Friday, November 2, 2001
Yr Ed’s busy today so here are a few stories to tide you over until I can address the other News You Need to Know: New Yorkers buy feathered sentries. Hmm, doesn’t taste like anthrax to me. The Vagina that Ate Ann Arbor. Another crime disrupted by cell-phone ignorance. Plus: Meet Britain’s Mr. Malpractice; education reform in Uganda; fistfights in the Indonesian legislature; and it was just a tattoo.
Thanks This Week to
Jeff Brielmaier, Mark Hahn, Howard Ray, Gil Nelson, Albert Clawson, Bruce Leiserowitz, Robin Bridge, Curtis Philson, Paul Tucek, Mike Hafner, Heather Casmire, Beverly McCollom, Geoff Edwards, Rose-Anne Paiement, Jerry McCollom, Wayne Harrison, Tom Slone, Geoffrey Egan, Leslie Goodman-Malamuth, Roger Gulbransen, David Pimm, Paul Nieuwland, Jeff Rose-Martland, Joe Littrell, Steve Miller, John Cieciel, Kelly Hurt, Paul Bogrow, Thomas Chalifoux, Paul Music, Martin Prior, and the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
Saturday, November 3, 2001
Computer hacker sends a town’s sewage a-flowin’. Real cop falls for fake sheriff’s deputy’s traffic stop. A letter carrier’s way of dealing with his wife’s infidelity. Plus: The Pentagon finally sees the light on yellow packages, phalluses of our animal friends, and another gun-as-foreplay. And another wedding reception brawl, this time started by a bathroom flashing episode.
The Best Revenge Isn't "Success"; It's "Sewage"
A court in Queensland, Australia, sentenced Vitek Boden, 49, to 2 yrs in prison for his payback to the local Maroochy Shire’s gov’t’s failure to hire him. He hacked into the town’s brand-new waste-disposal system and diverted millions of gallons of raw sewage to where it didn’t belong, including to the grounds of the Hyatt Regency hotel. [The Register, 10-31-01]
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This Explains Why They Can't Solve That Jon Benet Ramsey Thing
There’s a sheriff’s deputy wannabe loose in Boulder County, Colo., making traffic stops and pretending to lecture, etc., motorists. His latest victim was Chuck Heidel, who fell for it big time. Only problem is that Chuck Heidel is himself a detective with the Boulder Police Dept. He only learned the guy was an imposter when he went to the sheriff’s office to complain about the stop. [Rocky Mountain News, 10-31-01]
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Letter-Hoarding Postal Carrier Gives Plausible Explanation
Postal worker Graham Fletcher, 25, was sentenced to only community service on Wednesday in Edinburgh, Scotland, on a plea-bargained charge of hoarding 2 items (reduced from 696). He said he was doing fine until he decided to surprise his wife at a ladies-night-out but found her newting a guy out back against a Ford van. He then wandered around, sank into depression, and stole mail as a “cry for help.” [The Scotsman, 11-1-01]
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Updates
The Pentagon yesterday decided to change the color of the food packages we drop from airplanes over Afghanistan from yellow to blue, so as to be distinguished from the cluster bomb packages we drop from airplanes, which will remain yellow (see Weird Planet Daily, 10-31-01). [Ed.: Wouldn’t you love to have heard the high-level Pentagon discussions over that, or is it just me?] And the Icelandic Phallological Museum, mentioned in News of the Weird 607 (9-24-99) as a storehouse of unusual clintons of the animal community, has a website so that you no longer have to fly to Reykjavik: www.mh.is/vefir/phallus/index.htm (Message for you to cut and paste, if you need it: Dear Supervisor: Please allow Mr./Ms. [fill in your name] to view this site, in the serious pursuit of scholarship. Sincerely, Chuck Shepherd, Editor, News of the Weird.) And also on 10-31-01, Yr Ed reported on Pennsylvania’s Mr. Kenneth Wells, hosed for 12 yrs for fatal gunplay during sex, and we now learn of a 37-yr-old man in Helsinki getting 5 yrs on the same day for the same thing! [Nandotimes.net-AP, 11-2-01] [Reuters, 10-30-01]
Below the Fold for Saturday
A wedding reception in Hydaburg, Alaska, turned into a brawl when one of the womenfolk accidentally walked in on one of the menfolk in a restroom, fully exposed; offense was taken, and WWF-style chairshots were freely given until cops arrived. [Anchorage Daily News, 11-2-01]
This Is Why We Need Canaries
On the heels of this week’s New York Observer piece on how N’Yawkers seem to be buying up all the canaries in pet-shop inventories, as sentinels against poison-gas attacks, comes this, from the police-reports column in the San Jose Mercury News, recounting that a mysterious bag of white powder was found in the waiting room of Good Samaritan Hospital last week. “The area was evacuated and the bag was secured by hospital staff and security personnel. Before the fire department or police department arrived, a security guard smelled and tasted the powder.” (After testing, the powder was found not to be anthrax.) [New York Observer, 11-2-01] [San Jose Mercury News, 10-30-01] [Link is to the New York Observer article.]
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Yes, That Story About the Kid Who Dressed as a Giant Vagina Is True
It’s all over the news, but in case you missed it: Christian Silbereis, 17, won the Halloween costume contest at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Mich., wearing a huge vagina costume (with the image being helpfully described by the Ann Arbor News as “larger than life”). At that point, he was suspended from school for 2 days (on the ground that he had agreed at first not to wear the costume any more at school but then he put it back on for the contest). [Ann Arbor News, 11-1-01]
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Eavesdropping on a 20-Minute Conversation Between 2 Goofy Kids
Two teenagers (18, 19) were arrested in Hutchinson, Kan., as they arrived on the scene at a music store en route to the Taco Bell they had targeted for robbery. Police got to the music store about the same time as the kids because they had been listening to the kids talk about what they had in mind for the last 20 minutes, by cell phone, which had been accidentally activated (automatically dialing 911) in the pocket of one of the kids. [Topeka Capital-Journal-AP, 11-1-01]
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Below the Fold for Friday
British surgeon Dr. Stephen Walker, 44, refreshingly, is neither financially corrupt nor sexually perverse toward his patients; on the other hand, the professional-standards committee found yesterday that he was guilty of about 50 of the 70 malpractice charges against him and will decide today on the punishment.
High school students in Tororo, Uganda, made a serious attempt to lynch their headmaster for corruption and incompetence, after their leader, calling himself “Osama bin Laden,” ordered his disciples (“Taleban”) to bring him the guy’s head.
The Indonesian legislature was closed, not on account of anthrax but on account of fistfights, about 15 minutes before President Megawati Sukarnoputri was set to deliver a state of the union message.
The FBI released a guy from an Orange County, Calif., jail because an investigation showed him to be clean in spite of the fact that he had a tattoo of Osama bin Laden on his chest; he said he saw OBL 3 or 4 yrs ago on TV, thought he was a cool guy, and decided to have Osama’s face permanently etched inside his skin for the rest of his life.
[Sources: BBC News, 11-1-01; BBC News, 11-1-01; Excite-Reuters, 11-1-01; Los Angeles Times, 11-1-01]
Thursday, November 1, 2001
He pounding and kneaded his kid’s skull so it would have just the proper shape. It’s possible to just walk into a Porsche dealership and convince them you’re there to pick up that car. Plus: Cherie Blair’s support for new-age medicine; Papua New Guinea cops make it legal; robbers forget to cut eye holes in their masks; and the Ontario serial spanker.
Cleveland Father Charged with Trying to Re-Shape His Baby's Head
Joshua Brissett, 19, was charged with fracturing his 5-month-old boy’s skull, and prosecutors say he was trying to pound or mash the head so it would be more like the shape of his own. Channel 5 News said information from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History indicates that some ancient cultures engaged in the practice, to help a child grow taller and not wider. [NewsNet5.com, 10-31-01]
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Urban Legends Come to Life
It happens. Well-dressed guy walked into Carlsen Motor Cars (Palo Alto, Calif.) on Saturday; nosed around about the $125G Porsche 996 Turbo being detailed for delivery in a few minutes to the customer; figured out how to say convincingly that he was that customer; and drove off in it. “This guy just got lucky,” said Ron Burton, who, as of Tuesday, was still the sales manager. [San Jose Mercury News, 10-31-01]
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Below the Fold for Thursday
Britain’s first lady Cherie Blair (who was recently spotted in public with an acupuncture needle in her ear) cut the ribbon on the new holistic-health training center run by a woman who advocates wearing huge inflatable Flowtron boots to combat cellulite.
The Papua New Guinea gov’t ordered 26 police officers to get married in public, once and for all, to clear up just who their spouses are, since each had taken several spouses, which was screwing up the police dept.’s records-keeping.
A grocery store surveillance tape was making the rounds in London after 2 teenagers were ordered to 12-months’ detention for robbing that store; they had neglected to cut eye holes in their masks and are seen fumbling around, knocking over displays (and their total robbery booty was only 3 packs of cigarettes).
Aaron Benditt, 28, was sentenced to 16 months in jail for 2 incidents in pursuit of his continuing spanking fetish, wherein he befriends teen boys and at some point just whips them across his knee and begins paddling furiously (Scarborough, Ont.).
[Sources: London Daily Telegraph, 11-1-01; Sydney Morning Herald-AAP, 10-31-01; The Guardian, 10-31-01; Toronto Sun, 10-31-01]
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Researchers find the section of the brain responsible for making you turn away from the Anna Kournikova match to catch a little of Davenport-Capriati. U.S. to starving Afghans: Don’t eat the bombs, just the food. Meat industry cleavers itself in the foot. An official Catholic hermit in Philadelphia. Plus: foreplay/gunplay; Supreme Court protects computer-generated children; and a new champion balloon man. And more on the woman with the Burmese python, the Amish sex-offender, and the tomboyish Michael Jackson.
Scientists Find the Brain's Censor
University of Montreal researchers, writing in the Journal of Neuroscience, have found through electric activity-scanning that the part of the brain that is called on to squelch sexual thoughts is the prefrontal cortex (and the part that indulges such thoughts is the limbic system). The researchers say the prefrontal cortex is present only in primates, that only that of humans is highly developed, and that the prefrontal cortex may be able to switch off emotions other than sexual desire. [London Daily Telegraph, 10-31-01]
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Food: Good, Cluster Bombs: Bad
Inspired by its oh-so-effective consumer-information messages (e.g., be sure and floss three times a day, for at least two minutes each time), the federal gov’t is now broadcasting radio messages in Afghanistan that the yellow square packages we drop from airplanes contain food, but that the yellow cylindrical packages we drop from airplanes are cluster bombs designed to inflict maximum human casualties. [Yahoo-Reuters, 10-29-01]
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Imminent-Ridiculousness Alert
Executives at an American Meat Institute meeting in Chicago yesterday said that since PETA has them on the run, they’ll have to adopt more “compassionate” slaughterhouse procedures. But the meat industry and slaughterhouses are accepted by Americans only if no one thinks about them at all. Yr Ed can’t wait for the string of AMI press releases congratulating themselves on, e.g., how they’ve cut cows’ anticipation-of-death time by 20 percent. [Nando Times-Scripps Howard, 10-30-01]
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An Urban Catholic Hermit
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia approved a rare petition from a guy to be an official hermit under the church’s canons. Richard Withers, 46, has vowed to do all the things a priest does except that he spends almost all of his time away from people, contemplating (based on “an almost unremitting desire to be alone with God”). Brother Withers has a paying job, in silence, one day a week and exchanges e-mail with other hermits. [New York Times, 10-30-01]
Below the Fold for Wednesday
Most people think of things like vibrators when one mentions “sex toy,” but Kenneth Wells, 23, was sentenced to 12-25 yrs after his girlfriend was shot to death during sex (with guns being, he said, a routine part of their sex lives) (Fayette County, Pa.).
SCOTUS heard arguments yesterday on the constitutionality of child-porn laws, including the part that criminalizes sex photos of nonexistent kids (i.e., computer-generated).
Ian Ashpole [Editor's Note to Self: Enter name on inside cover of my rhyming dictionary], 46, set a world record by ascending to 11,000 feet above North London, powered only by the 600 party balloons strapped to his harness.
[Sources: The Pittsburgh Channel (WTAE-TV), 10-30-01; New York Times, 10-31-01; BBC News, 10-28-01]
Editor's Notes (Wednesday, October 31, 2001)
* Following up on Kerry-Ann Koop from yesterday: She apparently grabbed her 16-ft Burmese python and took it to a safe house. Koop also said she’s come down with headaches and a nerve rash over the whole ordeal. [Edmonton Sun-CP, 10-30-01]
* Norman Byler, the 69-yr-old Amish man who raped 2 girls and then accepted a plea bargain in Cambridge, Ohio, sentencing him only to shunning [Weird Planet Daily, 9-21-01], had the bargain yanked away in a rare move by the judge. Byler will get 5 yrs because the judge concluded he was unrehabilitatable. [Nando Times-AP, 10-31-01]
* Speaking of shunning, normally Yr Ed ignores “news” (as unreliable) in London’s The Sun, but yesterday’s report seemed so likely as to be irrefutable. Michael Jackson is reported to have said his primary inspiration for writing songs is tree-climbing: “I like to go into the forest. I like to climb trees, go all the way to the top and look down on the branches. Whenever I do that, it inspires me to write songs.” [Link is to the Kerry-Ann Koop story.]
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Tuesday, October 30, 2001
After all these years, we finally get (maybe) a real Spanish Fly. Gov’t makes mom choose between her kids and her 16-ft python. Trouble ahead: fooling around with a bow and arrow. The F State is a little anthrax-intense these days. Plus: Terry Nichols’s quest for better stools; he never yelled “Fore!”; in-vitro’ing couples need some restraint; and Muslims with shaved genitals.
The Most Important Advance in Science—Ever
Palatin Technologies was supposed to announce at a conference in Boston over the weekend that it can begin human trials next year on PT-141, a genuine aphrodisiac that, unlike Viagra, acts directly on the brain, arousing men and, according to a PT spokesman, making women “actively solicit sexual contact from males.” It’s applied by nasal spray, and apparently rats of both your 2 genders can’t get enough of it. [The Times (London), 10-27-01]
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Kerry-Ann Koop's Sophie's Choice
Yr Ed hasn’t checked the papers this morning, but apparently yesterday was showdown day wherein Children’s Ministry officials in Kelowna, British Columbia, were to go to court to force Ms. Koop to give up her 16-ft-long Burmese python, under penalty of having otherwise give up at least her 3 youngest kids (ages 3, 18 mos., 9 mos.) because officials know that someday soon, they’re just gonna be “food.” Koop: “Isn’t that communism? There’s no trial, there’s no evidence, there’s no professionals.” [Victoria Times Colonist-CP, 10-29-01]
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Oops!
Ms. Aarti Rishi, 20 and a first-degree black belt in karate, was messing around with a Jersey City, N.J., martial arts school bud while the owner was away, and the two of them came up with this cool stunt whereby the bud would shoot an arrow at her, and she would catch it in midair, and she did manage to get a hand on it, but that just deflected it slightly, and, well, let’s just say she had a good look at it coming at her but that she’ll never again get a “good” look at anything. [Jersey Journal, 10-29-01]
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Wrong Place, Wrong Time
State trooper pulls over Arab visitor for speeding on Fla.’s Turnpike near Orlando, writes ticket. A few minutes later, the trooper believes he might have contracted anthrax from the stop. All-out search for the driver. Airlift trooper to hospital. He is finally diagnosed with a-n- . . ., no, not anthrax: a-n-x-i-e-t-y attack. Arab visitor finally located. Turns out his visa had expired 8 days before, and now INS has him, and you know those guys are playing for keeps these days. [Miami Herald, 10-28-01]
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Below the Fold for Tuesday
Life-imprisoned Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols (whom most people would like to see dead, anyway) announced he was going on a hunger strike for a higher-fiber diet.
Brian Rae, 58, was charged in Aberdeen, Scotland, with teeing up a slew of golf balls and 1-wooding them into a neighboring heliport because that was all he could think of to do to combat the irritating air-traffic noise.
Researchers issued warnings to randy couples after the journal Human Reproduction published findings showing a woman undergoing in-vitro fertilization could also get pregnant the old-fashioned way (for a total of two, at the same time).
A Wall Street Journal piece this morning questioned U.S. investigators’ drawing significance to two post-Sept. 11 Arab detainees on the ground that their bodies were, er, shaved; true, some Muslims limit such behavior to when they prepare to meet their Maker, but apparently others do it for general hygiene.
[Sources: New York Times, 10-30-01; The Scotsman, 10-29-01; New York Post, 10-29-01; Wall Street Journal, 10-30-01]
Monday, October 29, 2001
Retired Scottish serviceman-hermit thinks he’s a leopard. Parents give jobs to their daughter’s murderers. A gunman acts out because he can’t shake his constipation. Bank robber does several things to facilitate his capture. A brain defect caused a Florida man to kill his father. Little guy takes loan company to the cleaners. Plus: teen boys’ test of courage; the bank robber who wouldn’t shell out for a getaway ride; airline travelers who still don’t get it; and shocking research on caffeine. And Yr Ed warns of a minor inaccuracy ahead.
Scotland's Leopard-Coated Hermit
London’s Daily Record checks in this morning with a story and vivid photos on Mr. Tom Leppard [perhaps not his birth name] who lives all alone on Scotland’s Island of Skye, way up close to nowhere about 125 miles from Glasgow, after having spent about $9,300 to tattoo leopard spots all over his body and be outfitted with fangs by his dentist. He’s in his late 60's and now says that on retiring from the military after 28 yrs, “I couldn’t mix with ordinary people.” [Daily Record, 10-29-01]
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This Link
is to the Ananova.com version, which includes 2 photographs.
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People Different from (and Probably Better than) Us
In a heartwarming dispatch from Cape Town yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the parents of Amy Biehl (who was murdered by a mob of South African black kids in a racially-motivated attack in 1993) have established a foundation in Cape Town to help rescue kids in poverty and have so come to grips with things that they have now hired their daughter’s 2 principal killers to work for the foundation. Yr Ed poses this in contrast to things in another part of the world, where a 15th century insult still causes tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people to dedicate their entire lives to revenge. [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-28-01]
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Constipation-Inspired Standoff in Bloomington
Monroe County (Ind.) sheriff’s deputies finally subdued Steven Brummett, 47, after a 10-minute shootout Wednesday, including one slug to Brummett’s gut; he said he was agitated because he had been constipated for quite a while. [Bloomington Herald-Times, 10-26-01]
Something Else Ridiculous from Indiana
Police in Evansville arrested Timothy Stewart, 28, on Thursday and charged him with robbing an Old National Bank branch [ineptly, as it turned out, though that wasn’t part of the arrest papers]. He had problems with the rifle (pointed with the wrong end), problems with the red-dye pack (startled him, causing him to crash the getaway car not 20 yards from the bank), problems even with the day he chose for the robbery (training day for the SWAT team). [Evansville Courier & Press, 10-26-01]
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A Floridian Who Really Does Have Brain Damage
David Brown, 43, resides in a mental hospital in Broward County, but he doesn’t belong there, psychiatrists say. He got there because that’s where they send all people who murder their fathers but then get acquitted of the crime because of insanity. But psychiatrists say he is not mentally ill, that he has actual brain damage (stroke-caused lesions in the temporal lobe), and that if he had the proper surgery, he might actually totally recover. However, that’s a 6-figure procedure, and Gov. Jeb is currently trying to rebalance the budget to account for a $1.3B shortfall. Apparently, Brown’s fine except when he has seizures, and he tried to lose himself in computers (to stay out of the nuthouse’s mainstream), but computer screens give off light flashes that increase the chance of seizures. Stay tuned. [Miami Herald, 10-29-01]
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Little Guy Beats Big Guy in Oklahoma
Terry Evans of Tulsa had borrowed $500 from Cashland Inc. in 1997, and he paid some on it, but Cashland had to go to small-claims court to get an order to pay (though they asked for too much, so the balance was reduced). Cashland, ticked off by now, filed a garnishee order with Evans’s employer, but overcollected. Then a judge ordered Cashland to give back $110 of it. Cashland apparently got really ticked and decided to stonewall the order. Sixteen months later, they relented. Too late. Evans had sued by then, and Thursday was awarded, er, $310G for Cashland’s bad faith. [Daily Oklahoman, 10-26-01]
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Below the Fold for Monday
Three boys (ages 16 and 17) were charged with assault for shooting each other in the leg as a test of courage (Mount Vision, N.Y.).
Jay Hanson will be sentenced for bank robbery today in Lowell, Mass.; he was apprehended in February begging for change to pay for a getaway ride from the bank, apparently not wanting to spend any of the $2G he had just commandeered.
An official at Denver Int’l Airport said they still collect “90 lbs.” of knives and knife-type devices a day at security checkpoints.
Cutting-Edge: A Nat’l Academy of Sciences report last week found that caffeine can keep soldiers mentally and physically alert.
[Sources: Newsday-AP, 10-27-01; Associated Press, 10-28-01; Rocky Mountain News, 10-26-01; CNN-AP, 10-26-01]
Editor's Notes (Monday, October 29, 2001)
* Oy. On Friday (10-26-01), Yr Ed released to Universal Press Syndicate the NOTW column of 11-4-01, including a mention that Massachusetts state law is permitting convicted wife-murderer Dr. Dirk Greineder to continue to administer his victim’s estate (although he personally is disinherited because of the conviction). Well, the same day, a Massachusetts judge suspended Greineder’s powers under that law temporarily, pending review. It’s not a serious-enough conflict in facts that Yr Ed wishes to invoke Universal’s distribution machinery to clarify it. However, those of you who read Yr Ed’s work closely will please remember when you run across my item about Dr. Greineder that, as of right now, it’s not exactly correct.
©
2001, Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
