Weird News

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:23 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Octan @ Jul 6 2005, 04:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'>  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> She earlier told the paper that the experiment would "deform her horoscope."</td></tr></table>  Yeah, now it probably says something like, "Now is not a good time to photocopy your butt and staple it to your boss's face." <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />  </td></tr></table>  Thats always sound advice.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 11:11 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 6, 11:42 AM EDT Flashy Ties Banned at Alaska Post Office KENAI, Alaska (AP) -- A window clerk at the Soldotna Post Office is looking a tad bit more conservative these days - and that's upsetting many town residents. Customers have written letters of protest to Soldotna Mayor Dave Carey after postal clerk Steve Adams was banned from sporting his colorful, sometimes clashing, ties at work because they didn't conform with dress code regulations. "There's a huge uproar in Soldotna," Adams said. "This is much more than a tie. It's community flavor. What's the big deal?" Carey, who also is known for his brightly colored, sometimes goofy ties, wrote Adams a letter of support. "In an age in which many bureaucrats try to make humans into robots, your care for customers is a most pleasant experience," Carey wrote. "Your ties are always uplifting." Margaret Merrill, postmaster for the Soldotna Post Office, said she is simply enforcing the rules. "He has been informed that sooner or later he is going to have to conform," Merrill said. She said the decision was not based on customer complaints. Adams now wears a plain blue tie with the Postal Service logo while he helps customers mail letters and parcels. But he has more than 100 pieces of colorful neckwear on a display rack at home and still has a license plate on his truck that says "TIE GUY". "Maybe I need to change my license plate to X-TIEGUY," he said. 2005 The Associated Press</td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:59 am

Ahh, it's good to see the bureaucracy is always interested in making people's lives better. Not that I'm sarcastic or anything. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' />

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:14 am

This might be a problem.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 8, 7:15 PM EDT Movers Find Live Grenade in Woman's Couch SELMA, Ala. (AP) -- Workers removing furniture from the home of a deceased elderly woman got a shock when they spotted an active hand grenade stuck in the bottom of the couch. The FBI, ATF and Montgomery Police Bomb Squad were called to the scene after the bomb was discovered Thursday. "They used a robot, armed with a camera, from about 50 yards away from the grenade," Selma Police Chief Jimmy Martin said. The robot successfully ripped open the back of the couch but could not secure the grenade; Martin said the camera on the robot could not discern whether the pin was in. A member of the bomb squad was then sent into the house and found the pin in the grenade. Martin said police believed the grenade had been there for some time. It was secured and taken to a Montgomery bunker, where officials planned to dispose of it, he said. Police are investigating how the grenade got into the elderly lady's couch. Martin said the woman had a military veteran son, who is also deceased, but could not say whether that explained how the grenade came to be in the house. 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:48 pm

More long lost explosives . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Reuters Workers find WW2-era explosive at Moscow hotel Sun Jul 10,12:06 PM ET MOSCOW (Reuters) - Workers demolishing a Stalin-era Moscow hotel on Sunday discovered a tonne of explosives that would have been used to blow the building sky-high if Nazi troops had taken the Soviet capital, media reported. After its opening in 1935, the hotel Moskva was one of the Soviet Union's flagship hotels and stood opposite the Russian parliament and only a stone's throw from Red Square. "The boxes held only explosives without detonators so there was no risk of an (accidental) explosion in the hotel," a police spokesman told Russian news agencies. NTV television showed sappers and construction workers removing bags of explosive from the deep, muddy hole that is all that is left of the hotel, which once sported a distinctive facade and dominated one of the capital's main thoroughfares. "According to preliminary information, the explosive was hidden in a cache during the Great Patriotic War," a police spokesman was quoted by Itar-Tass agency as saying, referring to World War Two. Police said they had removed a tonne of explosive by evening. NTV said the hotel was mined in case Adolf Hitler's forces had taken Moscow. The German troops made it to the outskirts in 1942, but Soviet troops stopped them pushing into the centre. The Soviet Union had extensive contingency plans in case it lost the capital. Many factories, institutes and government bodies moved into Siberia and Central Asia. The hotel has been demolished in what officials say is a drive to improve and modernise Moscow's tourist facilities. Media have reported that city officials intend to build a new hotel looking exactly the same. Many architectural historians say the demolition is a shameful end for a key Moscow landmark that should have been preserved. </td></tr></table>

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:02 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> The hotel has been demolished in what officials say is a drive to improve and modernise Moscow's tourist facilities. Media have reported that city officials intend to build a new hotel looking exactly the same.</td></tr></table>  It's just not the same!

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:01 pm

Jesus' appearance in East Chicago cut short . . . more on the Apocalypse later.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 11, 6:22 PM EDT Chicago Officials Turn Off 'Jesus' Light EAST CHICAGO, Ind. (AP) -- City officials have turned off a streetlight that drew more than 250 people to see a shadow that some say resembles the image of Jesus Christ. East Chicago Police Chief Angelo Machuca called an emergency meeting Sunday to recommend the light be turned off in the interest of public safety after nearby residents complained about blocked cars and visitors congregating until 5 a.m. Several arrests were made Friday night after a large fight broke out in the area. "The city respects everyone's religious beliefs, but it's getting to the point now where it's almost too dangerous" to leave the light on, said Damian Rico, the city's public relations director. People have flocked to the site since Wednesday, when a woman first claimed to see the image on the side of a tree. The image is only visible at night when the streetlight near the tree is illuminated. Machuca said his department doesn't have the manpower to maintain regular patrols and control the crowd. "The light will remain off until we can get some kind of solution," he said. 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My guess is that somebody is losing their job . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Shrub poisoned zoo monkeys But report clears Lincoln Park staff By William Mullen Tribune staff reporter July 12, 2005 A two-month outside investigation of animal deaths at Lincoln Park Zoo found the zoo generally acted appropriately but revealed troubling, previously unpublicized circumstances in the May deaths of three langur monkeys and Wankie the elephant. The report by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association said the monkeys apparently were poisoned by leaves from a yew shrub--known to be toxic to primates--growing just outside the exhibit. Zoo director Kevin Bell said it was "a serious oversight" that keepers did not conduct a veterinary review of all plants in the area. Investigators also found flaws in the transport of Wankie, 36, who was euthanized May 1 within hours of arriving by truck at the Salt Lake City zoo from Lincoln Park. Though the truck traveled through subfreezing weather on parts of the trip, there was no heat in the transport crate and the driver ignored a veterinarian's request to install a protective tarp. In no instance, however, did investigators find that actions by zoo staff members contributed to the animal deaths, zoo chairman Jay Proops said at a news conference Monday. Proops had asked the AZA to audit the zoo's animal care and management practices in May after a rising tide of animal rights protests over the last year. Three female African elephants died in that time, as well as the three langurs, two gorillas, a camel, a dairy cow, an infant marmoset and a lion cub. After the monkeys died, Bell offered to resign, but the board asked that he remain pending results of the AZA investigation. On Monday, Proops said the results exonerate Bell. "Kevin continues to have my--and the board's--full support," said Proops. "There is nothing in this report for me or the board to ask for Kevin's resignation or to accept it." Bell had offered to leave, Proops said, amid charges of mismanagement "by an animal rights group that asked for his ouster. This radical animal rights organization has as one of its goals the closing of all zoos. This organization doesn't even want you to own household pets, cats and dogs." Debbie Leahy, a director for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group that demanded Bell's ouster, said the audit was a zoo industry undertaking and not really independent. Another investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not been completed, she noted. "We don't think this report comes close to exonerating [the zoo]," said Leahy. "The AZA and Lincoln Park Zoo may be trying to gloss over their deficiencies, but these are clearly very serious problems." Addressing the animal deaths, the investigators concluded that "in most instances" the zoo's "treatments reflected best veterinary practice and the deaths were not unexpected." It cited old age in the deaths of Peaches the elephant and Kumba the gorilla, and said the other gorilla, Mumbali, died of an illness that was appropriately treated. It termed the marmoset death and the amputation of a gibbon's arm after getting stuck in mesh fencing "simply unfortunate accidents." The bactrian camel died of a gastro-intestinal illness, said the report. A defective heart killed the lion cub three days after being born last December, it said. The milk cow had shown strong indications of suffering tuberculosis and was euthanized June 29, 2004, in accordance with USDA policy, said the report, though post-mortem tests did not find the disease. The most troubling death to the investigators seemed to be that of Wankie, the elephant that died after transport to the Utah zoo. All three of the zoo's elephants arrived in 2003 from San Diego Wild Animal Park. When Wankie and another elephant, Tatima, died they were in the end stages of a disease that had not been seen before in elephants, a lung infection caused by Mycobacterium szulgai. After the deaths of Peaches and Tatima, officials at both San Diego and Lincoln Park, as well as AZA elephant authorities, decided Wankie, who appeared to be in general good health, should join the elephant herd at Hogle Zoo in Utah. The San Diego park provided the same animal transportation specialist that brought Wankie from California to Chicago. The report noted that three days before the move Wankie had a bout of colic (upset stomach) and questioned if it was wise to transport her so soon after. Lincoln Park officials also were unaware until the trip was under way that the heater supplied for Wankie's crate was "not compatible" with the crate, and that "no heat could be provided," the report said. And the report made clear that there was a breakdown in the lines of authority on the trip. As the truck traveled west, temperatures dropped into the 30s and then into the 20s in Wyoming. Kathryn Gamble, Lincoln Park's chief veterinarian, was traveling with the elephant and asked at several points that a tarpaulin be put over the crate for extra protection from the weather, but the animal transport specialist who was driving objected. The tarp was finally put in place in Rawlings, Wyo., with less than five hours of travel time left. Wankie visibly weakened during the trip, kneeling and finally lying down in the crate. At Sidney, Neb., the truck pulled off at a county fairgrounds where the Denver Zoo had arranged to send a hoist capable of lifting her out of the crate. Bell said it proved impossible to remove Wankie at that point because the fairgrounds had no suitable holding area for her and doing so would violate federal regulations. Eight hours after she arrived at Hogle Zoo, Wankie's condition was so bad that she was euthanized. The post-mortem examination found the mycobacterial infection had destroyed 30 percent of her lungs. "Debilitation related to chronic disease coupled with ... stress of shipping may have been sufficient to cause collapse," said the post-mortem. The investigators said it was unclear if the cold truck may have contributed. "The audit team is unable to ascertain how much of a factor the air temperature was in this case," it said. Based on the investigation, the AZA is recommending several changes in elephant transport procedures, including mandating written agreements establishing lines of responsibility when two or more institutions are involved. It also recommended that transport crates be provided with monitors to log temperatures. In the case of the langurs, the report also recommended removal of all toxic plants on zoo grounds. Bell acknowledged the oversight and said that has already been done. "We had kept our gibbons in that enclosure for 14 years without incident, and we had no idea there was a danger when we placed the langurs in there," Bell said. Ten years ago the zoo told its grounds crews to give lists of any new plants to be placed on zoo grounds to the veterinary department for review for possible toxicity but failed to catalog plants already on the grounds. "It is impossible to ascertain whether the langurs were able to grab the plant themselves or leaves were given to them," the zoo said in a printed release. Bell also said the zoo will add a new animal management committee to provide oversight on all zoo policy and procedures and will hire a general curator who will supervise the zoo's curatorial staff. ---------- wmullen@tribune.com Copyright 2005, Chicago Tribune </td></tr></table>

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:47 pm

I think someone should get fired for naming the elephant "Wankie," too.

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:44 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: ("The Register")</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Fox deceives millions during national pastime By Ashlee Vance in Chicago Fox Sports and Chevy teamed yesterday to deceive millions of people during a Major League Baseball All-Star game. They did such a good job of it that many of you viewing probably didn't even notice. As Fox came back from a commercial break in the bottom half of the third inning, many viewers caught sight of a very long, flashy banner draped over an equally ostentatious advertisement picturing a yellow Corvette. The banner read HHRYA.com with the letters done in pseudo Asian design - clearly the work of professionals. However, the Fox Sports broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver played off the ad like it was the work of a goofy sports fan. Here's the chatter as Fox panned across the outfield and then held on the supposed fan's sign for between 10 and 20 seconds. "Welcome back to Detroit," Buck said. "A lot of banners and signs around the ballpark. No surprise there. Somebody just unfurled a big banner behind left field." You'll love the next bit, as Buck devolves into a second grader. "H-H-R-Y-A. Tim, you'll have to tell me what that means. I am not sure, but someone went to a lot of trouble, obviously, to put it up out in left center field." You'd think that would be the end of the stunt, but no. Fox returned to the action to see baseball's best pitcher Roy Oswalt face off against Johnny Damon. After one pitch, McCarver brought all the weight of his formidable intellect to bear on the puzzle: "I don't know what that sign means, but 'hooray' is the first thing that comes to my mind." Funny you should mention that, Tim. Hooray is exactly the sound Fox executives made as they cashed their checks from the largest advertiser of the day. Chevy, the sponsor, must have been disappointed as it failed to prepare its HHRYA.com web site for the traffic it expected to receive. Visitors to the site were unable to reach the page for about thirty minutes after the "I don't know what that is" ad appeared. Today, you could see the web site runs one of those cheesy take a photo with your cell phone campaigns. Chevy wants people to place themselves in shots with the letters HHR - the name of an upcoming vehicle. Now the site is rolling over here. Is this a huge deal? Well, in the big scheme of things, maybe not. It is, however, one of the most blatant examples of companies trying to pass off an advertisement as reality. Anyone watching the game would have sworn that Buck and McCarver really seemed not to know what was going on. But their ruse was easily discovered once you realized that Fox would never hold its camera on an unknown web site and read the URL on air. "Buck might have been saying that tongue in cheek," Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell told The Register. "For sure, it was planned. It's not like we didn't know about it. Both parties knew about it." Chevy's PR staff is on forced vacation this week and hadn't found anyone who could answer questions about the incident at the time of writing. Buck certainly did not sound "tongue in cheek" to us at all. Both he and McCarver sat there debating the sign like marketing automatons, wondering if it was real and how much time some true fan of baseball spent hammering it out. They most certainly wanted all the saps watching to believe in the sign's authenticity and go hunting for this mysterious web site. "Yet another Chevy ad" probably would not have worked as well. It's sad that Buck and McCarver were willing to sacrifice whatever credibility they had as journalists in this way. Beware of what they point out next during a game. It may be a real fan out in the stands ... or just some cardboard figure dressed up as a Coke can. </td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:14 am

Yep, that's FOX for you. Worthless morons they are. In addition, they apparently went to commercial while the Canadian national anthem was being played. Good job FOX. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' />

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:15 am

You see, this is why I stopped watching TV!

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:44 pm

Commercial sponsorship gone wild . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> CTA urged to sell some of its names Is a Tombstone `L' in our transit future? By Virginia Groark Tribune staff reporter Published July 14, 2005 First came the United Center. Then there was U.S. Cellular Field. Next could be a Chicago Transit Authority elevated train line named after a corporation. That's one of several suggestions a consultant made to the CTA board Wednesday as part of an ongoing study to identify ways to cut costs, streamline operations and raise revenue. The presentation was made shortly before the board voted to rescind service cuts and fare increases that were scheduled to take place this month to fill a $55million budget hole. The CTA canceled the doomsday scenario after the Regional Transportation Authority agreed last month to give it $54.3 million in state funds. CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown warned the state funds provide only a temporary fix and in the coming months the board will start discussing similar budgetary woes for 2006. Preliminary projections indicate next year's budget deficit could be as much as $100 million. Meanwhile, the CTA hired the consulting firm AECOM in March for $1.2 million to analyze its operations. Among other recommendations, AECOM Vice President Scott Baker suggested ways to schedule workers to increase workforce productivity, proposed outsourcing real estate management and adding more automated teller machines along its system. The CTA agreed Wednesday to add another 31 ATMs. The CTA should also more aggressively seek out advertising revenues, whether by selling corporate sponsorships of train stations or selling advertising space on the side of buildings it owns that are near major thoroughfares, Baker said. Baker also said the CTA could seek corporate sponsorships of entire rail routes. The CTA did not immediately embrace the suggestion, saying they needed to determine how much money it could generate. "I think that what's being said is these are things that need to be explored further, and that's the whole point of this review," CTA President Frank Kruesi said. The CTA wouldn't be the first transit agency to undertake such an effort. In Tampa, the TECO Line Streetcar System is named after a utility company. The line also offers opportunities for sponsorships of stations and individual streetcars. Naming rights for mass transit systems presents an excellent marketing opportunity, said Eric Smallwood, vice president of Pennsylvania-based Front Row Marketing Services, which was involved in a deal to have an Italian food products company sponsor a Tampa streetcar. A newspaper company, for example, could sponsor a rail route and then negotiate to have only its newspaper boxes in stations along that line, Smallwood said. "All those commuters, that's a great opportunity," he said. From an operations standpoint, it may not make sense, said David Schulz, executive director of the Infrastructure Technology Institute at Northwestern University. The CTA renamed its lines after colors more than a decade ago and to change the names again could confuse people. "A significant barrier to people using public transportation is that they simply don't know how to use it," Schulz said. "You start changing route names and it introduces another variable in there." "I think you run the risk, that the Charter Bank Line or whatever it would be, the Sara Lee Line, runs the risk of people not being able to deal with it," he said. In addition, some people may be offended by having a rail route named after a corporation. "I think people at some point say enough is enough," Schulz said. "And my guess would be, my personal sense would be, that you've gone over that line if you start renaming whole CTA lines for companies." ---------- vgroark@tribune.com </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:11 pm

The sad, sad story of a man in need . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> High-speed dash to toilet lands Canadian in court Fri Jul 15,11:30 AM ET OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian teenager caught driving at almost twice the speed limit told police he had overdosed on a protein drink and was desperately looking for a washroom, the Ottawa Citizen reported on Friday. Hayder Mobarak's tale did not impress a local judge, who gave him a whopping C$926 (433 pound) fine and banned him from driving for 30 days. Mobarak was clocked doing 195 km per hour (115 miles per hour) on a road where the limit was 100 km/h. "I was going to the gym and I was taking a protein shake and if you overdose it's really painful. This is why I was rushing to the washroom ... I wasn't thinking, I was in pain," the newspaper quoted 19-year-old as saying. The incident could cost Mobarak even money later on. An insurance company official told the paper that a high-risk young driver would have to pay C$8,000 a year to insure a new car. </td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 1:02 am

The moral of the story is: don't drink protein shakes and drive. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 1:07 am

Sh*t happens.

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