Weird News

[Rooster]

I feel sorry for the poor bastard bee farmer

[VisibilityMissing]

From the really bad ideas file: How to lose your job and spawn a lawsuit, fast food style . . .

May 31, 10:15 PM EDT

Officer Sues Over 'Mucousy' Sandwich

CHARLES CITY, Iowa (AP) -- A police officer who claims his chicken sandwich was slimed by two teenage employees at a McDonald's restaurant is suing the fast food company.

Officer Josh Douglas said he was working nights two years ago and went through the McDonald's drive-thru in Charles City. He ordered a chicken sandwich, which came with lettuce and tomato.

Not liking vegetables, Douglas said he went to remove the toppings and discovered what he described as a mucousy substance holding them together.

"Fortunately, I don't like lettuce. Because if I did I would have at least taken one bite before I realized what was the matter," he said.

Douglas and another officer went inside the restaurant, where they found two teenagers working. The employees said they were imitating a prank in a movie in which a state trooper orders a burger and the cook spits phlegm on it.

Both boys were fired and one of them later apologized to Douglas, records show.

Douglas and his attorney, Joel Yunek, say they have negotiated with McDonald's for more than a year but have been unable to reach a settlement. They filed a lawsuit on May 8 in Floyd County District Court.

Yunek said they aren't looking "for the world."

"But certainly ... he is deserving of an apology. Certainly, he is deserving of some kind of compensation," Yunek said.

Douglas said it's not about money but about accountability and to ensure the restaurant takes measures to ensure their employees are handling food properly.

Sam Soifer, the owner of the Charles City franchise, said in a written statement to KIMT-TV in Mason City that the restaurant took immediate action to fire the employees and that McDonald's takes food safety seriously.

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Information from: nat iadial/KIMT-TV, http://www.kimt.com

Natural selection misses?

May 31, 10:15 PM EDT

Driver Makes Two U-Turns on Interstate 5

MARYSVILLE, Wash. (AP) -- A "confused" driver made two U-turns on Interstate 5, nearly causing two head-on crashes, then exited from the freeway before she could be stopped, state troopers said.

"I'm amazed, I'm stunned we didn't have a fatal collision," Washington State Patrol Trooper Kirk H. Rudeen said.

The driver could not be located immediately following the harrowing episode Wednesday morning near this town about 30 miles north of Seattle, but a license plate number provided by a witness led investigators to a 71-year-old woman who admitted responsibility, Rudeen said.

"She said she got confused," he said.

Witnesses told troopers a tan Honda entered the northbound lanes of the state's busiest freeway at 88th Street Northeast, then abruptly turned around and began driving south - against traffic - in the far left lane.

One driver managed to swerve out of the way, but another lost control of his car, hit a cable barrier and wound up on the shoulder of the road uninjured, Rudeen said.

About two-tenths of a mile farther, the Honda made another U-turn and headed north, exiting at 88th Street Northeast, where witnesses lost sight of it.

The driver, the registered owner of the car, was not arrested but the patrol will recommend that she face charges and be required to retake a driver's license examination, Rudeen said.

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Information from: The Herald, http://www.heraldnet.com

[VisibilityMissing]

She keeps making all these hollow promises . . .

Jun 11, 10:08 AM EDT

Hilton Says She'll No Longer `Act Dumb'

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Paris Hilton says she will no longer "act dumb."

The reality TV star and relentless publicity-seeker spoke with Barbara Walters by phone Sunday, a day after releasing a statement saying she hoped the media would focus on "more important things" than her 45-day jail sentence, according to ABC News' Web site.

"I used to act dumb. ... That act is no longer cute," ABC quoted Hilton as saying.

After spending three days in jail in a reckless driving case, Hilton was briefly released to home confinement Thursday for an undisclosed medical condition. An outraged judge sent her back to jail Friday. She is now housed in the medical ward of a maximum-security detention center.

According to ABC News, the call came after Hilton's mother, Kathy, phoned Walters. During the conversation, the 26-year-old socialite called her mom on another line, found out her mother was talking to Walters, and then called Walters collect. All jail inmates are required to call collect.

Hilton has been saying that she is changed by her jailhouse experience, and she repeated that theme with Walters: "Now, I would like to make a difference. ... God has given me this new chance."

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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On the Net:

ABC:

http://abcnews.go.com/

[Zaaphod]

"Acting" dumb, yeah surrrrre.

[Tom Flapwell]

I'll keep my digits crossed. Unless she crossed hers.

[Arloest]

I still say she's Otep's sister.

[VisibilityMissing]

I think we've found the way to fix the Chicago Transit Authority budget shortfall . . .

Jun 13, 5:03 PM EDT

Cajun Town Bans Saggy Pants

DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) -- Sag your britches somewhere else, this Cajun-country town has decided. Mayor Carol Broussard said he would sign an ordinance the town council approved this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or certain parts of the body.

Broussard said he has nothing against saggy pants but thinks people who wear them should use discretion. "It's gotten way out of hand out here," he said.

Albert Roy, the councilman who introduced the ordinance, said he thought the fine was a little steep and should be more in the $25 range, but he still favored the measure.

"I don't know if it will do any good, but it won't hurt," Roy said. "It's obvious, and anybody with common sense can see your parts when you wear sagging pants."

Broussard's advice for people who like their pants to hang low: "Just wear it properly. Cover your vital parts. I mean, if you expose your private parts, you'll get a fine. If you walk up and your pants drop, you get a fine. They're better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress."

[Tom Flapwell]

Today's tired lesson: Criminals have a poor grasp on reality.

WASHINGTON - Did Internet thieves steal Herman Munster's MasterCard number? Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from "The Munsters" TV sitcom.

The thieves apparently didn't realize Munster was a fictional TV character and dutifully offered to sell Munster's personal details _ accurately listing his home address from the television series as 1313 Mocking Bird Lane _ and what appeared to be his MasterCard number. Munster's birth date was listed as Aug. 15, 1964, suspiciously close to the TV series' original air date in September 1964....

[VisibilityMissing]

FEMA installed those big red buttons backwards . . .

False emergency alert hits Chicago airwaves

Tribune staff report

June 26, 2007, 5:07 PM CDT

If you were listening to the radio or watching television this morning, you might have been confused by what appeared to be an emergency alert.

Numerous local stations were interrupted around 7:45 a.m. by what seemed to be an announcement from the Emergency Alert System. There was no indication it was a test message, and on-air hosts such as WGN-AM 720's Spike O'Dell were as surprised as listeners were.

"This is Spike at WGN," O'Dell said on the air after the station had gone silent for more than 2 minutes. "We are trying to figure out what's going on."

Officials said the problem originated at the federal level.

On Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency installed a new satellite warning system for Illinois as part of a program set for all 50 states, Illinois Emergency Management Agency director Andrew Velasquez III said in a news release.

He said FEMA conducted a test of the new system this morning, but rather than sending an internal test message the signal was mistakenly sent out to broadcast stations.

"We don't know why the federal government used a 'hot' or active code rather than a test code when they sent out this test message," Velasquez said.

He said four messages were reportedly sent out as part of the test.

There was no emergency, and the state agency was not told that the test would be conducted, the news release said.

In a written statement, FEMA said an internal test was "inadvertently rebroadcast over the Illinois State Emergency Alert System." The agency blamed an installation error for the problem, which interrupted local broadcasts in various states.

Despite the interruption, the test was ultimately successful in verifying the new technologies are compatible with the current Emergency Alert System, according the statement.

The Emergency Alert System replaced the former Emergency Broadcast System. It can be activated by the federal government, by states or by the National Weather Service.

The Federal Communications Commission received reports of problems in Illinois and the St. Louis area, spokesman Rob Kenny said.

FCC officials were investigating the series of glitches that broadcast stations said included periodic interruptions of programming by the Emergency Alert System's tone, sometimes lasting 3 or 4 minutes at a time.

Others said their signals were scrambled and that other stations were being broadcast on their frequencies.

The Associated Press and WGN-AM 720 News Director Wes Bleed contributed.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

If this had been an actual emergency ...
Goof sends presidential alert code over the air, hijacking Illinois radio and TV transmissions

By Phil Rosenthal
Tribune media columnist

June 26, 2007, 10:14 PM CDT

In the parlance of the Cold War era that spawned the federally mandated Emergency Alert System, launch codes were issued throughout Illinois on Tuesday morning, automatically pre-empting dozens of radio and television stations as if the region faced nuclear annihilation.

Rather than President Bush reassuring citizens after an atomic blast or some other calamity, the audience of many Chicago outlets was treated to the sound of dead air followed by the voice of WGN-AM 720 morning man Spike O'Dell struggling to figure out what had happened.

It turns out O'Dell's pair of brief surprise appearances between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. on everything from local public broadcasting to music stations—an "unintentional disruption," a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman called it—stemmed from a FEMA contractor's installation of the state's Emergency Alert System satellite receiver in Springfield as part of a nationwide upgrade.

The FEMA spokeswoman said the new Illinois receiver inadvertently picked up a closed-circuit test between receivers in Richmond, Va., and Cleveland.

While the interrupted morning drive-time broadcasts proved the Illinois system worked, the fact that what's known as an Emergency Action Notification, or EAN—the highest level of EAS alert, indicating an emergency message is coming from the White House—could be relayed mistakenly to override stations was a bit of a jolt, sending engineers scrambling at the affected outlets throughout Illinois and in adjacent media markets such as St. Louis.

Compounding the error, an actual presidential code, minus any audio explanation, was sent rather than a lesser alert or a notification of a systems test of some kind.

In some affected markets, the glitches resulted in interruptions of programming by the EAS tone, sometimes lasting three or four minutes at a time.

In Chicago, it triggered a switch to a single area broadcaster—WGN, which, like the Chicago Tribune, is owned by Tribune Co.—and included a readout at stations warning not to override the alarm under penalty of law. Also, an EAN is open-ended, not like a test that concludes within minutes.

But unlike, say, when Chicago air raid sirens were set off in 1959 to herald the White Sox winning the American League pennant, there's little evidence the public at large was panicked by the false alarm.

A spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications said only a few calls to the city's 311 and 911 numbers came in from people wondering what was going on.

"If everything is set per the requirement, it should have taken over every radio, TV and cable system," said Warren Shulz, Illinois' EAS chairman and chief engineer for Citadel Broadcasting's WLS-AM 890 and WZZN-FM 94.7 in Chicago, noting the state's new EAS satellite hookup in Springfield had been wired in only a day earlier.

"We did nothing incorrect in Illinois, other than hook up a new piece of equipment at the direction of a FEMA contractor," Shulz said. "Someone at the other end …decided at 7:38 our time to start sending presidential alert codes. Wonderful thing to do."

While FEMA maintained this had never happened before, Shulz said a decade or so ago a similar closed-circuit test went awry, triggering inadvertent alerts in Ohio, Hawaii and Louisiana.

Illinois emergency management officials, caught off-guard, spent some time trying to sort out the confusion, as well. When state officials called FEMA's regional office, they were directed to Washington.

"We assumed there was no emergency when no one came on to address the audiences," said Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. "The system is set up so that if there is an emergency, the president or the governor or someone else in authority can take control of the airwaves. And no one did."

The emergency codes were sent four times, and the first two went through the system and were transmitted in Chicago, according to Tom Langmyer, WGN's vice president and general manager.

"When we learned what had happened, we took the EAS system off line so that the other two tests were not sent, so they would not disrupt WGN or other stations," Langmyer said in a statement.

Rod Zimmerman, senior vice president and market manager for CBS Radio in Chicago, joked that if Portable People Meters, the new ratings system Arbitron is adopting next year, were in place to measure listenership by eavesdropping on what the audience hears rather than having listeners report the stations to which they listen, O'Dell would have seen a huge ratings spike. "Fortunately, we're still in a diary world," he said.

Darren Davis, vice president of programming and operations at Clear Channel Radio Chicago, said that despite its flaws, the EAS still is "a system that helps to keep people safe."

"The system did work," Shulz said. "If they had just had an audio message saying this is a test and do the 'end of message' correctly, the test would have been a rude takeover of all media, but it would have ended gracefully and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, they provided no audio, and at that point, people started to panic. … You should never use a hot message code in an uncontrolled situation."

philrosenthal@tribune.com

[VisibilityMissing]

Mmmm . . . greasy pig parts . . .

Edens reopened after spill

By Josh Noel
Tribune staff reporter

July 1, 2007, 3:43 PM CDT

Northbound lanes of the Edens Expressway were closed for more than seven hours today after a dump truck carrying greasy pig parts toppled and splattered its load across the highway.

Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Claffey said a sudden shift in the load caused the truck to fall onto its side about 7:30 a.m. while entering the Edens at Dempster Avenue.

Pig ears, pig feet and grease covered all three lanes of the Edens, he said.

"This is obviously something that's really hard to clean up," he said.

The outbound Edens was closed between the split and Dempster until about 3 p.m.

IDOT workers used sand to absorb the grease and were trucking it -- along with the pig parts -- from the scene. Foam usually used in hazardous materials situations was used to clean the road, Claffey said.

IDOT cleaned the lanes twice, then sprinkled rock salt -- the kind usually used during heavy snowfall -- to provide extra traction. Electronic message boards above the highway are warning drivers of potential slippery conditions, but traffic is flowing smoothly.

Trooper Jose Nevarez said the northbound traffic was diverted onto the Kennedy Expressway or side streets, resulting in long delays.

Southbound lanes of the Edens were unaffected.

The truck bears the name of Griffin Industries of Hammond, Ind., which claims on its Web site to collect and transport "millions of pounds of waste by-products daily from slaughterhouses, packing plants, butcher shops, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants."

A company spokesman did not return a phone call Sunday afternoon.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

[Tom Flapwell]

Well, at least they weren't delivering the material for a rump roast....

[Caoimhin]

I'm not sure if this was posted yet, it is rather odd:

Sudan's famous goat 'wife' dies
The best-known goat in Sudan has died months after being "married" to a man in the South Sudan capital, Juba, the BBC has learned.

Local elders ordered a man found having sex with the goat, later called Rose, to "marry" her last February.

"The idea was to publicly embarrass the man," says Tom Rhodes, editor of the Juba Post, which first ran the story.

The BBC's story of the "wedding" caught the public imagination and became one of the most read internet stories.

Rose, black and white, is believed to have died after choking on a plastic bag she swallowed as she was eating scraps on the streets of Juba.

After the marriage, Rose had a male kid - but "not a human one" - Mr Rhodes said, hastily.

The "husband", Charles Tombe, said he was drunk at the time but has since refused to comment on the issue. The kid is owned by Mr Tombe.

More than a year after the BBC story was first published, it is still picked up by various web forums and being emailed across the world. Recently it got more than 100,000 page views for five successive days.

Over time, it has received several million hits - making it historically one of the biggest-hitting stories the BBC News website has published.

A Google search uncovers more than 1m different web pages, based on the same story.

Mr Rhodes, a Briton who helped found the Juba Post in 2004, was shocked when he learned how many people around the world had read the story his newspaper had originally published as a short, light-hearted account and not even bothered to publish on its website.

"Wow - what have we done? We have triggered a monster," he said.

He said that he had seen that it occasionally returned in the BBC's "Most read stories" and was worried that he would have trouble with South Sudanese, accusing his paper of tarnishing the image of the region - now trying to rebuild after 21 years of war.

But he says he has not come across any such anger.

"It doesn't portray Sudan in a bad light - it shows the Sudanese have a sense of humour," he says, referring to the elders' original punishment.

He has, however, had people come up and say to him: "Oh, you're the goat man."

Mr Rhodes explains that South Sudan remains a conservative society.

If a man is caught sleeping with a girl, he is ordered to marry her immediately in order to save her honour and that of her family, he says.

This was the basis for Mr Tombe's punishment, after the goat's owner found him with his animal and complained to local elders.

They ordered him to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50, at the time) and also named the goat Rose.

Afterwards, he left with the goat, not quite hand-in-hand, more hand-in-hoof, to his home in the Hai Malakal suburb of Juba - and not in Upper Nile State as we originally reported.
Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6619983.stm

[Steve the Pocket]

Armed robber enters house, stays for wine and cheese

WASHINGTON - Police on Capitol Hill are baffled by an attempted robbery that began with a handgun put to the head of a teenager and ended in a group hug.

It started about midnight on June 16 when a group of friends was finishing a dinner of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp on the back patio of a District of Columbia home. That's when a hooded man slid through an open gate and pointed a handgun at the head of a 14-year-old girl.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he said, according to D.C. police and witnesses.

Everyone froze, including the girl's parents. Then one guest spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, told the man. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, told the intruder to take the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the whole bottle.

The robber, with his hood down, took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese. He put the gun in his sweatpants.

The story then turns even more bizarre.

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said before apologizing. "Can I get a hug?"

Rowan, who works at her children's school and lives in Falls Church, Va., stood up and wrapped her arms around the armed man. The four other guests followed.

"Can we have a group hug?" the man asked. The five adults complied.

The man walked away a few moments later with the crystal wine glass in hand. Nothing was stolen, and no one was hurt.

Once he was gone, the group walked into the house, locked the door and stared at each other _ speechless. Rabdau called 911, and police came to take a report and dust for fingerprints.

Police classified the case as strange but true. Investigators have not located a suspect. The witnesses thought he might have been high on drugs.

"We've had robbers that apologize and stuff but nothing where they sit down and drink wine. It definitely is strange," said Cmdr. Diane Groomes, adding that the hugs were especially unusual. "The only good thing is they would be able to identify him because they hugged him."

Article

[VisibilityMissing]

Jul 26, 4:27 AM EDT

Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

No one's certain if Oscar's behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

Nicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa's article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.

If Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it's also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said.

Nursing home staffers aren't concerned with explaining Oscar, so long as he gives families a better chance at saying goodbye to the dying.

Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care."

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Science writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

New England Journal of Medicine: http://content.nejm.org/

[nickspoon]

Maid jailed for serving up urine

HONG KONG (Reuters) - An Indonesian maid has been jailed for six days in Hong Kong for serving her boss a cup of water containing urine, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The 29-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of "administering poison or other destructive or noxious substance with intent to injure," but insisted she had used the urine to treat a skin condition and its appearance in her employer's cup was a mistake.

Her boss, Szeto Ching-han, smelled the urine after asking for a cup of water, and then asked the maid to drink it -- which she did. Szeto, however, kept the liquid to have it tested in a lab, the South China Morning Post said.

The defense argued that the maid's employer had not drunk the urine and the substance was not poisonous.

"The only contact the former employer had with the so-called poisonous mixture was the smell," her lawyer was quoted as telling the court.

The magistrate who heard the case said there was no evidence that the maid had suffered any harm after drinking from the cup, but still gave the maid a six-day jail sentence, saying the court "must send a message to the public."

Maids from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are often the subject of court cases in richer neighbors such as Hong Kong and Singapore, but usually as the victims of rape or other abuse by their employers.