News of the Weird / Pro Edition (12-7-2009 Extra)
News of the Weird/Pro Edition (Extra)
December 7, 2009
Editor's Note
Correction: Yesterday's post of the 12-7-2009 Pro Edition mistakenly reported that a "U.S. Congressman" was the source of demanding a U.S. consular official's resignation in the matter of the illegal Paraguayan immigrant. He is, rather, a Paraguayan congressman (which makes his inclusion in the story not very interesting).
Still More Things to Worry About
Christmas in Los Angeles: The clothing store Madison on Robertson Blvd. has a nativity scene in the window, but it's L.A., so Mary is a scantily-dressed babe, Jesus is resting in a spot barely an inch from where he originally emerged, and the Three Wise Men are hunks. KTLA-TV
What to do about a government child-abuse reporting system that's grown too large? The Florida Dept. of Children and Families has "quietly," according to a Miami Herald investigation, ignored "thousands" of the tips to its child-abuse hotline. Besides, they say, more than half of the calls we ignored did not deserve investigation. (They're correct. Only about 25% of the "thousands" rejected, should not have been, according to a follow-up study. But that group includes at least one death: A 1-year-old was beaten to death after three faxes to the hotline were ignored. Bonus: The three faxes were sent by the kid's parents' domestic-court judge.) Miami Herald
Organizers of San Francisco's summertime Folsom Street Fair (a carnival gathering of gay-pride celebrants, including flamers) offered a solution to complaints about open sex acts in the street—just set up a "sex tent" for the flamers to use. One city legislator said he'd consider the suggestion. San Francisco Chronicle
It says here that Ramchandra Das, 53, has just finished the arduous task of breaking through part of a mountain in India's Bihar state to free up enough room to drive vehicles through. He's been working on the project for 14 years, using only hand tools, and the purpose was just to be able to park in front of his home instead of parking on the other side of the ridge and walking home. Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Two Hungarian ne'er-do-well brothers, who are ugly and basically live in a cave, were finally located by a charity service in Budapest with the news that they had inherited a large sum of money. Unlike for us Americans who get e-mails every day with the same message, this one was genuine. A relative had died in Germany, and the brothers are first in line for more than $1bn, under strict German inheritance law. Daily Telegraph (London)
It's Good to Be a British Thief: A 42-year-old Welsh woman was ordered to pay back £5, and otherwise endure a suspended sentence, as punishment for having stolen £41,000 from a great uncle. South Wales Argus
Retired Australian schoolteacher David Wharton, 68, was in court on various charged related to a life of sex with boys, including paying two of them to inject erection drugs directly into the frozen zone. Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Cow Week at News of the Weird: (1) An Australian cow was rescued after being discovered . . paddling around Darwin harbor. (2) An agency in South Africa is proposing to properly "Africanize" the country's sites for the 2010 World Cup matches. Bless the stadiums, said the agency, by ritually sacrificing a cow in each. (3) So, there's a traffic jam on Interstate 91 near Springfield, Mass., made worse when door comes open on a trailer, allowing two cows to mosey out and into the mass of cars. It just happened that, among the inconvenienced motorists was an unnamed driver wearing a cowboy hat, who grabbed some rope, lassoed the cows, and got them back in the trailer. What luck! Northern Territory News /// BBC News /// Associated Press via Boston Herald
December 7, 2009
Editor's Note
Correction: Yesterday's post of the 12-7-2009 Pro Edition mistakenly reported that a "U.S. Congressman" was the source of demanding a U.S. consular official's resignation in the matter of the illegal Paraguayan immigrant. He is, rather, a Paraguayan congressman (which makes his inclusion in the story not very interesting).
Still More Things to Worry About
Christmas in Los Angeles: The clothing store Madison on Robertson Blvd. has a nativity scene in the window, but it's L.A., so Mary is a scantily-dressed babe, Jesus is resting in a spot barely an inch from where he originally emerged, and the Three Wise Men are hunks. KTLA-TV
What to do about a government child-abuse reporting system that's grown too large? The Florida Dept. of Children and Families has "quietly," according to a Miami Herald investigation, ignored "thousands" of the tips to its child-abuse hotline. Besides, they say, more than half of the calls we ignored did not deserve investigation. (They're correct. Only about 25% of the "thousands" rejected, should not have been, according to a follow-up study. But that group includes at least one death: A 1-year-old was beaten to death after three faxes to the hotline were ignored. Bonus: The three faxes were sent by the kid's parents' domestic-court judge.) Miami Herald
Organizers of San Francisco's summertime Folsom Street Fair (a carnival gathering of gay-pride celebrants, including flamers) offered a solution to complaints about open sex acts in the street—just set up a "sex tent" for the flamers to use. One city legislator said he'd consider the suggestion. San Francisco Chronicle
It says here that Ramchandra Das, 53, has just finished the arduous task of breaking through part of a mountain in India's Bihar state to free up enough room to drive vehicles through. He's been working on the project for 14 years, using only hand tools, and the purpose was just to be able to park in front of his home instead of parking on the other side of the ridge and walking home. Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Two Hungarian ne'er-do-well brothers, who are ugly and basically live in a cave, were finally located by a charity service in Budapest with the news that they had inherited a large sum of money. Unlike for us Americans who get e-mails every day with the same message, this one was genuine. A relative had died in Germany, and the brothers are first in line for more than $1bn, under strict German inheritance law. Daily Telegraph (London)
It's Good to Be a British Thief: A 42-year-old Welsh woman was ordered to pay back £5, and otherwise endure a suspended sentence, as punishment for having stolen £41,000 from a great uncle. South Wales Argus
Retired Australian schoolteacher David Wharton, 68, was in court on various charged related to a life of sex with boys, including paying two of them to inject erection drugs directly into the frozen zone. Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Cow Week at News of the Weird: (1) An Australian cow was rescued after being discovered . . paddling around Darwin harbor. (2) An agency in South Africa is proposing to properly "Africanize" the country's sites for the 2010 World Cup matches. Bless the stadiums, said the agency, by ritually sacrificing a cow in each. (3) So, there's a traffic jam on Interstate 91 near Springfield, Mass., made worse when door comes open on a trailer, allowing two cows to mosey out and into the mass of cars. It just happened that, among the inconvenienced motorists was an unnamed driver wearing a cowboy hat, who grabbed some rope, lassoed the cows, and got them back in the trailer. What luck! Northern Territory News /// BBC News /// Associated Press via Boston Herald
Comments
Child Abuse Hot-Line Tell me that nobody in the government has Aesop's The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Gay Parade The editorial go so far to mention that public sex is (gasp) illegal! I thought that word was banned from use in CA.
Gay Parade The editorial go so far to mention that public sex is (gasp) illegal! I thought that word was banned from use in CA.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 12/09/09 at 12:22 AM
nativity- somebody's goin' to hell for that one!
florida=fail once again! who's suprised?
san fran- so they're going to play hide the tent pole.
tunnel- look what 1 man can accomplish when dedicated to the project!
inheritance- inhereting $1b so easy a caveman can do it!
brit criminal- i guess that'll teach her!
pedo- maybe he needs a few more needles stuck in it, large gauge ones.
cows gone wild!
florida=fail once again! who's suprised?
san fran- so they're going to play hide the tent pole.
tunnel- look what 1 man can accomplish when dedicated to the project!
inheritance- inhereting $1b so easy a caveman can do it!
brit criminal- i guess that'll teach her!
pedo- maybe he needs a few more needles stuck in it, large gauge ones.
cows gone wild!
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/09/09 at 02:43 AM
aww scot :red: thanks, i think.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 12/09/09 at 07:19 AM
Perhaps I'm not well versed in the subject, but what is a flamer?
Posted by Maggie82 on 12/10/09 at 10:20 AM
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