Weird News

Llewthepoet · Postby **Llewthepoet** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:48 pm

2005 Best Tales Of The Bizarre!  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (PATRICK CASEY @ AP)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Ain't Funny to This Bunny The Easter Bunny wasn't laughing this year. Bryan Johnson, who portrayed the holiday rabbit at a mall in Bay City, Mich., says he was pummeled in an unprovoked attack by a 12-year-old boy. "He just started hitting," Johnson said. Johnson suffered a bloody nose but kept his cool because he figured it was inappropriate for the Easter Bunny to battle back. Gave a Licking and Kept on Ticking An Oregon education board reprimanded a Central Linn High School football coach for licking the wounds of several student athletes. Coach Scott Reed admitted licking blood from the knee of one student and the arm of another. It was not clear why he did it. Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright called the licking "bizarre" but not criminal because contact wasn't forced. Three students said it appeared the coach was "just joking around." One Wife at a Time Another South Carolina deputy had a lapse of judgment, too, but his was of the matrimonial variety. Sumter County sheriff's deputy Jay Follin was fired for being married to two women at the same time. Follin, 27, was separated from his first wife when he married his second, according to a department investigation. His second wife, the investigation revealed, was already married to another man at the time. Everything became known when the husband of Follin's second wife filed a complaint with the sheriff's department. The couple was separated at the time. 40 Goats for Chelsea Clinton. Do I Hear 50? Kenyan councilman Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage five years ago. He's still awaiting an answer. Another Story About the Dangers of Smoking A man riding in a car on Arkansas 234 near the Oklahoma border didn't go to jail following a long night of drinking. But he did go to a hospital after jumping from the vehicle in an effort to retrieve his lit cigarette. Jeff Foran was recovering after leaping from the car and landing hard on the roadway in a failed bid to grab the butt, state police said. "If anything could make him stop smoking, this should be it," said Trooper Jamie Graver. Honey, I'm Hot For You A 38-year-old Oregon man wearing a gasoline-soaked cape set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his longtime girlfriend to marry him. About 100 people gathered to watch Todd Grannis perform the flaming stunt for Malissa Kusiek, who said "yes."</td></tr></table>  And you guys thought you were crazy! Mod Edit: quotes added. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /happy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='happy.gif' />

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:35 pm

You know, it would be easier to read the articles if you surrounded them between [ quote ] and [ /quote ] (without the spaces).

Muninn · Postby **Muninn** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 8:09 pm

It's not that we're crazy, we just lack sanity.

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:44 am

As a friend of mine once said: "Insanity is like a bottomless pit with a bunch of free cash and places to spend it...once you go down it it's hard to get out and even if the oportunity presented itself few would leave..."

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:43 pm

Wheeeeee! Wider bus seats on the CTA! Woohoo!  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Does this bus seat make me look fat? By Virginia Groark Tribune staff reporter Published December 16, 2005 Here's some good news for Chicagoland commuters who have been packing away too many holiday treats or who never followed through with that New Year's resolution. Starting next year, city and suburban buses will offer more space in the seat. The Chicago Transit Authority and Pace have ordered wider seats for the hundreds of buses that'll begin hitting the streets next year. Typically, bus seats are about 17 1/2-inches wide, according to industry officials. But the City of Big Shoulders can soon settle into some of the nation's biggest transit seats--18 inches wide. You could call it a natural progression for a city that at least one fitness magazine recently ranked the fifth-fattest city in America. But you won't hear that from transportation officials. CTA President Frank Kruesi said the wider seats reflect "growing support" for transit. Melinda Metzger, a Pace deputy executive director, said she thinks "people like a little more room in the seat." Despite the carefully chosen words, transit officials said the seats were ordered primarily because of people's growing bottoms. At Pace, at least, the seats have been inching wider for years. American Seating of Grand Rapids, Mich., designed the 18-inch wide seat--which it claims provides the "largest sitting area" of any seat in the industry. Known as Insight, the seat also is supposed to be more vandal-proof, and easier to clean and to replace. In the last two years, the company put more than 1,000 hours of research into the seat, interviewing everyone from riders to transit officials, including Pace and CTA staff. Chicago was one of the key markets that American Seating studied, with company representatives riding buses and talking to passengers. Comfort, including the size of the seating area, was among the top items mentioned, according to Gary Thompson, the company's market manager for transportation business. In addition to a little extra bottom room, people also were concerned about leg room and the ease of getting in and out of a seat, he said. "The size of the population is getting larger in terms of both height and weight," he said. "Without stating a negative, over 25 percent of the U.S. population is overweight. So how do you play to that?" CTA rider Claire Dolinar said it made sense. "People's bottoms are getting wider, and it's getting a little tighter to fit into one seat," the Lakeview resident said. "It will also help during wintertime when people have heavy coats and take up a lot of room." Adult men and women are about an inch taller than they were in the 1960s but nearly 25 pounds heavier on average, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Taking that into account, American Seating responded with the new transit seat that is wider in the seat and tapered at the top, allowing for more aisle room at hip height for standing passengers. Relying on a stronger engineered thermal plastic, the company also created a thinner profile of the seat, creating more legroom between seats, Thompson said. The company also enlarged the cushion so it covers nearly all of the seating area, stretching over 12 to 20 percent more of the seat than its other products, Thompson said. Though the wider seat does cut into some aisle space, it still meets industry standards. For example, standards call for a 102-inch-wide bus to have a 20-inch-wide aisle at the seat level, Thompson said. CTA and Pace are among the first agencies nationwide to opt for the seats. At the CTA, the seats will be on the 265 New Flyer 40-foot buses that the agency has ordered for $95 million. The buses will begin arriving early next year, but because the seats aren't expected to be ready until summer, the buses likely will be retrofitted with the seats at a later date, officials said. At Pace, the new seats will be on the 96 30-foot buses the agency board agreed to order from El Dorado National in Riverside, Calif. They are not expected to receive the first buses until late next year. According to Pace historical documents, the new seat size marks the second time in two years that the suburban bus agency has opted for a wider seat. In 2003 it upgraded to 17 1/2 inches from 17 inches, Pace officials said. Before that, the seat size on Pace buses and those operated by its predecessors had been 17 since 1975, when they were upgraded from 16 3/4 inches, Pace officials said. Dave Grotto, a dietitian and spokesman for the American Dietetic Association, said the growing seats are another consequence of America's growing waistlines. "I guess I'm not too surprised to hear that," he said, when told of the larger bus seats. "I think we have seen this as an end result of the obesity epidemic and it's a trickle-down factor. Not only does it affect us in the pocketbook with health-care costs to be about $100 billion, so now we are seeing, I guess, more practical applications of that." Indeed, just last summer the Federal Aviation Administration revised guidelines used by the airlines to calculate the weight and center of gravity of planes before flight. That was in response to government surveys showing airline passengers are getting heavier. On the transit level, not every agency in the country has opted to expand their seats. The New York City Transit Authority will have 17 1/2-inch seats in the 500 Orion low-floor hybrid buses that it bought recently, according to agency spokesman Charles Seaton. Likewise, the Orange County Transportation Authority stuck with 17 1/2-inch-wide seats in its recent order for 50 buses, said Michael Litschi, a spokesman for the California agency. "We are known in Orange County for having a very fit population," Litschi said. ---------- vgroark@tribune.com</td></tr></table>

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:53 pm

It's embarrassing to sit in a seat that's too small for you, but I also find it embarrassing to sit in one that's way too wide. It makes me feel like a little kid.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 1:28 am

Santa takes a break Mark Tinder stops for a smoke break in Ward Cove, near Ketchikan, on Friday. Tinder was dressed as Santa to deliver gifts to customers of First Bank.

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 1:42 am

I guess even Santa needs to relax. Still doesn't look very good though.

GhostWay · Postby **GhostWay** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 1:55 am

So, based on the picture, could this be used as proof that smoking causes hair loss? <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:42 pm

Hair loss and obesity! <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /> ------------------------------------------- Those darn, sneaky chimps . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Art expert fooled by chimp's painting A German art expert was duped into believing a painting done by a chimpanzee was actually painted by a respected artist. Dr Katja Schneider, director of the State Art Museum in Moritzburg, Saxony-Anhalt, suggested the painting was by Guggenheim Prize winning artist Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Dr Schneider said: "It looks like an Ernst Wilhelm Nay. He was famous for using such blotches of colour." But in reality, the painting was made by female chimpanzee Banghi, from Halle Zoo. According to zoo workers, painting is one of the favourite pastimes of the 31-year-old ape, but her works are often destroyed by mate Satscho. After the real artist was revealed by the Bild newspaper, Dr Schneider said: "I did think it looked a bit rushed."</td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:23 am

Heh, doesn't surprise me. Some paintings might as well have been painted by a chimp. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

GhostWay · Postby **GhostWay** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:44 am

I think some paintings are chimps. They're just waiting for the right moment to spring out of the woodwork.

Gizensha · Postby **Gizensha** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:52 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Zaaphod @ Dec 19 2005, 01:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Heh, doesn't surprise me. Some paintings might as well have been painted by a chimp. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />  </td></tr></table>  I believe a Chimp in Japan wound up with his own art expedition.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:01 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Rat race draws fans at Tudor Road Bingo Gaming law change aimed at state fair fundraiser allows others By JULIA O'MALLEY Anchorage Daily News (Published: December 19, 2005) Temperatures dipped below zero in the crowded parking lot outside Tudor Road Bingo, but inside, past the $7 buffet line, past the glassed-in smoking section and the tables littered with bingo papers, in a crowded corner where "Jungle Boogie" hammered from the speakers, Leonard Lampe was hot. Already, Lampe had $50 coming to him from two lucky bets on the Monday night rat race. He slid a chip across a felt-covered table, resting it on 34, his lucky number, and eyed the agent of his destiny: a sable-colored gerbil named Lil' Stubby. Lil' Stubby looked back at him from under a bowl-shaped cage in the center of a huge wheel, ringed with numbered holes. Its black eyes didn't blink, but its whiskers twitched. "I try to think, to feel, where's she going to go," confided Lampe, who was visiting Anchorage from the tiny North Slope village of Nuiqsut. "It's just like Vegas -- go with your instinct, see where she lands." With that, the wheel began to spin. Lampe leaned into the crowd, banging and hollering. Lil' Stubby loosed its bladder, then its bowels, then skittered into hole No. 34, Lampe's magic number. He grinned. He'd go home with $100. When state Rep. Bill Stoltze, a Republican from Chugiak, pushed through a bill in 2004 to clarify state rules for gambling with animals, the scene at Tudor Road Bingo was not what he envisioned. He sponsored the bill to protect a rat race booth at the Alaska State Fair, run to raise money for charity by the Elks, of which he is a member. Tudor Road Bingo just got lucky. "I don't generally favor expansion of gambling," he said. "But I grew up here. I went to my first state fair in the mid-'60s. Rat race is a tradition that nonprofits have come to depend on." The state attorney general's office had discovered "animal classics," like the rat race, were in sketchy legal territory because they weren't specifically provided for in the state's gaming laws, Stoltze explained. He developed a provision that grandfathered in animal gambling operators with permits before 2002. "It was done for the Palmer Elks," he said. "But, when you do grandfathering, it's tough to just grandfather one group." The legislation benefited several other animal classic permit holders, including the Soldotna Veterans of Foreign Wars, which operates a "chicken scat" game where bets are placed on where a chicken relieves itself, and Anchorage Bucs Baseball and Fairbanks Adult Amateur Baseball League, which hold rat race permits and contract with Tudor Road Bingo. The Palmer Elks usually raise about $10,000 to $12,000 a year, giving money to youth sports, Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. The bingo rat race pulls in about $80,000 a year for its permit holders. Though he didn't lobby for the legislation, Tudor Road Bingo's owner, Jack Powers, wasn't going to let the special permits go unused. "We wanted to do something a little different," said Powers, as he cruised the bingo parlor in a wide brimmed hat that matched his cappuccino-colored suit. "This is just another gambling opportunity." Gerbils run the wheel 60 times a night, seven days a week. On average the game pulls in $2,200 and pays out $1,600 in a day. Powers pays 20 percent of the earnings to the permittees, which is between $60 and $80 nightly. By contrast, bingo, the main event, pulls in $15,000 and pays out $10,000 nightly. Tudor Road Bingo hosts nearly 300 people a night for bingo. Over the year or so it's been operating, the rat race has developed a following of its own, with about 45 to 60 gamblers every evening, Powers said. Lampe said he chose Tudor Road Bingo over other bingo halls specifically for the gerbil gaming. "It makes it more exciting with the rat race," he said. Tudor Road Bingo has run promotions with bagpipers, strippers and politicians in an effort to get new people through the door. Animal gambling, unlike bingo and pull-tabs, can be advertised on television, broadening his promotional options, Powers said. State law exempts "animal classics" from rules that prohibit advertising bingo and pull-tabs. The gerbils, oblivious to promotional considerations, spend most of their days snoozing in three warm tanks, snuggled together in nests of wood shavings. "All the gerbils are female. The boys are lazy. We learned that the hard way," Powers said. "It's not good business when you have a slow gerbil." The gerbils become accustomed to their tank mates. To avoid turf wars, handlers must take care not to place a member of one tank into another tank. When they remove a gerbil from a tank, they mark the tank with a tennis ball as a safety measure. "They'll fight," said Rick Tuttle, director of operations at Tudor Road Bingo, "They've drawn blood before." Nationally, gerbil gambling is on the decline, according to Jackie Vergerio, animals in entertainment specialist with Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who monitors the animal gaming industry. The practice is legal in all 50 states, but seems to be falling out of fashion, she said. PETA opposes it, calling it cruel. "We get calls pretty frequently from people going to fairs and carnivals," she said. "These games are terrifying for the animals, with all the noise and bright light." Tuttle disagreed, saying the animals were well cared for. Each was acclimated to the noise slowly before being put on the wheel. They've even seen a vet for worms. After a while, the female gerbils get so used to the wheel, even they don't run, he said. The bingo hall gives "retired" gerbils away as pets. Such will be the future for a white gerbil named Evelyn who took its turn after Lil' Stubby, spinning on the wheel like a professional ballet dancer. It kept its head trained on one spot as its little haunches turned. When its body twisted too far from the direction its head was facing, it took small sideways steps to compensate. Nothing --not hooting, not tapping acrylic nails, not stomping -- could get it to move. Finally, its exasperated handler decided it would be Evelyn's last whirl. "Hold your bets," she said, lifting the tiny animal from the wheel. "Changing gerbil." Daily News reporter Julia O'Malley can be reached at jomalley@adn.com or 257-4325.</td></tr></table>  Rat race draws fans at Tudor Road Bingo A gerbil used in the rat race checks out a visitor to Tudor Road Bingo recently. In between regular sessions of bingo, during the break, customers move over to the rat race for a change of pace.

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:01 pm

<a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/19 ... lone_scam/' target='_blank'>I just lost whatever respect I had for cable companies</a>, including respect I didn't even know I had. <!--emo&

--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (El Reg)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Terror phone clone scam exposed Rogers bill probe unveils abuse By John Leyden Published Monday 19th December 2005 15:28 GMT Affiliates of terrorist organization Hezbollah cloned the mobiles of senior executives of Canadian operator Rogers Communications, including chief exec Ted Rogers. Even though the firm had technology in place to trigger alerts over suspicious departures in call activity, Rogers staffers were too frightened of inconveniencing bosses to do anything about the fraud, Canadian paper the Globe and Mail <a href='http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... echnology/' target='_blank'>reports</a>. The scam only came to light after law professor Susan Drummond challenged a mobile phone of C$12,000 she received after her return from a month-long trip to Israel. The monster mobile bill listed more than 300 calls made in August to foreign countries including Libya, Pakistan, Russia and Syria. Drummond was told she'd have to foot the bill despite her protests than she'd never previously made overseas calls using the account. Her normal bill was around C$75. Rogers' continued insistence that the bill nevertheless had to be paid prompted Drummond and her partner, Harry Gefen, to begin investigating. That probe hit pay dirt when Gefen tape recorded an interview with a Rogers security manager, Cindy Hopper, who was speaking at a conference on telecoms fraud in Toronto in September. Unaware that Gefen was an aggrieved punter, Hopper told him that terrorists groups linked to had Hezbollah repeatedly cloned the mobile phones of senior Rogers execs in 1997 and 1998. Senior Rogers' execs were perfect targets for fraud since staffers could not be sure if calls were legitimate or not. Fear of inconveniencing their superiors over something that turned out to be a false alarm prevented workers from taking any action. "They were cloning the senior executives repeatedly, because everyone was afraid to cut off Ted Rogers' phone," Hopper told Gefen, in an interview that recognised the cleverness of the social engineering trick. "They were using actually a pretty brilliant psychology. Nobody wants to cut off Ted Rogers' phone or any people that are directly under Ted Rogers, so they took their scanners to our building... Nobody wants to shut off Ted. Even if he is calling Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait." During the interview, Hopper confirmed that Rogers had a system in place similar to those used by banks to flag up suspicious card transactions that was capable of spotting fraud-in-progress. The information obtained by her partner enabled Drummond to file a small court claim against Rogers Wireless alleging that it "profiting from crime" by failing to shut down stolen mobile phones. Initially Rogers resisted this action arguing that Drummond was responsible for calls made on the account prior to reporting that her phone was been misused. However after the story broke over the weekend, Rogers CEO Ted Rogers intervened and offered to write off the debt along with paying Gefen and Drummond's out-of-pocket expenses. Drummond also extracted from the chief exec to a promise to attend their house and hear their concerns over a cup of tea. "I'm glad that we got somewhere with this fight, but it shouldn't take a law professor and a technology journalist to make them behave like decent corporate citizens," Drummond <a href='http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... /National/' target='_blank'>told</a> the Globe and Mail. ®</td></tr></table>

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