From: Travis
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From: Chuck Shepherd
Date: Sun, Nov 30, 2008
Subject: News of the Weird, November 30, 2008
WEIRDNUZ.M086 (News of the Weird, November 30, 2008)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* The Brazilian designer Lucia Lorio introduced women's lingerie
in October containing a global positioning device to enable the
wearer to be tracked by satellite. The creator said the password-
protected lace bodice would make it easier for women kidnaped by
thugs or terrorists to be located and rescued. Critics called it a
virtual chastity belt, primarily of service to insecure males curious
to know where their women are. (However, the wearer can
manually turn the device off.) Another anti-terror lingerie product
may also surface some day, based on a 2007 U.S. patent, issued to
a Plainfield, Ill., company for a bra whose cups could also function
as air-filtration systems in case of chemical attacks. [The
Independent (London), 11-9-08] [U.S. Patent 7255627 (8-14-07)]
Government in Action!
* Facing a state budget crisis in July, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger fired about 10,000 temporary and part-time
workers and ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid
only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature
passed a crisis-solving budget. However, a week later the State
Controller John Chiang pointed out that state payroll records could
not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written
in the antiquated COBOL computer language, and virtually the
only state employees who knew the code were some of the part-
timers Schwarzenegger had just fired. [Sacramento Bee, 8-5-08]
* London's Daily Mail profiled two 10-children British families in
October to illustrate the inconsistencies of government benefit
awards. Sean and Anne Tate and their children live on Sean's
truck-driver salary of the equivalent of about $23,000 a year, plus
the government's standard per-child benefit. Harry Crompton has
been out of work for 15 years, and his wife Tracey has never held a
paid job, yet they receive the equivalent of $48,000 in various
government benefits, which The Daily Mail said would require a
tax-paying family to earn the equivalent of $68,000 a year to draw.
The Daily Mail reporter also noted that the Tate home is
immaculate and the Cromptons' home, messy. [Daily Mail, 10-17-
08]
* Two of Oregon's unique public health markers clashed
dramatically for resident Barbara Wagner this summer when she
was informed that the universal medical care available to everyone
in the state (but with certain service restrictions) would not pay for
her expensive lung cancer drug (because her five-year survival
likelihood was poor) but told, at the same time, that the state would
pay for any necessary drugs under its Death With Dignity Law (i.e.,
suicide). [ABC News, 8-6-08]
Women Under Arrest
* (1) The September mug shot of Michelle Allen of Middletown,
Ohio, was possibly the Internet's most-circulated news photo of
2008, since she was inexplicably dressed in a full-body cow suit
(with rubber teats) as she was allegedly disorderly in chasing
children and interfering with traffic. (Alcohol may have been
involved.) (2) Shopper Amber Dibartolomeo, 23, was arrested in a
Wal-Mart in North Bay, Ontario, in July and charged with selling
crack cocaine inside the store. Police said they found $2,217 in
cash on her, along with a can of pepper spray, and 27 grams of
cocaine (one in her bra and 26 in her vagina). [WLWT-TV
(Cincinnati), 9-30-08] [North Bay Nugget, 9-18-08]
Things You Thought Didn't Happen These Days
* (1) A restaurant owner in Rutino, Italy (near Salerno), told police
in November that as he was negotiating over the building's lease
with his landlords, one hit him in the head with a chair and two
others kicked him repeatedly in the stomach. The landlords were
not from La Cosa Nostra but were a priest and two nuns from the
local Catholic order that owns the building. (2) In the village of
Pumaorcco, Peru, in September, a bus containing 14 British
sightseers on holiday was held hostage for five hours by 50 natives
wielding pickaxes and metal bars, who mistook them for personnel
from a mining company that they believed were exploiting their
land. The Peruvian guide finally negotiated their freedom but had
to call for another bus, since the villagers completely destroyed the
original. [Daily Telegraph (London), 11-3-08] [Daily Mail
(London), 9-13-08]
Just Couldn't Stop Himself
* Bridgeport, Conn., police arrested Michael Smith, 47, in October
for breaking into Holy Ghost Deliverance Church. Smith
explained that he was passing the church, spotted a drum set
through a window, and could not restrain himself from trying it
out. According to a Boston Globe report, officers found Smith "in
a spirited solo after the church's alarm system went off." [Boston
Globe, 10-22-08]
Least Competent People
* Merle Sorenson, 48, had to be rescued from the Columbia River
near Quincy, Wash., in October, where he nearly drowned after
driving his Humvee off of a boat launch. He told the rescuers that
he was trying to clean his tires and wanted to see how far he could
drive the vehicle into the water but still be able to back out.
[Seattle Times-AP, 10-31-08]
* In August, an employment tribunal in Glasgow, Scotland,
rejected the age-discrimination charge by 16-year-old Darren
Mirren, whose complaint was that the Spotless Commercial
Cleaning Company in Glasgow, about a 20-minute ride from
Mirren's home, had turned him down for a job because he didn't
show up for a scheduled interview. Mirren implied that a person of
his age could not be expected to find an address unless they gave
him directions. [The Scotsman, 8-26-08]
* Oops! (1) In October in Vancouver, Wash., a 74-year-old man
actually succeeded in his mission to unclog, with his hands, the
garbage chute from his 10th floor apartment, but then he pushed
too far. When rescue workers arrived, only the man's feet and
lower legs were visible, with his wife holding on for dear life. (2)
In August, a 78-year-old woman apparently misread the signs at
Arlanda airport in Stockholm, Sweden, and placed herself on a
baggage belt, which led to a chute, but she was only slightly
injured and did not miss her flight. [Seattle Times-The Columbian
(Vancouver), 10-20-08] [Agence France-Presse, 8-27-08]
Recurring Themes
* People whose special land-use and zoning requests are turned
down by the government or neighborhood associations sometimes
retaliate defiantly, as News of the Weird has reported. In July in
Bucks County, Pa., two men who were denied the right to tear
down a house decided to paint it purple and pink, just to annoy the
neighbors. In October in Olympia, Wash., a developer who was
denied a permit for a grocery store decided instead to expand his
adult video store next door into an "emporium." In September in
Potsdam, N.Y., a man wanting to build a convenience store was
turned down and so installed a row of nine used toilets in his front
yard, as "artwork." [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 7-7-08] [Seattle
Times-AP, 10-29-08] [WWNY-TV (Watertown), 9-10-08]
Undignified Deaths
* Failed Prayers: (1) The 16 players for a soccer team called
Midland Portland Cement, who were in Zimbabwe for a match in
October, were told that a swim in the Zambezi river is a traditional
ritual that would cleanse the team of evil spirits. However, only 15
players made it back, as there are crocodiles. (2) Hundreds of
visitors a day visit the Muslim shrine of Khan Jahan Ali in
Bangladesh, where they bathe in a pond to wash away evil spirits,
and feed chickens to crocodiles, to bring good fortune. "Normally,
the crocodiles are very friendly," said a local police officer, but in
August, Mr. Rubel Sheikh was eaten while washing away his evil
spirits. [Reuters, 10-7-08] [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-21-08]
A News of the Weird Classic (October 2002)
* Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said they
had developed new technology that would detect breast-
enhancement cheating at beauty contests. The researchers are
veterinarians, and the relevant contests are of show cows at dairy
exhibits, where the "cheating" involves making the cow's udders
fuller, smoother, and more symmetrical (in that 40 percent of the
contestant's grade is based on udder integrity). Unlike their human
beauty contest counterparts, though, cow udders are valued only
for milk-producing potential. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9-28-
02]
CLARIFICATION: Two weeks ago, News of the Weird reported
that all "appeals" by defendants without lawyers in one Louisiana
state circuit had been automatically dismissed, for 13 years,
without a judge's ever reading them. Uniquely, Louisiana has two
ways for a defendant to seek to overturn a conviction: a
"supervisory writ" and an "appeal." The treatment referred to in
the News of the Weird story involved all 2,400 "supervisory writs."
No accusation was made about how the Louisiana circuit's judges
handled "appeals" that were not "supervisory writs."
Thanks This Week to Candy Clouston, Gary Goldberg,
Peggy Dees, Richard Gould, Josh Levin, Heather Bible, and Tim
Farley, and to many, many people who recommended the cow-suit
lady, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net <http://www.weirduniverse.net/> (or
www.NewsoftheWeird.com <http://www.newsoftheweird.com/>) or
mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] / P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33629.
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