The Underwear Measurer, the Right to Heroin

and the Morning Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Friday, December 12, 2008 [and no, not today, either, for the Afternoon Edition; it's been a rough week]

It's good to be a British prisoner: the human right to heroin/methadone
In Britain, if you're a murderer or a bank robber or whatever, and you're also addicted to heroin, your prison has to keep supplying you (for a while, anyway, at least according to one court). Forcing ya to go cold turkey is a "human rights violation." Daily Telegraph
Comments 'prisoner_heroin'

Fine points of the law: Ex-wife regarded as shacking-up with . . her prison cellmate
Andrew Craissati's divorce order required him to pay alimony, unless the ex- remarried or "cohabited" with another for more than three months. Then, the ex- got sent to prison on a DUI manslaughter conviction, and Andrew stopped paying, claiming that the ex- is now technically "cohabiting," with her cellmate, whoever that is. The trial court kicked Andrew out, but now a crack F State appeals court has ruled in his favor. Said the ex-'s attorney, understatedly, "It goes to show the most winnable case is losable and the most losable case is winnable." Palm Beach Post
Comments 'cohabiting_cellmates'

Updates
(1) Latest bright idea from Rev. Fred Phelps and the lesser Phelpses: They want to be part of the Nativity scene at the capitol in Olympia, Wash., with this ditty: *You'd better watch out, Get ready to cry, You'd better go hide, I'm tellin' you why, 'Cuz Santa Claus will take you . . to hell . . ..* (And the problems with the economy? Santa caused 'em.) (2) When this guy first appeared in News of the Weird [NOTW M047, 3-2-2008], it was for sympathy: an already-convicted sex offender who was falsely accused of kidnaping. But today he still has that 1994 sex conviction hanging over him, which means that there are certain places he cannot live, like near schools. This week, a committee of the city council of Sheboygan, Wis., approved his application to live in town, so he's OK . . Mr. Pheuk Kue can have another chance. The Olympian /// Sheboygan Press
Comments 'updates_081212'

Your Daily Loser
Keisha Kubala, 18, arrived in Gore District Court in New Zealand on a DUI charge, wearing a t-shirt reading "Miss Wasted." (The judge kindly allowed her to go home and change shirts before listening to her case.) The Southland Times (Invercargill, N.Z.)
Comments 'keisha_kubala'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Ben Hawkins came to our attention in July when he was arrested, but now that he pleaded guilty this week, there is more information on his m.o. He convinced a parent or two that he was a professional "underwear measurer" and that they should turn their kids (as young as 9) over to him in private while he made his "measurements" and notations. WLWT-TV (Cincinnati)
Comments 'ben_hawkins2'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Roger Arnold, 33, who was either (a) trying to flash the teenage girl behind the counter at a gas station or (b) having trouble with a pesky zipper in trousers that were too tight and trying as hard as he could to conceal any inappropriate view with a bag of pretzels. TCPalm.com (Stuart, Fla.)
Comments 'roger_arnold'

More Things to Worry About on Friday

You have to see this photo, of the 11-year-old Chinese boy accidentally shot in the eye with an arrow (but it missed his brain). The Sun (London)

The Crawford County (Iowa) Board of Supervisors has just approved another three-yr contract for its county engineer, whose name is Paul Assman. [Ed.: This news is about a week old, but I thought you'd like to know that, even though the law in every state makes changing your name pretty easy, there are still a few people, like this guy and the aforementioned Mr. Kue, who seem to be just born to suffer.] Bulletin Review (Denison, Iowa) [link from Fark.com]

And yet another top-of-the-line guy is accused of lucrative but tacky fraud (socialite money manager Bernard Madoff, of New York and Palm Beach, running what he allegedly admitted was a Ponzi scheme on some of the richest poo-poos in the country). Wall Street Journal

If you're ejected from a restaurant for being stinkin' drunk, and accidentally kill yourself joyously sliding down a bannister on your way out the door, it can mean only one thing: a lawsuit by your family against the restaurant. WHIO-TV (Dayton)

Today's Newsrangers: Sandy Pearlman, Paul Music, Ron Crumpton, Joe Schlegel
Comments on More Things to Worry About on Friday?
Comments 'worry_081212'

Posted By: Chuck - Fri Dec 12, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category:

Soviet Space Stamps

These were sent to me by my Belgian pal Peter Dans-
saert.

Click on the image twice, to get them really big!

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 11, 2008 - Comments (6)
Category: Art, Communications, Postal Services, Stamps, Futurism, Patriotism, Technology, Space Travel, 1960s, Russia, Yesterday’s Tomorrows

Feruza Jumaniyozova

Fire-breathing, snakes, bongos and beautiful women. It just doesn't get any better than in this video of Uzbekistan singer Feruza Jumaniyozova.

NOTE: if you click on her link, her music begins playing loudly automatically, perhaps not in line with a work environment.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 11, 2008 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Sex Symbols, Foreign Customs, Dance, Asia, Europe

Maine Solar System Model

The residents of Aroostook County, Maine constructed a scale model of the solar system which you can see as you drive along Route 1 from Presque Isle to Houlton. The sun, located at Presque Isle, reaches up to the third floor of the Northern Maine Museum of Science. The earth, a mile away at Percy's Auto Sales, is a styrofoam ball 5.5 inches in diameter. Drive another 4.3 miles to see Jupiter. And Pluto, forty miles away at the end, is a one-inch-diameter wooden ball.

Everyone seems to use a different mnemonic to remember the planets in the Solar System. The one I learned is "My Very Elegant Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Porcupines."

To remember the points of the compass I always have to repeat the phrase "Naughty Elephants Squirt Water".

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 11, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Travel, Landmarks, Sightseeing, Space Travel

Wilhelm Nauer, Scientific Dishwasher

From the Aug 1929 issue of Popular Science:


I wonder if it made his job any more bearable to be called a Scientific Dishwasher rather than a Scrub Boy?

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 11, 2008 - Comments (5)
Category: Jobs and Occupations

Self-Embedding Disorder

Teenagers have discovered a new method of screwing themselves up. Cutting and poisoning themselves is no longer enough. The new fad is to deliberately embed objects in their flesh. Doctors report that they've removed a variety of embedded objects from the arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks of teenage girls. These objects include: needles, staples, wood, stone, glass, pencil lead, crayon, and an unfolded metal paper clip more than 6 inches long.


Goes without saying that the teenagers doing this have a lot of mental health issues. Link: Chicago Tribune

(I'm pretty sure someone forwarded us this link, but I can't remember who it was. Thank you, whoever you are!)

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Medicine, Psychology

Traveling Gaia Project

New Age Space Marbles will save the world.


TRAVELING GAIA ENGLISH Ver. from TETSU-LOW on Vimeo.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Crafts, New Age, Performance Art

Follies of the Mad Men #50

What image could possibly be great enough for our milestone fiftieth installment? Only this one!

At one time, during either the seventies or the eighties, I believe, this campaign was ubiquitous. I would run across OJ and his boots in every issue of Playboy I intended to cut up for collages, whereupon I would promptly rip out the page intact and mail it to a friend. That's why I had to find a scan on eBay, for this post, and can't tell you the exact provenance of the advertisement.

Of course, today we laugh because of OJ's appearance. "So that's how he was able to escape so fast after the murders! He deployed his third leg!"

But consider the campaign even without OJ.

First you get the off-color allusion to "third leg = penis." Then you get the Addams-Family-style associations of "Our boots are worn by mutants and freaks."

Brilliant!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (7)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Celebrities, Death, Fashion, Shoes, Law, Lawsuits, Sports, Scary Criminals, Stupid Criminals, 1970s, 1980s

Climax Shaft Clamping Collars

Shaft clamping collars have many uses:


If you need some shaft clamping collars, consider buying them from Climax Metal Products. Their customers say, "You always have it in stock even on the odd sizes."

I'm not going to make a joke about male chastity belts, or anything like that. via

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Products, Weird Names

Ali G, Bone Man, Chuck E. Cheese

and the Morning Edition of Chuck's News of the Weird Daily for Wednesday, December 10, 2008 [and once again, too busy today for an afternoon edition; sorry]

The other federal indictment for dumb, inexplicable corruption
Lucky Marc Dreier! He's a gold-credentialed lawyer at the top of his profession—rich, respected, head of a 250-lawyer, king-of-the-hill New York firm. Lucky. Gov. Blagojevich's indictment yesterday effectively hides the news that Dreier apparently traded everything in to run some high-level, blatantly fraudulent investments past some hedge funds and a Toronto pension fund. Not only did it involve wholly-invented documents, but it involved Dreier personally pretending to be someone else in meetings. Tacky. Awkward. New York Times
Comments 'marc_dreier'

Today's news story guaranteed to inflame Evangelicals
Think "Ali G Does the Nativity." Kids at Oakwood School in Bexley, England, had the script, but officials say it was just a drama exercise. "Mary lives with [Joe] in a crib down Nazaref." "She's like, 'Ooo ya looking at [to Gabriel]? You got one up the duff, you have.'" "She gives it to him large, 'Stop dissin' me yeah? I ain't no Kappa slapper. I never bin wiv no one!" And so on. Daily Telegraph
Comments 'alig_nativity'

Major drug bust in Greenwood, S.C.
In a town of 22,000, this might be a pretty big haul of suppliers and demanders, 50-some people. Among the arrestees: Chub Rock, Black Pam, Za-Za, Lil Bit, Goat, Ewok, Snow, Bone Man, Truck Stop, and Bin Laden. And there are the mugshots [Ed.: And for my money, without looking at the "evidence" or anything, I'd be willing to blame the whole thing on Rickey Harvley, John Herig, Paul Pearson, and especially Derrick Behlke.] The Index-Journal (Greenwood)
Comments 'greenwood_drugbust'

So, what if there's a Mumbai-style attack at NYC's Times Square New Year's celebration?
NYPD's first thoughts: Gee, we only have 400 officers qualified to use machine guns, and training more right now would create duty-scheduling problems, so, one group of personnel without duty-scheduling problems would be . . rookie trainees, who are already in classes. Give them three whole days of exposure to an automatic weapon and turn them loose to fight off a Times Square attack. Is there a problem? New York Post
Comments 'nypd_mumbai'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Harold Jones, 68, a veteran maintenance worker at Johnston Community College in Smithfield, N.C., was allowed to retire gracefully after a woman's webcam caught him walking around her unoccupied office, fondling various items including himself (exposed). WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham)
Comments 'harold_jones'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Mark Harris, 30, might look too wise to ever fall for an Internet underage-sex sting. Or maybe not. WIS-TV (Columbia, S.C.)
Comments 'mark_harris'

More Things to Worry About on Wednesday

Oops! A respected German science journal, trying to illustrate the beauty of a touching poem in Chinese calligraphy, failed to appreciate the "deeper meaning" that certain characters have (depending on intonation), with the result of some free publicity for a Macau strip club. The Independent (London)

Taking the concept of driving with an "open container" to a new level (like, an open keg in the passenger seat). Dayton Daily News

The best reasoning Vincent Kenny III could produce, when arrested for longtime sexual abuse of a runaway teenager he had befriended (according to a detective): "The defendant said [the boy] had to learn [masturbation] at home because the schools don't teach it." The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)

A roundup of explanations why Chuck E. Cheese joints seem to have more barroom brawls than do redneck watering holes: parents' beer-drinking, kids' monopolizing the coolest video games, parents' readiness to defend their boisterous urchins ("mama bear" syndrome). Wall Street Journal

Faculty at Spirit Creek Middle School in Augusta, Ga., were so busy having sex with each other that they didn't even have time to develop affairs with kids. WRDW-TV (Augusta)

Today's Newsrangers: Karl Olson, Gary Delaney, Sandy Pearlman, Emory Kimbrough, Bob Adams
Comments on More Things to Worry About on Wednesday?
Comments 'worry_081210'

Posted By: Chuck - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category: