned and took it."

He asked the Bench to deal with both men immediately as Bosanquet was due to go into the Kevin White detox clinic and any outstanding court matters would jeopardise that placement.

He said: "Once a person has been on the scheme he is effectively cleaned up."

Sentencing the pair to £75 fines and no court costs, the chairman of the Bench, Mrs Susan Watkinson, said: "It's an unusual offence. It's caused quite a bit of local interest."

She agreed that Bosanquet needed to dry out and told him: "I hope you take advantage of the opportunity we have given you today. Hopefully, we will not see you in this court again." (:/)

Nippon In The News

Japanese geeks go gaga as 'maids' clean them up

AFP

Dateline: Tokyo - Japanese geeks too pent-up to flirt with women or refine their style can now do both at once -- getting their hair cut and cleaned by "maids" in frilly aprons and bonnets.



Seizing on a lucrative fetish market, Tokyo's latest salon features hairdressers in black miniskirts ready to attend to the fashion needs of the metropolis's geeks.

The hair salon, Moesham, is in Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics district haunted by drab computer buffs and fanatic hobbyists known as "otaku", which literally means "your home", as in to stay at home.

Maid themes have already proved a huge success among Tokyo's plentiful otaku, with at least 50 cafes, bars, restaurants and massage parlors around the capital staffed by girls in the classic frills.

Hiroshi Asaeda, spokesman for Tokyo-based company DON which operates the first otaku hair salon, admits he himself had been a computer nerd.

"I used to be an otaku but I began to get interested in clothes and then hairstyles," the 22-year-old says. "I want other otakus snubbed by women to experience what I went through.

"There is nothing wrong with being an otaku. But the sight of them make people sick because of their fashion," he says.

"Take a look at the men walking down the street here. Many of them are in worn-out T-shirts and jeans that aren't their size and carry tattered daypacks."

Asaeda argues that his salon serves the greater public interest. Cleaner looking otaku, he says, would help people accept comics, video games and other objects of otakus' adoration which by one study form a 2.6 billion dollar market.

"I want to bring fashion into Akihabara, to clean it up," Asaeda declares in his salon decorated with white lacy curtains and fake flowers.

The main reason the otaku are drawn to maids is their obedience and cuteness, Asaeda says.

"Women say men in business suits look 30 percent better. Girls in maid costumes may look cuter," he says.

There is no sexual contact between the "maids" and the customers who come for a trim, but the hint of it is certainly present.

"Obviously getting shampooed makes you feel good. But it also makes your heart throb as a maid leans over you -- very close but not pressed onto your body," he explains.

For the otaku too shy for a peak at what's before him, he can watch the scene on the mirrors on the ceiling above him.

The operative word at the hair salon is "moe", which literally means "to sprout" but in slang translates as a meeker, Japanese version of "to go gaga".

"You would think 'it's cute' when you see a hamster. 'Moe' is that feeling but mingled with the bit of love you feel towards somebody out of reach," Asaeda explains.

The salon, which employs six hairdressers and 10 apprentices, targets men in their 40s or younger but also expects some customers to be women who like to play dress-up.

One of Moesham's hairdressers, Yuki Harada, in her 20s, laments pursuing her profession for people so unconcerned about hairstyles. "I want them to look cooler," she says.

Harada says she was a bit ashamed to wear the maid clothes but is now accustomed to them. "My language has also become more polite," she says. (:/)

We Love Germans

German anarchist party's TV advert offends viewers

Reuters

Dateline: Berlin - A fringe German anarchist party has outraged national television audiences with its election campaign television spot -- a video montage of booze-fuelled chaos, syringes and men cavorting with topless women.

An estimated one million viewers watched the German Anarchist Pogo Party's already heavily censored political broadcast (http://www.appd.de/wahlspot/wahlspot.php) when it was shown for the first time on Monday.

Rather than offer any presentation of policies, the party's campaign spot spliced together scenes of debauched revellers smashing furniture, pouring beer down each other's throats and groups of couples kissing and groping each other, all set to a frantic heavy metal soundtrack.

As an officially registered political party, the Hamburg-based APPD, which sells t-shirts on its Web site that proclaim "Arbeit ist Scheisse" ("work is shit"), is entitled to free television air time for its advertisements.

Karl Nagl, campaign manager of the APPD, told Reuters on Wednesday the party would continue to run the ad.

"The next broadcast is scheduled for Monday night," he said.

But he said the broadcasting authorities might insist the party remove scenes featuring needles, which he said depicted people taking blood samples and not intravenous drug abuse.

German newspapers say the party's roughly 750 members would have no discernible impact on the September 18 parliamentary elections. (:/)

The video is insane, by the way. Gotta say, though, that an anarchist video offending Germans is hardly man bites dog, is it?

Cops On The Rocks

Police Recruit Has Hand in His Own Arrest

AP

Dateline: Wellington, New Zealand - A New Zealand police recruit has had a hand in his own arrest for an unsolved assault. As part of a training exercise in fingerprinting at the Royal New Zealand Police College, the recruit gave his prints — and they matched him to an arrest warrant for a serious assault, Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper reported Wednesday.

He was arrested late last week and will appear in court later this week, the paper reported.

Training commander, Superintendent Alistair Beckett, said the recruit, whose name was not reported, had managed to slip through rigorous screening of potential recruits.

"By and large, the people we get are top of the line, top drawer. They normally don't have things from the past they want to hide," he was quoted saying.

But the police are not taking any chances that others might try to fool the system. Starting from October, all recruit applicants will be fingerprinted before they are given training, Beckett said. (:/)

Sport

Hrbaty's peek-a-boo look gets shirty response

AFP

Dateline: New York - Dominik Hrbaty exited the US Open and none too soon for tennis fashion mavens.



You could say they were glad to see the back of him, except that's exactly the view of his strangely ventilated shirt critics wanted to avoid.

"It made it a lot easier for me to beat him today," quipped Australian Lleyton Hewitt. "I just couldn't lose to a bloke wearing a shirt like that."

Hrbaty, a 27-year-old journeyman from Slovakia, fielded questions all week about the odd apparel, pink trimmed in navy blue with two oval cut-outs displaying his bare shoulder blades in the back.

"I don't really know what the design means," he said. "If it's only an idea, or if it had any purpose in the beginning or if somebody just was trying to make a smiley face in the back."

Whatever prompted the design, Hrbaty said, it had the advantage of being cooler than a regular shirt. The downside was it required applications of sunscreen to the exposed skin.

The peek-a-boo effect had everyone from tennis great turned TV commentator John McEnroe to rivals in the draw weighing in with an opinion - uniformly negative.

Finland's Jarkko Nieminen, waiting to see if he'd face Hrbaty or Hewitt in the quarter-finals, was already formulating his sartorial strategic response.

"It's only on the back side, so I can't see it," he pointed out, adding that if Hrbaty had to run down a lob, "I'll try to watch just the ball." (:/)

Tough backsides needed for 'dive-bombing' contest in Germany

AFP

Dateline: Heilbronn, Germany - You need a tough backside and points are awarded for hiding your pain when you flop into the water -- welcome to the weird world of 'dive-bombing' which held its world championships.

The event in a swimming pool in the western German town of Heilbronn on Sunday actually only attracted competitors from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, although organisers are convinced the 'sport' is spreading fast.

Unlike Olympic diving, in which medals are awarded for slicing through the surface without so much as a ripple, the name of the game in dive-bombing is to make as much noise and spray as possible when you hit the water.

"The kids here are freaks. Dive-bombing is an extreme sport," said the man who dreamed up the world championships, 36-year-old Oliver Schill.

Competitors had three attempts from the 10-metre (32-foot) board, including one classic backside-first dive and two 'freestyle' attempts.

It looked painful -- and it was.

The winner was Simon Gfeller from the Swiss town of Muensingen who produced a dive comprising four turns and then a spectacular landing on his face -- he won extra points from the judges for hiding his discomfort.

A German dive-bombing coach, Helmut Huenerfauth, is convinced the new sport is here to stay.

"All over the place there are groups of people getting together who just want to get their backsides flayed," he said. (:/)

Vinnie de Milo

The Sun

THE moment soccer’s Vinnie Jones squeezed Paul Gascoigne’s privates is being immortalised in a bronze statue.

The £40,000 sculpture — 11⁄2 times life size — will have pride of place outside a new stadium. (:/)

Animal Magic

Girl Captures Gator After Watching TV Show

AP

Dateline: Tarentum, Pa. - Crocus, a 2-foot pet alligator escaped from his backyard enclosure, but was captured by a girl who used what she learned on a nature TV program.

Nicki Hilliard and several friends saw the animal swimming in the Allegheny River.

Hilliard said she learned how to catch the animals safely by watching the television show "Crocodile Hunter." The secret is to grab the animal's snout and hold its mouth closed.

The kids put the animal in a beverage cooler and took it to the police station, where it was locked inside a cell until owner Belinda Thomson arrived to claim it.

Thompson said neighborhood cats opened the fence in her back yard, enabling Crocus to escape. (:/)

Unique L.A. School Offers Mule Training

AP

Dateline: Los Angeles - Sugar the mule was anything but sweet. She bit her owner, kicked him and dragged him around his corral. "At first I could do things with her, but she slowly turned on me," said Will Green, a 43-year-old warehouseman, who bought Sugar and a two-acre Mojave desert spread to lead a life of packing and hunting.

"It's these animals; they're very smart. When you don't know, it gives them a window of opportunity to take over."

This summer, Green hauled the cranky creature to what is believed to be the nation's only mule school at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb.

Within a few hours, mule charmer Steve Edwards had Sugar behaving like a lamb, obediently waltzing around a dusty corral on a length of rope.

"The biggest problem with mules is that most people aren't smart enough to be around them," said Edwards, 56, an old-time cowboy who calls people "pardner" and wears a big-brimmed hat. "People say they're stubborn, but they're just very smart. You have to be able to outthink them." (:/)

Hmm. Outthinking a mule. Tough call.

Duck Club Uses Pigs to Keep Seagulls Away

AP

Dateline: Salt Lake City - With an oink oink here and an oink oink there, four weaner pigs seemed to have scared seagulls away from a duck hunting club.

The Rudy Duck Club, which borders the Salt Lake International Airport in the marshland of the Great Salt Lake, has been using the young pigs for the past five years. Members put the pigs up in shelters on the four islands — two per island so they have company — in the 1,900-acre club, and the animals do what comes naturally.

"The seagulls were taking over the islands," said Lane Jensen, a member of the duck club board. Their nesting habits were "messing up the airport, it was killing off the island for any other nesting."

Hunters who couldn't shoot the gulls had to come up with a backup plan.

"It's the state bird," Jensen said.

After other methods failed to be anything more than a temporary fix, a rancher near the club suggested the pigs would root in the gull nests for eggs and disrupt the breeding cycle. The pigs were turned loose every April and roamed the islands until mid-June.

The pigs stay away from geese, which are twice as big as the weaners and have a frightening hiss.

This year, gulls didn't try to nest on the islands, Jensen said.

"So it worked," he said. (:/)

Ick!

Thai Artist Bakes Edible 'Body Parts'

AP

Dateline: Potharam, Thailand - Inside a dark room, realistic-looking "human body parts" are stacked on shelves and hanging on meat hooks. The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it's a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom.



"Of course, people were shocked and thought that I was mad when they saw the works. But once they knew the idea behind it, they understood and became interested in the work itself, instead of thinking that I am crazy," said the fine arts masters degree student.

He hopes his realistic artwork will make people ponder whether they are consuming food, or food is consuming them.

"Everyone's life is rushed nowadays, even when it comes to eating," he said. "When we eat, we don't think about our health or safety, we only think of our taste buds."

As an undergraduate art student, Kittiwat started painting portraits. He then moved to mixed media and finally dough — a natural medium for him since his family runs a bakery.

Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts.

He now is receiving regular orders from the curious and from pranksters who want to surprise their friends or colleagues, but that's a minor sideline.

By the end of the year, Kittiwat's confectionary slaughterhouse will go on display at Bangkok's Silpakorn University. It's his final dissertation, and he hopes it will secure him a master of arts degree.

"When people see the bread, they don't want to eat it. But when they taste it, it's just normal bread," he said. "The lesson is 'don't judge just by outer appearances.'" (:/)

That story was by Watcharaporn Taithongchai. That is some name. I think it's actually IwatchaThaPorn...

Loony Leaders

In Ashkhabad did Niyazov a penguin's ice palace decree...

Headline TAR story AFP

Turkmenistan's president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, has ordered a zoo be built for 300 species of birds and animals, including penguins, in the Central Asian republic's Kara Kum desert, state television has announced.
The decision comes a year after the 65-year-old strongman announced construction of an ice palace capable of holding 1000 people.

A Turkish firm was expected to complete construction of the 40-hectare park within a year, the TV said.

"The zoo will be situated north of Ashkhabad where the Kara Kum desert begins. The animals will live there in conditions close to those of their natural habitat and the zoo will cost several million dollars," said an official at the Turkmen environment ministry, which will select the animals.

"We are examining the possibility of acquiring animals from the four corners of the planet, such as penguins from the north," the source said.

The zoo is the latest in a series of grandiose projects ordered by the man who styles himself "Turkmenbashi," the leader of all Turkmen, whose gas-rich country of five million is dotted with statues of himself and his mother.

In August 2004, he ordered that a giant ice palace be built in mountains north of the capital, but doubts were raised about whether it could be sustained in a desert country that receives just 100-250 millimetres of rain a year.

Temperatures average minus one degree Celsius in winter and range up to 30 degrees celsius in summer.

Last month, state-run media reported Niyazov's spiritual guide book Rukhnama was blasted into space with two Japanese satellites from the Russian launch station in Kazakhstan as proof that Turkmenistan had joined the space-powers club.

The president, whose poetry and philosophical writings dominate radio and television programmes, last month banned recorded music at public events and on television in a bid to protect Turkmen culture from foreign influences.

Opera and ballet have long been outlawed as "unnecessary".

Turkmenistan's national anthem is titled "Turkmenbasyn guran beyik binasy" - "The Country that Turkmenbashi has built". (:/)

Star Trek

Europe plans laser-fusion facility

PhysicsWeb

Laser physicists in Europe have put forward plans to build a £500m facility to study a new approach to laser fusion. A panel of scientists from seven European Union countries believes that a "fast ignition" laser facility could make a significant contribution to fusion research, as well as supporting experiments in other areas of physics. The facility could be up and running by the middle of the next decade.

The laser would be used to compress and heat a small capsule of deuterium and tritium until the nuclei are hot enough to undergo nuclear fusion and produce helium and neutrons. In a reactor the energy of the neutrons would be used to generate electricity without the emission of greenhouse gases or the generation of long-lived nuclear waste.

The most advanced approach to fusion involves using magnetic fields to confine the deuterium–tritium plasma. This is the route to be taken by ITER, which will cost $10bn to build and run. The alternative "inertial confinement" technique, which uses lasers or ion beams rather than magnets to confine the plasma, will be investigated by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US and the Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) in France. However, both these billion-dollar lasers will primarily be used for nuclear-weapons research, with only 15% of their time being available for other areas of physics. (:/)

Be very, very scared.

Nippon In The News

Schoolgirl faces arrest for spraying fire extinguisher at schoolmates

Mainichi Daily News

Dateline: Fujisawa, Kanagawa -- A 15-year-old junior high school girl faces arrest for spraying a fire extinguisher at about 70 schoolmates on their way to school on Wednesday morning, sickening 66 of them, police said Thursday.


(Investigators examine the scene where a junior high school girl allegedly sprayed a fire extinguisher at her schoolmates)

Kanagawa Prefectural Police decided to arrest the 15-year-old girl for inflicting bodily injury after an 18-year-old boy under arrest for stealing cars told investigators that the girl sprayed the fire extinguisher from the vehicle he was driving.

The girl also admitted to the allegations during questioning. "I stole the fire extinguisher shortly before the incident. I intended to play with the fire extinguisher, and sprayed it after spotting children on their way to school," she was quoted as telling investigators.

Police suspect that two others were also involved in the attack.

The girl, a third-year student at Fujisawa Municipal Takakura Junior High School, has been absent from school for nearly two years.

The boy, a painter and graduate of the school, is under arrest for stealing three cars, worth 900,000 yen, from the compounds of a used car shop in Fujisawa between the night of Sept. 1 and the following morning. (:/)

The girlfriend I should have had.

Police officer set to resign after driving into river while drunk

Mainichi Daily News

Dateline: Sapporo -- A police investigator is set to resign after being suspended for drunk driving in August, police officials said.

The 31-year-old senior officer, whose name was not immediately released, drove his car into a river in Ono, southern Hokkaido, late on the night of Aug. 27 while intoxicated, the prefectural police's inspection bureau said.

Officers on patrol spotted the accident and detected a massive amount of alcohol on his breath.

Local police sent an investigation report to prosecutors on Wednesday, accusing the officer of violating the Road Traffic Law. The force's inspection bureau punished him on Thursday by suspending him from duty for three months. (:/)

Getting drunk in Sapporo... geddit? Oh never mind.

More Ick!

Crouching tiger, hidden donkey

Reuters

Dateline: Beijing - The cat is out of the bag at a restaurant in northeast China that had been serving donkey meat spiked with tiger urine in pricey dishes advertised as endangered Siberian tigers.

Local media in Heilongjiang province got wind that the restaurant was offering stir-fried dishes and medicinal liquor made from tiger meat and bones, sparking local police and health inspectors to pounce, the China Daily said on Thursday.

"After inspection, the owner confessed that the so-called tiger meat was donkey meat that had been dressed with tiger urine to give the dish a 'special' flavour," the newspaper said.

The restaurant had been charging as much as 800 yuan (53.80 pounds) a dish for the illegal, "rare" fare, tapping into traditional Chinese belief that tiger meat has aphrodisiacal properties.

The restaurant was shut down and fined and the director of the nearby Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park, China's largest centre for breeding the highly endangered animals, reassured the public there was no way meat from its big cats had made its way to the dinner table, the newspaper said.

Only a few hundred Siberian tigers are believed to be alive in the wild in their native habitats of northern China, southern Russia and parts of North Korea.

The report did not explain where the tiger urine had come from or how it was collected. (:/)

Curious Squirrel Knocks Out Power in Kansas

AP

Dateline: Topeka, Kan. - A squirrel too curious for its own good caused an outage that left the Statehouse and other downtown Topeka buildings briefly without power Thursday, according to Westar Energy Inc.

Company spokeswoman Gina Penzig said the squirrel got into a power substation and was touching different parts of a circuit, causing electricity to flow through its body and overload the circuit.

The power went out about 8:30 a.m. and returned about a half-hour later. Besides the Statehouse, two state government office buildings were affected. (:/)

Sauteed squirrel, anyone?

And finally

Thai PM To Pesky Reporters: Buzzzz

AP

Dateline: Bangkok, Thailand - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has long complained of press criticism. But he sought to turn the tables Thursday with a new tactic — sounding a buzzer every time reporters ask questions he deems "not constructive."


Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra shows "No" sign to a journalist after being asked questions during a press conference at Government House in Bangkok Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005.

To the surprise of journalists and colleagues alike, Thaksin raised a handheld buzzer — which displayed an "X" sign — from behind the podium to indicate his disapproval of some questions asked at the first in a new series of weekly news conferences.

The button-pushing Thaksin sounded the alarm when a Thai newspaperman asked why the government had failed to seek parliamentary consent before introducing an emergency decree in the volatile southern provinces, where a Muslim insurgency has taken hold.

"Not constructive!" he exclaimed, referring to the reporter's question and a related one about whether foreign terrorists might be linked to the rebellion.

But other questions elicited a sweeter response: when a female reporter asked about government plans to offset rising oil prices, Thaksin's gadget emitted a pleasant tone and displayed an "O," signaling his approval.

Thaksin joked about the buzzer to puzzled reporters: "My son brought it from Japan for his sister, and I just borrowed it to use with the media to make the atmosphere more relaxing."

But some journalists failed to see the humor.

"I think it's a little overboard for a prime minister to do anything like that because in this forum, I think, reporters have the right to ask any questions that concern the Thai people, the public interest," said Tulsathit Taptin, editor of The Nation, an English-language daily.

"They have the right to ask those kinds of questions," he said.

The new series of news conferences was organized by the government to give reporters better access to Thaksin and to information about government activities.

It wasn't clear whether Thaksin planned to keep using the buzzer. (:/)

Indeed. Until next time...

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