Little blue fakes

Given the fact that these were counterfeit, I wonder if they would have...um...had an effect, if you know what I mean.

French customs officials have intercepted a shipment of 224,000 fake Viagra and Cialis anti-impotence pills worth 2.4 million euros ($3.5 million), the Budget Ministry said Monday.

The copies of the bestselling drugs were found on December 18 during a search at the French capital's main air hub at Roissy, in a freight cargo on its way to Brazil from India.

"Branded Powergra and Erectalis, each box contained, in fact, four tablets in the characteristic shape and color of Viagra or Cialis pills," Budget Minister Eric Woerth's office, which is also in charge of customs, said in a statement.

Now, like I said, I have no idea whether or not these pills actually would have worked, so I guess there are either a lot of disappointed or relieved Brazilian men, depending.

Stuck at home

When I was a kid, I always hated going back top school after Christmas vacation, but I guess I didn't hatye it as much as this kid:

A 10-year-old Mexican boy glued his hand to his bed to avoid going back to school after the Christmas break, authorities said Monday.

"I thought if I was glued to the bed, they couldn't make me go to school," the boy, Diego, told AFP. "I didn't want to go, the holidays were so much fun."

"I remembered my mom had bought a very strong glue," he said of the industrial strength shoe glue he used to stick his hand to the bed's metal headboard, where he stayed stuck for two hours.

His mother Sandra Palacios was unable to free him and called paramedics and police to help. Diego watched cartoons while they worked to unglue him, eventually using a spray to dissolve the chemical adhesive.

And after all that, yes, he still had to go back to school anyway. I wonder, did he think he was just going to stay there, stuck to his bed forever?

A tale of two drivers

They say that a driver's license is a privilege, not a right. And you can lose that privilege for various infractions. Let's take a look at a couple of extermes.

First, we have Old Man Leadfoot:

A new law meant to help crack down on young Canadian street racers in their souped up cars has nabbed an octogenarian in his Oldsmobile.

The 85-year-old man is one of 2,300 drivers across Ontario to be charged under new legislation, designed to combat "street racing, stunts and contests", since it came into effect three months ago -- and he's the oldest.

The man was pulled over after allegedly driving 161 kilometers per hour (100 mph) this week on a main highway north of Toronto, where the speed limit is 100 km/h, Ontario Provincial Police said.

"It really doesn't matter the age of the person or whether they're trying to race another car," OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley said on Friday. "The consequences of the crashes and the laws of physics are always in effect."

Under the street racing legislation, a person is charged if they are driving 50 km/h more than the posted speed limit.

"Street racing was probably a bad title for it, extreme driving probably would have been better," Woolley noted.

Under the legislation, the 85-year-old could face a minimum C$2,000 ($2,000) fine. His license has been suspended and his car impounded for a week.

Woolley said that, in the case of the 85-year-old, a police officer driving in a marked car saw the Oldsmobile and tried to get the driver's attention, honking her horn and waving.

"He flew past her," said Woolley, adding he was going about 140 km/h at the time -- and then speeded up.

When he finally stopped, the man told the officer he was going to the bank and planned to go shopping, Woolley said.

"When she informed him that his car was being impounded for a week, he said: 'God damn, you're not taking my car, are ya?'" Woolley said, adding the man later apologized for swearing, and the officer drove him to the bank.

Ah, the famous Canadian politeness. I think a lot of cops around here would have driven him to jail, not the bank.

Anyway, at the opposite extreme, we have Suzy Slowpoke:

A woman banned from driving for seven days after traveling at speeds of less than 10mph on the motorway told Reuters on Friday: "that road's my nemesis." Stephanie Cole, 58, of Fishponds, Bristol, straddled the hard shoulder and inside lane as she dawdled along a stretch of the M32 near her home last August.

In the back window of the car was a sign which said: "I don't do fast, please overtake".

Cole admitted driving without reasonable consideration at North Avon Magistrates' Court on Friday and was told she would have to take another test at the end of the ban.

"I didn't intend getting onto the motorway, but all of a sudden I found myself on it and I could not get off," she told Reuters after the hearing.

"I just panicked. I hate that particular stretch of road and I avoid it normally. It is my nemesis."

I think the moral of the stories is that it's best to stick pretty close to the speed limit wherever you are. That, and old people and women shouldn't be allowed to drive.

That's pretty friggin' low

I guess the only thing that could make this guy a bigger dirtbag would be if he'd tried to take some candy from the victim, too.

A man has been charged with sneaking into a toddler's bedroom and stealing $20 from a piggy bank while the 2-year-old girl slept. Authorities say DNA evidence linked Ryan A. Mueller, 30, of Sheboygan Falls to the crime that occurred Aug. 10 in Wilson.

Authorities say the girl's mother was in another room with another child when she saw a light turn on in her 2-year-old daughter's room. She walked into the girl's bedroom and saw a man shaking the piggy bank as the girl slept.

The man fled before police arrived, stealing the money but leaving the piggy bank. Authorities say blood was found on a window blind where the burglar had forced his way into the home.

Mueller was charged Thursday with felony burglary, which carries a penalty of up to 9 1/2 years in prison. His bond was set at $10,000, and a preliminary hearing was set for next Wednesday.

I'm guessing that since he had to resort to stealing from a little girl's piggy bank to get a little scratch, he's probably going to be stuck in jail.

Bad news, good news

Man, I can only hope to be this inconvenienced someday:

A lucky couple expecting to cash in their winning Michigan Lottery ticket became a bit peeved when a store clerk turned down their request.

Bad Axe gas station and convenience store owner Eli Kabban said the man and woman showed up Wednesday morning with what they thought was a $150 winning ticket they'd bought Friday.

They complained when the clerk told them they would have to collect their winnings in Lansing, the state capital, 150 miles away.

And why couldn't they cash in on their hundred and fifty bucks right then and there?

Kabban said he took the couple into his office and explained the ticket was actually worth $250,000. He says they were "in shock" at the news.

I think they'll be happy to make that 150 mile drive now, even with gas prices being pretty high these days. They can afford it now, the lucky bastards.

The New Year's first 10 random songs post

1. Adam and the Ants - "Goody Two Shoes"
2. Pavement - "Unfair"
3. James - "Laid"
4. Roy Orbison - "In Dreams"
5. Buzzcocks - "What Do I Get?"
6. The Velvet Underground - "Sunday Morning"
7. Peter and Gordon - "World Without Love"
8. Joy Division - "Atmosphere"
9. Poor Righteous Teachers - "Shakiyla"
10. Jim O'Rourke - "Something Big"

Previous random songs can be found here and here.

"Fake excitement while lying down, without smiling"

I'm no lawyer, but I don't really see how this lawsuit has any merit. Once you see the clip, I think you'll agree.

A model who says she has worked hard to maintain a wholesome image has filed a $5 million lawsuit complaining that a jewelry company's video advertisement in which she writhes and moans looks pornographic.

The commercial, seen on the Internet in a clip entitled "Rock Her World," shows a woman wearing blue lacy lingerie and a diamond necklace while moaning and stroking her face and neck. It ends with the Web address for the jewelry company, Szul.com.

The 37-year-old woman claims in her lawsuit that she did not "consent to or authorize the use of her likeness, picture, image or name to simulate a female having an orgasm or otherwise experiencing sexual pleasure."

[...]

The plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, says in court papers she won the role in the commercial for Szul Jewelry Inc. in November. She says the idea was that an average guy would get a woman excited by putting a necklace on her.

Three-fourths of the filming of the commercial, shot Nov. 9 by Q2 Entertainment in a studio in Queens, involved a comedic story line, but the woman later was told to sit and feign excitement for a few seconds while the young man put the necklace on her, the lawsuit says.

After that scene, the court papers say, the director told her to fake excitement while lying down, without smiling.

"He asked her to keep repeating the action until he thought he got the most authentic looking film piece," they say.

Now, maybe she thought the commercial was going to feature more of the "comedic storyline" than it does, but what did she think they meant by the last part? I think she knew pretty well. Know why?

MATURE CONTENT WARNING! FOR REALS!


Oh, yeah, she knew damn well what that director was asking her to act out. And she did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

Update: Great minds Morons think alike.

Do as I say, not as I do

To borrow a line from Jeff Goldstein, because of the HYPOCRISY!

The head of the Portuguese agency responsible for enforcing a new ban on smoking in public was seen lighting up at a New Year party, breaking the law on the first day it came into effect.

Antonio Nunes, president of Portugal's food standards agency, was photographed by the daily Diario de Noticias smoking a cigar at a casino on the outskirts of Lisbon.

Now, he claims that he didn't know that the ban, which covers places like bars and restaurants, applied to casinos as well. That may be true, but if so, doesn't that sort of raise some questions about his competence?

Because I'm evil

I think I'll get myself one of these dealies. Then, I'll start hanging around the confessionals at local Catholic churches.

Hey, I got the idea from their own commercial, where they say, "You'll never miss a word...at church!" It's probably good for hanging out in the lobby at a shrink's office, too. I thought of that one on my own.

Happy 2008

Ah, a new year is upon us. A chance for a fresh start. Let us all hope that, at this time next year, we don't have quite so much we'd rather forget.

New Year's Eve

I hope you're all out having fun with friends and loved ones. I feel a cold coming on, so I didn't think going out and drinking heavily was a good idea. Driving home hung over the next day didn't sound very appealing, either, so I decided to sit this one out here at home.

Have a good time, but stay safe. There's bound to be a lot of idiots out on the roads tonight.

Bickering

Couples argue about the weirdest things. Like, for instance, this Washington man and his girlfriend:

A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.

A police report said the man, 26, wanted his dog to join them in the bathroom, but the woman objected on Thursday night.

The woman told her boyfriend that if the dog doesn't stay out, she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. He replied that maybe his next girlfriend would appreciate the dog more, and called her a name.

The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder after the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.

I want to know why the guy was so insistent on having his dog in the bathroom with them while they showered. On second thought, no, I really don't.

I don't think so

I'm going to go ahead and take a pass on this new line of menswear:

Hello Kitty is no sexist.

The cute cuddly white cat from Japan's Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday.

"We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion," he said.

The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations, according to Sanrio.

The usual bubble-headed shape of Hello Kitty was slightly changed for a more rugged, cool look to appeal to men in their teens and early 20s.

For example, a picture of the cat on a $36 black T-shirt has the words, "hello kitty," instead of the usual dots for the eyes and nose.

If you click on the link to the article, you'll also see that the "rugged, cool" Hello Kitty has a super-manly bow on its head. Not really my style, that.

Update: Perhaps I was a little hasty. (Via SeeDubya.)

Shocking news: prison life unpleasant

You know, I'm sure it sucks to be in prison for a number of reasons, but um, isn't that sort of the way it's supposed to be?

Japanese prisoners dislike their unstylish pajamas, feel their cells are too small and want better meals, a government survey has found.

In a survey of inmates who left prison in the year to March, almost 70 percent of respondents who shared cells with others said they had too little space, while 44 percent of those in solitary confinement said their cells were too small, the justice ministry said in a report issued Wednesday.

Over half said their meals were bad and having supper at 5 p.m. was too early, while almost 75 percent wished for more bread with their meals rather than rice or noodles.

The former inmates also found their vertically striped grayish pajamas to be unfashionable. Close to half said the colors were bad, and 44 percent said the design was ugly.

Boo-friggin'-hoo. Now, I've never been to the joint, but based on the teevee shows and movies I've seen about prison, ugly pajamas, early dinner, and a lack of bread would seem to be the least of my worries were I incarcerated.

Oh, and prison cells, to the best of my knowledge, usually aren't designed to be spacious.

Extracurricular activities

For many college students, money is usually tight. There's tuition, books, rent, food, and, most importantly, beer to pay for. Usually, this means students also have to work, at least part time. These guys had a different idea:

Two college students who claimed they were trying to raise tuition money through armed robberies got a tough lesson in court Thursday.

A Hamilton County common pleas judge sentenced Andrew Butler and Christopher Avery to 20-year prison terms and told them dire financial straits don't justify breaking the law.

"If you get to that point, robbing people isn't the answer. It never has been and it never will be," Judge Steven Martin said.

Butler, 20, and Avery, 22, apologized to their families and their victims before Martin imposed the sentence.

The men pleaded guilty to two charges of aggravated robbery and six charges of kidnapping.

Butler, who attended the University of Toledo, told Martin in an earlier hearing that tuition increases outpaced his scholarships and financial aid. Avery, a student at the University of Cincinnati, said he couldn't pay for summer classes after an internship fell through.

The tuition at those schools must have been pretty steep, indeed, since they made off with $130,000 during that bank robbery. Or, maybe they got tired of drinking cheap, domestic beer.

The dead have risen...

...and, apparently, they're spreading Christmas cheer. Well, no, not really:

Even in death, Chet Fitch is a card. Fitch, known for his sense of humor, died in October at age 88 but gave his friends and family a start recently: Christmas cards, 34 of them, began arriving — written in his hand with a return address of "Heaven."

The greeting read: "I asked Big Guy if I could sneak back and send some cards. At first he said no; but at my insistence he finally said, 'Oh well, what the heaven, go ahead but don't (tarry) there.' Wish I could tell you about things here but words cannot explain.

"Better get back as Big Guy said he stretched a point to let me in the first time, so I had better not press my luck. I'll probably be seeing you (some sooner than you think). Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Chet Fitch"

As the article explains, this was a gag that he and his barber had been working on for the past twenty years, but it's still a pretty cool gesture. After the initial shock wore off, it sounds like they really appreciated it, too.

Merry Xmas to all!

If you've been naughty this year, I hope Santa doesn't track you down, but if you've been nice, I hope he leaves you some good swag.

Generosity

So much of the time, I post about idiot criminals, prostitution, and drugs around here, but since it's Christmas Eve, I thought I'd post something nice instead:

Salvation Army Major Richard Hathorn knew when and where it would happen, but he still doesn't know who slipped the $1,000 bill into one of the charity's Christmas kettles.

Each Christmas since 1978, someone has covertly stuffed one of the big bills into a kettle in this northern West Virginia university city.

This year, Hathorn says, the donor alerted the Salvation Army that the tradition would continue with a deposit between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at the Wal-Mart at University Town Center.

During the appointed period, Hathorn carefully scanned the faces of people dropping money into the kettle, but he didn't spot anyone with a bill bearing the likeness of President Grover Cleveland.

He found it later, wrapped inside a $1 bill.

I think it's amazing that someone does this, year in and year out, and anonymously, to boot. Either they're not looking for recognition or they're a bankrobber who's been donating from their ill-gotten gains for nearly thirty years. That sounds somewhat implausible, though.

My favorite Christmas carol

Christmas songs probably shouldn't come with content warnings, but this one really does. Seriously, don't press play on this if you or the people around you are offended by profanity. And if you're a fan of the whole multicultural tolerance thing, well, you should probably take a pass, too. Really.



Anyway, I hope you and yours have a Merry f*ckin' Christmas!

Priorities

Apparently, the Japanese government doesn't have any really pressing business to take care of:

A debate over flying saucers has kept Japanese politicians occupied for much of this week, ensnaring top officials and drawing a promise from the defense minister to send out the army if Godzilla goes on a rampage.

"There are debates over what makes UFOs fly, but it would be difficult to say it's an encroachment of air space," Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a news conference Thursday.

"If Godzilla were to show up, it would be a dispatch for disaster relief."

His remarks came after the top government spokesman was asked Tuesday about an opposition politician's demand that the government confirm the existence of unidentified flying objects.

"Personally, I definitely believe they exist," chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura said, drawing laughter from reporters.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda took a more guarded stance later in the day, saying he has yet to confirm their existence.

The debate started Tuesday when the cabinet issued a statement in response to the opposition lawmaker's question, saying it could not confirm any cases of UFO sightings.

If nothing else, I think this gives us some valuable insight as to what a Dennis Kucinich administration might look like. Sheesh.

Can I ax you why you're naked?

I'm guessing this guy was high, or crazy, or a little bit of both:

A 52-year-old man has been arrested after he attacked Crawford County sheriff's deputies with an ax and then barricaded himself in his home.

Prairie du Chien Police Chief Michael King says a special operations team that included members of his department attempted to negotiate with the man for about three hours. Then, the naked man ran screaming out of his home about 7:30 p.m. Thursday and charged law enforcement officers.

King says the man was shot with an electronic stun gun and two 12-gauge less lethal impact rounds.

The article doesn't mention exactly where the naked wacko was shot with the impact rounds, but it does say that he wasn't seriously hurt.

Bus-ted

I have a strong feeling that this bus driver is out of a job:

A Detroit school bus driver taking children to class is accused of trying to buy sex from an undercover officer posing as a streetwalker. Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans didn't identify the 30-year-old driver.

Evans said the man stopped twice Wednesday to talk with the officer posing as a prostitute. The first time he had one child aboard and the second time he had four children, ages 5 to 9 on the bus.

The sheriff said the driver gave the officer a paper with his phone number and told her he wanted to rendezvous after delivering the children. Instead, deputies arrested him and delivered the children themselves to McKenny Elementary School.

Dude, if you're going to go trolling for hoes, that's one thing, but at least drop the kiddies off, first. I bet their parents were just thrilled when they heard about this.

Found money

Okay, this story seems really weird to me for a number of reasons.

It wasn't until a store manager and others helped a man round up money blowing around an auto parts store parking that something started to seem fishy.

"We were all joking with him, 'Where's the dye packs?'" said Amy McCaulley, manager of the AutoZone store in Boulder City, told the Las Vegas Sun for a Wednesday report. She referred to devices that banks bundle with cash in a robbery to mark bills as stolen.

When the man gunned his Jeep Commander out of the AutoZone parking lot without even a thank you, McCaulley noted the Arizona license plate number and called authorities.

Boulder City police stopped the vehicle on U.S. 93 heading toward Hoover Dam, questioned the 49-year-old driver and a female passenger, and confiscated a stash of cash they found hidden in the spare tire beneath the rear of the vehicle.

Police tallied the haul at $538,780.

"You got to love the criminal mind," Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said of the Friday seizure, which investigators believe was drug proceeds. "Sometimes they make it easy."

Police did not release the names of the driver or passenger, both Mexican citizens whom authorities said were not arrested. The man told officers he had no idea there was money in the spare tire under the vehicle, which he said he and the passenger borrowed from a Phoenix resident to go on vacation.

Let's look at this from a few angles.

First of all, when the cops stopped them, they had to have known that they had this cash (but maybe not just how much) in the vehicle, since they'd been chasing some of it around the parking lot earlier.

Secondly, who knowingly lends a car with more than half a million dollars on board to someone so they can drive it around on vacation? Either the owner didn't know the cash was there, or he/she was counting on them to get it somewhere, where someone else would then get it. Whatever it was, I guess their story checked out, since the cops let them go.

Like I said, weird.

Bad news, good news

I drove for nearly thirty miles in heavy afternoon traffic to the County Registrar's office, only to find out the information I was looking for (campaign spending in last month's local city council elections) isn't available there. You can imagine how absolutely thrilled I was to find out about that.

On the other hand, I got all my Christmas shopping finished on the way home, and I only had to stop at two stores (neither of which was at a crowded mall), so the day wasn't a total bust.

Ho ho oh!

Every year around this time, millions of Christmas packages are delivered. It looks like one Connecticut woman just couldn't wait for hers:

Santa Claus says that a woman who sat on his lap was naughty, not nice.

A Santa at the Danbury Fair mall said the woman groped him.

"The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted," police Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said of the weekend complaint.

Sandrama Lamy, 33, of Danbury, was charged with sexual assault and breach of peace. She was released on a promise to appear in court on Jan. 3.

Police quickly found and identified Lamy because the woman was described as being on crutches, said Capt. Bob Myles.

A call seeking comment from Lamy was answered by a recording Tuesday morning. A woman later called back and said: "It's a false report and I don't have any idea."

Police did not give the name of the disconcerted Santa, but they said he is 65 and felt badly because children were waiting to see him. "He was apparently shocked and embarrassed by the whole incident," Myles said.

Offering milk and cookies is the more traditional way to show Santa your appreciation, and while in the song, mommy kisses Santa Claus, I don't remember any lyrics about her groping him, too.

Bikini boy

Hmmmm...sounds like somebody's either kind of nuts or lost a bet:

A Singapore national serviceman who sashayed into a lift early one morning wearing only a pink bikini has been handed a day's jail and a S$11,000 ($7,529) fine by a court in the city-state, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

Tan Wen Zhong, 21, admitted to five charges, including "outraging the modesty" of the woman who shared the lift with him and "fraudulent possession of women's underwear," Singapore's Straits Times reported.

Seriously, it sounds like something somebody would do having lost a bet, but no, that isn't it...

In mitigation, Tan's lawyer said his client had been badly affected by his parents' divorce during his formative years.

Thank God I don't come from a broken home.

Ho ho ho, where's my dough?

St. Nick doesn't sound too jolly in this story, but I can't say I blame him.

One dry cleaner now knows how to get on Santa's naughty list: lose his suit.

After Christmas last year, Max Weisberg took his red velvet suit to Royal Cleaners, which accidentally gave it to someone else. The family-owned business acknowledged the mixup and offered to pay him half the value of the nearly $400 suit, said Jean Hwang, who said she's the owner's sister.

Now, if you went to pick up your clothes at the dry cleaner and found, when you got home, that they'd given you a Santa suit, wouldn't you take it back? Maybe not if you were a fat guy looking to make some extra cash around Christmas, but otherwise, I don't really see why anybody would keep it.

Weisberg, 54, a civilian employee of the Navy, took the business to small claims court and won a $396.50 judgment to cover the suit and court costs.

But he had to collect the money himself. So Weisberg decided to do it with flair. His wife's public-relations firm notified the media that he would drop by the shop.

Donning a new red velvet suit with soft white trim and shiny black boots, a jolly Weisberg burst into the dry cleaners Monday, television cameras rolling.

"Merry Christmas! Have you been a good girl?" he asked a smiling Hwang. She promised to put the check in the mail to Weisberg the next day.

That's probably a good idea. After all, you don't want a guy like that coming down your chimney, all angry at you.

This isn't Country Kitchen Buffet*

I think it's about time to take away Great Grandpa's car keys.

A 100-year-old Japanese man who was arrested after his car hit an umbrella held by a child said driving was his ticket to avoiding senility.

"Driving helps me from going senile because it keeps me alert," police in Sendai, northern Japan, quoted the driver, Masaru Hori, as saying.

The incident marked the second time Hori had been caught for driving without a license since it was revoked after a hit-and-run accident in August, police said. He was also involved in a similar accident last month, they said.

Um, maybe it's just me, but it doesn't exactly sound like the whole staying alert thing is really working out.

*The title refers to this South Park episode.

The League of Uninformed Voters

On Friday afternoon, a woman called and asked if I'd be interested in participating in a survey on energy policy. I forget which organization she said she was from. Anyway, since I had nothing better to do, I said yes.

First, she asked if I read the news every day in a newspaper or online. I said that I did. (I read my news online, of course. The sports page is the only part of the paper I read. That helps to keep the blood pressure down, seeing as how I rarely find myself screaming about liberal nonsense being written about baseball or college football.)

Next, she asked about the frequency with which I vote. I told her that I've voted in every election around here since I turned eighteen.

Then, she asked me about the highest level of education I'd finished. I told her I had a Bachelor's Degree. She promptly thanked me for my time and hung up.

I guess I wasn't part of the demographic they were looking for. Which, apparently, includes people who don't pay much attention to current events, vote infrequently, and don't have a college education, but still want to share their opinions on energy policy. Oh well.

Fire trucks, fire water don't mix

When you get drunk and get behind the wheel, the last thing you want to do is call attention to yourself. It looks like this guy found that out the hard way.

A fire chief in Penobscot County has been charged with being drunk behind the wheel while driving a fire truck with its lights on and its sirens going.

Russell Banks of Burlington was arrested around midnight Saturday after a resident complained that Banks was racing a fire tanker by his home even though there was no fire in the area.

Banks, 34, is chief of the Triangle Fire Department, a volunteer association that provides service for Burlington, Lowell and Grand Falls Township.

When a Penobscot County sheriff's deputy responded, he located the truck and noticed that Banks smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes. A blood alcohol test showed Banks was at twice the legal limit.

The article doesn't mention whether or not he's been fired. I would hope so.

Killer Ninjas plague London

Well, no, not really:

The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.

However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

"In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons," Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.

"We recognize it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."

This is a bad idea. Because when you outlaw samurai swords, only outlaws will have samurai swords. And collectors and martial arts enthusiasts, too, I guess. Which is a little less problematic, unless some of those collectors and martial arts enthusiasts are also outlaws. Yeah.

Driven to succeed

When you find yourself in a stick situation, it's usually a good idea to use the resources you have at hand to get out of it. This time, not so much:

A woman suspected in a burglary found a convenient getaway: the squad car of the officers who arrested her.

McKenzie Schafer, 27, of Minneapolis, was arrested and handuffed Sunday by officers investigating the theft of a laptop from the North St. Paul Athletic Association building. Court papers saidwhen officers went back into the building after putting Schafer in the back of their squad, she got into the front and drove away.

She was later caught in front of a sandwich shop by officers in another squad car. Schafer told police she took the squad to help look for the men who burglarized the building.

Shockingly, they didn't give this good Samaritan a commendation for helping with their investigation. They didn't even release her from custody. Some gratitude, huh?

Accidents will happen

What's worse than shooting yourself in the foot? This guy found out:

A Scottsdale man inadvertently shot himself in the buttocks Thursday morning. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Daniel Leatherman, 26, heard a disturbance outside his apartment and saw a man he knew fighting with a cab driver.

Leatherman told police that the man, Cody Nunn, 25, had assaulted him in the past, so he grabbed his gun and went outside.

Leatherman told police that he accidentally dropped the gun while hiding it behind his back and shot himself in the derriere.

On the bright side, now I guess he's got a funny story to tell at parties. "Say, did I ever tell you about the time I shot myself in the ass?" Sparkling conversation.

Chug-a-lug

Yes, the duty free shop is a good place to get top shelf booze on the cheap, but this probably isn't the best way to enjoy it:

A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo.

Instead, he chugged the bottle down — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

Before you go getting all judgmental on the guy, who among us hasn't found themselves in a similar state of intoxication? I mean, sure, it usually takes three or four hours and a wild party, but...well, I can't think of a way to end this sentence that makes any sense.

Audacity

This guy is probably going to have a hard time professing his innocence at trial:

A man accused of stealing a car in front of a police officer and television cameras in North Carolina has been arrested in Virginia. Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue said Tuesday that 38-year-old Anthony Wayne Williams was arrested overnight in New Kent County, Virginia.

Television footage from Durham's WTVD-TV shows a man getting into a 2004 Honda Accord on Monday while the female owner talked with a police officer nearby. The officer ran to the car when it started to move, slapped the hood and told the man to stop. But he drove away.

Now, you can argue (persuasively) that Mr. Williams isn't very smart, but I'll say this...the man has some big balls.

Jiminy Christmas!

In this day and age of political correctness, identity politics, and professional victimhood, I can hardly believe this. And in the UK, of all places.

Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims joined Britain's equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians.

"It's time to stop being daft about Christmas. It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be star of the show," said Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

"Let's stop being silly about a Christian Christmas," he said, referring to a tendency to play down the traditional celebrations of the birth of Christ for fear of offending minorities in multicultural Britain.

I almost despair at the fact that I see something like this and feel like I'm looking at some kind of revolutionary idea. Read the whole thing.

That special ambiance

You know, there are times when I just don't get other cultures. I guess this would definitely be one of those times.

In India, death is a part of life — and, at one restaurant in western India, a part of lunch. The bustling New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmadabad is famous for its milky tea, its buttery rolls, and the graves between the tables.

It's a spot where old men page through newspapers and argue politics in the morning while young couples share candlelit meals and hold hands at night. That the candles sit atop graves only adds to the ambiance.

Krishan Kutti Nair has helped run the restaurant built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery for close to four decades, but he doesn't know who is buried in the cafe floor. Customers seem to like the graves, which resemble small cement coffins, and that's enough for him.

"The graveyard is good luck," Nair said one recent afternoon after the lunch rush. "Our business is better because of the graveyard."

The graves are painted green, stand about shin high, and every day the manager decorates each of them with a single dried flower. They're scattered randomly across the restaurant — one up front next to the cash register, three in the middle next to a table for two, four along the wall near the kitchen.

The waiters know the floor plan like a bus driver knows his route, and they've mastered the delicate dance of shimmying between graves with a tray of hot tea in each hand.

"We're used to it," said waiter Kayyum Sheikh. "There's nothing odd about it."

Okay, Kayyum, if you say say so. Me, I'll stick to the kind of restaurants we have around here, none of which features dead people. That I know of, anyway.

More than a mailbox

I don't know if my neighbor across the street has had problems with people stealing his mail, but he sure as hell doesn't seem to be messing around. Wow.

Is that a fishing reel in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

Nope, it turns out it was a fishing reel, and he probably wasn't happy to see a cop.

Police said a man was arrested after an officer found him in a store's bathroom with a $700 fishing reel stuffed into his pants. An employee of the West Marine store in the Hillsmere Shopping Center alerted an officer on Monday afternoon to two suspicious men.

Police say Timothy Hamilton, 37, of Glen Burnie, locked himself in the restroom, where the officer found the fishing reel in his pants.

Hamilton was charged with theft and possession of drug paraphernalia after the officer found a glass drug-smoking pipe under the seat of the Jeep that he had been driving.

Huh. You wouldn't think that crackheads do much fishing, but there you go.

(And yes, I know that he was probably going to try to sell the reel to buy more drugs.)

A date which will live in infamy

(Image via Pearl Harbor.com.)

"This was REALLY not kosher"

I can't claim to know a lot about Judaism, but even I know that this is very, very wrong:

A grocery store in Manhattan made a food faux pas, advertising hams as "Delicious for Chanukah."

Chanukah, an alternate spelling for Hanukkah, is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening, and hams as well as pork and other products from pigs can't be eaten under Jewish dietary laws.

A woman who saw the mistake over the weekend at the Balducci's store on 14th Street took pictures of the signs and posted them on her blog.

Jennifer Barton, director of marketing, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the signs were changed as soon as the error was noted.

How was it that nobody noticed "the error" as soon as the signs showed up at the store? I mean, "No pork allowed" is pretty much the most basic rule when it comes to the Jewish dietary laws, right?

Twins for sale

Having trouble coming up with the perfect present for that special someone this Christmas? Well, how about a pair of used funbags?

Porn star Mary Carey, who shot to fame by running for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled plans on Tuesday to auction off her autographed, recently removed breast implants for charity.

Carey said the size 36-D implants were taken out two weeks ago and replaced with larger 36-DDDs and while under anesthesia she realized they could be used to raise money for breast cancer research.

"The doctors asked me what I wanted to do with them and I said, 'You know what, I'm going to keep them and try to sell them. Because my grandmother had breast cancer," Carey told Reuters in an interview.

Well, at least it's for a good cause.

The 27-year-old star of such adult films as "Boobsville Sorority Girls" and "Big Breasted Beauties" will be seen in the upcoming VH1 reality show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" and said that during taping she kicked addictions to the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and alcohol.

Did you ever notice that most of the time, when a show has the word "celebrity" in its title, it usually denotes a production featuring people like porn stars, losing contestants from reality shows, and washed-up sitcom actors or pop stars? And this one sounds like more of the same. Sorry about the tangent. Back to the auction...

"Now that I'm sober I wanted a new physical state to go along with my new mental state," Carey said. "I thought the auction would be a great way to spread some holiday cheer and make sure someone out there would have a Mary Mary Christmas."

The autographed implants have been placed on eBay and Carey, whose real name is Mary Cook, said she planned to donate some 90 percent of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

She intends to use the rest of the money on medical bills for her mother, who suffered major injuries after jumping off a four-story building in 2006.

"I'm actually overall very anti-plastic surgery," Carey said. "I watched my mom go through 11 surgeries (for her injuries) and it's like, for me to voluntarily put myself through that, the only right thing to do is make money and donate it to charity."

I don't really see how someone who is "very anti-plastic surgery," keeps getting bigger and bigger fake boobs, but perhaps that's just a failing of my imagination.

A whackjob and his money are soon parted

Apparently, this couple knew a group of the most gullible people in America.

A man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for bilking friends and family out of more than $800,000 by convincing them that his wife was a government agent who could arrange to have their medical problems diagnosed by satellite imaging.

Brent Eric Finley, 38, of Rayville, was sentenced in federal court in Monroe to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. His wife, Stacey Finley, was sentenced in August to spend 63 months in prison and both are ordered to jointly pay restitution in the amount of $873,786.94.

The Finleys pleaded guilty in August to wire fraud, according to court records.

U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said in a news release following Monday's sentencing of Brent Finley that the couple convinced numerous people that Stacey Finley was a CIA agent and with her contacts she could schedule a medical scan of the victims' bodies by satellite imaging that would detect any hidden medical problems.

The Finley's convinced their victims that, if any medical problems were found, secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment, according to a bill of information filed when the Finleys were charged in May.

Okay, so maybe they weren't very gullible so much as completely fucking insane. Seriously, that sounds like the kind of thing that only the looniest tinfoil hatters could believe in. but to people like that usually have that kind of cash lying around? Weird.

Theft be not proud

Getting caught stealing is nothing to be proud of, but when you get caught stealing something like this...

A man accused of stealing several blow-up dolls from an adult novelty store says the burglary was a "drunken, stupid thing."

A criminal complaint filed in Dane County says Jose Sandoval, 26, of DeForest, smashed through the front door at Naughty Novelties in Burke last month and stole a talking love doll with a $270 price tag, along with other dolls and items.

[...]

The complaint says Sandoval denied committing the burglary, then began to cry and led detectives to an abandoned semi behind a motel where the stolen items were recovered.

There was no word on whether or not the items were...uh...used. Which is probably a good thing.

This kid is so screwed

Sometimes you can tell when someone's future is over before it starts. This is, sadly, one of those times:

Deputies said a man left his three-month-old baby home alone for six hours while he robbed a grocery store. Police said Tony Doden and his accomplice, James Schmidt, were arrested after their getaway car was spotted by a witness.

A teenage employee told police a man wearing a Halloween style 'Jason' masked robbed them at gunpoint and then took off.

Deputies said Doden had left his three-month-old son at home to fend for himself while he and Schmidt robbed the store.

As if his potential Father of the Year candidate leaving him at home to commit an armed robbery wasn't bad enough, his mother was arrested two months ago. Yeesh.

Brilliant disguise

You know, this might have worked, if only the officer involved had been legally blind.

Police said a Somerset County man fled a traffic stop, went home, shaved his mustache and changed his clothes, and reported the truck he was driving as stolen.

Conemaugh Township police said they stopped Robert Sadlon, 50, for a broken taillight on Thanksgiving night and he ran off. Later, the same officer went to Sadlon's home near Stoystown to investigate the reported theft. There, he found a just-shaven Sadlon in different clothes.

He should have worn some glasses, too. They seem to work for Superman.

Hamburglars

Say what you will about the thieves in this case, at least they seem polite.

Cheeky Australian thieves stole 16 tons of ham and bacon from a Sydney warehouse and then wrote "Thanks, Merry Christmas" on a wall, police said on Monday.

The thieves cut through a wall of the warehouse between Saturday and Sunday and stole up to A$100,000 ($88,500) worth of meat.

I can understand why someone would break into a bank to steal money or gold, or a car dealership to steal an expensive car, but, really, what's anybody going to do with that much meat?

Life imitates teevee

In real time, apparently:

Italian police burst into the room of a suspected Mafia mobster in Sicily and arrested him as he watched a television show about the arrest of a Mafia boss, investigators said Friday.

Police said Michele Catalano was watching the concluding chapter late Thursday of the TV mini-series "The Boss of Bosses," recounting the arrest in 1993 of real-life Cosa Nostra leader Salvatore "Toto" Riina, when he was detained.

They [say] Catalano, 48, was suspected of being a senior commander serving under the latest "boss of bosses" Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who was arrested this month after nearly 25 years on the run.

Catalano faces charges of drug trafficking and extortion.

As far as I know, the arrested Michele Catalano has nothing to do with the lovely and talented writer behind this fine blog, which has little, if anything, to do with organized crime.

Guiness gone

I'd just like to assure Irish authorities that I have never been to Dublin:

Irish police were hunting for a beer bandit who stole 450 full kegs from the Guinness brewery — the largest heist ever at Ireland's largest brewer.

National police said a lone man drove into the brewery — a Dublin landmark and top tourist attraction — on Wednesday and hitched his truck to a fully loaded trailer awaiting delivery to city pubs.

Diageo PLC, the beverage company that owns Guinness, said the brewery had never suffered such a large-scale theft before in its 248-year history.

Police said the raider took 180 kegs of Guinness stout, 180 kegs of U.S. lager Budweiser and 90 kegs of Danish beer Carlsberg. Guinness brews both of those foreign brands under license for sale in Ireland.

Police declined to say whether the theft had been captured by closed-circuit surveillance cameras. No description of the suspect was issued, suggesting that nobody got a good look at him.

Each keg holds about 88 British-sized pints, the most common serving size in Ireland, equivalent to 20 ounces each. The total theft involves 39,600 pints with a retail value exceeding $235,000.

I'd be on the lookout for the biggest party in Irish history. Well, maybe the second or third biggest. This is Ireland we're talking about.

The "date" probably would have been worse

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that when a ginormous hooker approaches you, you should just keep going:

A 300-pound prostitute robbed a man of $100 before pedaling away on a blue bicycle, according to a police report.

The case of the hefty hooker happened about 1:10 a.m. Monday as the 32-year-old man rode his bicycle when the assailant came up to him.

"The female approached asking (the alleged victim) did he want a date, which meant she wanted him to pay for some sex," the report states.

The man told investigators he felt sorry for the woman and pulled $10 from his wallet to give to her. That's when she allegedly pushed him off his bicycle and wrestled him down. She snatched his wallet, stole $100 and then pedaled off.

What's this world coming to? You try to be nice to a colossally fat whore, and look where it gets you.

Anyway, they searched the area, but couldn't find her. Which seems a little hard to believe, since, you know, she's a 300-pound prostitute on a bike.

(Via FARK.)

What a little angel

Quick, somebody get this kid a medal:

A teenager says he held up a dozen businesses in part to get "gas money" but made sure the heists wouldn't make him miss curfew or church on Sundays with his mom.

Justin T. Veal, 18, was jailed on a felony robbery charge after being arrested last week in a liquor store holdup.

He told detectives he robbed about a dozen businesses of an estimated $10,000 this year for "money to fix his car, to buy jewelry, to keep up with everyone else," Indianapolis police Sgt. Kerry Buckner said.

Veal said in an interview at the Marion County Jail that he watched the clock, making sure he finished the robberies in time to make it home before the 1:30 a.m. curfew set by his mother.

"Curfew is 1:30. Her rules, her house. Make it in by 1:30," Veal told television station WTHR Wednesday.

Police say Veal stayed close to home for several of the robberies and that while he had a weapon in each of the holdups, no one was injured.

"He didn't do a robbery on Thanksgiving and he never did a robbery on Sunday because his mother made him go to church every Sunday," Buckner said.

Yeah, well I guess all that church didn't really take, did it? Or maybe he just wasn't paying attention when they went over the "Thou shall not steal" thingy.

I have no idea...

...whether or not this is a true story, but either way, it's funny as hell.

(Via it comes in pints?.)

Charity begins at hoe

Though this seems morally questionable, I guess it's for a good cause...

A Chilean prostitute has auctioned 27 hours of sex to raise money for the country's largest charity during an annual fund-raising campaign.

Maria Carolina became an overnight celebrity in the conservative Roman Catholic country, making news headlines and appearing on talk shows since she made her unusual donation to the televised charity event, which runs for 27 hours starting on Friday evening.

"I've already auctioned off the 27 hours of love," Maria Carolina told Reuters on Wednesday, saying she had raised about $4,000. "One of my clients already paid. It seemed like a good deed to him."

That comes down to about $150 per hour. Having never patronized any prostitutes, I don't know whether or not that's a good price. But I like the fact that her client feels like paying to get some strange is a good deed. And in a way, it kind of is.

Adult prostitution is legal in Chile. Chile's two-day Teleton fundraiser is endorsed by television stars and aims to raise funds for poor, disabled children.

Speaking about Maria Carolina's unusual donation, campaign organizer Mario Kreutzberger said he would not encourage "immoral" activities, but said he would accept her pledge.

Hey, I'm sure the poor, disabled kids aren't real picky about where the funds come from. You take what you can get.

Weed and speed don't mix

Man, you try to spread a little Christmas cheer, and look where it gets you:

A Montana man was arrested in Oregon's Klamath County after a state trooper found nearly two pounds of marijuana wrapped as a Christmas present in the man's car.

Oregon State Police said the trooper found about three pounds of marijuana and four firearms in Jimmie Cumbee's car after a traffic stop Monday night on U.S. 97 about 10 miles south of Klamath Falls.

Cumbee, 42, was stopped for driving 75 mph in a 55 mph speed zone. He was traveling with his 17-year-old son, who also was arrested. Both are from Highwood, Mont., east of Great Falls.

Trooper Dave Chambers also found a marijuana pipe, and said that one of the four weapons was loaded and concealed in a box next to the driver's seat.

I've said stuff like this before, but I'll say it again—I don't tend to drive around with large amounts of narcotics or a small arsenal, but if I did, I'd make damn sure to obey the rules of the road. When you're driving around with all of that in your car, it's probably best not to attract any extra attention to yourself.

Life imitates an old Sharon Stone movie

Hmmm...I wonder if this creepy German guy ever saw this piece of crap:

German police have arrested a 60-year-old landlord after discovering he used cameras and microphones to spy on his tenants for a decade while they bathed and slept.

The man had installed surveillance in the bedrooms, bathrooms and living areas of two flats 10 years ago in the southern city of Ingolstadt, Bavarian police said Tuesday.

He taped at least seven current and previous tenants -- and an unknown number of their guests.

Now, why would anyone do something like that?

The landlord admitted to police he had been watching and recording tenants and guests. Police suspect he had sexual motives.

"Why do you think someone would put a camera in the bathroom -- to see if it was being cleaned correctly?" asked Bavarian police spokesman Ulrich Poepsel.

Well, he was their landlord. That means he's got a vested interest in the condition of his property. You wouldn't want a bunch of slobs for tenants, would you? Get your mind out of the gutter, Ulrich.

Funny money

You know, when you're trying to pass an extremely large amount of counterfeit money, it might not be a good idea to make a scene:

A bank teller in Clearwater had a million reasons not to open an account for an Augusta, Ga., man Monday, authorities said. Alexander D. Smith, 31, was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery after he walked into the bank and tried to open an account by depositing a fake $1 million bill, said Aiken County Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Michael Frank.

The employee refused to open the account and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, Frank said.

The article notes that the government never printed a million dollar bill, which was probably a red flag. But I'd imagine it's much easier than carrying around a thousand counterfeit $100 bills.

I'm guessing they won't rename it Hoe Street

I think that when you complain about something like this, you just end up looking childish.

If the Rev. David Baer has his way, the Whitewood City Council will change the name of one of the northern Black Hills town's streets.

Hooker Street doesn't quite lend itself to a family atmosphere and is offensive to some residents in the town of about 800 people, according to Baer.

It's actually named after a Union general from the Civil War, but Baer said that even renaming it to General Hooker Street might not be much better.

Okay, how about General Joseph Hooker Street? Is that specific enough? And am I the only one who thinks the Rev. has his mind in the gutter?

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the urban legend that the use of the word hooker when referring to a prostitute is tied to the General is apparently false.

We are all doomed

I just saw a Jack In The Box commercial where a guy was driving with one of these stuck to his forehead for some reason. Now, that's not why we're all doomed. The reason that we should just give up now is that they actually felt compelled to put a warning on the bottom of the screen telling you not to drive with a ball stuck to your forehead. Ugh.

10 (more) random songs from my Windows Media Player

I did this once last month. I think I'll just do it once in a while so you can find out what I've been listening to.

Like you care. Jerks.

1. Yo La Tengo - "Center of Gravity"
2. The Clash - "Police on My Back"
3. Chet Baker - "My Funny Valentine"
4. Desmond Dekker and The Aces - "The Israelites"
5. Patsy Cline - "Crazy"
6. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?"
7. The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
8. The Smiths - "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
9. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube - "Natural Born Killaz"
10. David Bowie - "Ashes to Ashes"

I guess you could say I like a little bit of everything.

Fascism returns to Italy

Why, this is absolutely the worst news I've heard all day:

An Italian teacher has been suspended from school because of her extra-curricular activities as a porn star, local authorities announced Thursday.

The out-of-hours behavior of Anna Ciriani, who calls herself "Madameweb" in hard-core videos on the Internet and at erotic shows, was "not compatible with educational activity," the head of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia education authority said.

Ciriani, dubbed the "porno-prof" by Italy's main newspapers, said she never let her hobby get in the way of her teaching.

"My behavior at school has always been professional and irreproachable," she was quoted as saying by the AGI agency.

"I am a normal woman, with my family and my work as a teacher. I am (also) looking for transgression and sex."

This is so unfair. If she's really a good teacher and acts professionally at school, then they really shouldn't be penalizing her for her...um...extracurricular activities.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you're all enjoying the company of friends and family, and I hope you've had a lot to be thankful for this year.

The bird is in the oven here, and it's a good thing I like turkey, because the whole house is going to be smelling of it for days.

Update: I forgot to say how thankful I am for my mom, who was laid up last Thanksgiving after having back surgery. She cooked a fantastic dinner tonight, and I could tell she was genuinely touched when we all told her so. It's just so wonderful to see her back on her feet, free of the debilitating pain she'd been plagued with for so long. That's truly something to be thankful for.

Yeah, good luck with that

Um, somehow, I don't really see this actually happening.

An ethnic Indian in Malaysia is using an audacious strategy to highlight the plight of his mostly impoverished community by suing Britain, the country's former colonial ruler, for $4 trillion.

The Malaysian government dismisses the case as baseless, but lawyer Waytha Moorthy is determined to pursue it, even vowing to appeal to Britain's Queen Elizabeth to appoint lawyers for the Indian community, which he says is too poor to find its own.

Moorthy wants Britain to pay damages of 1 million sterling ($2.06 million) to each of Malaysia's 2 million ethnic Indians for rights abuses he traces to colonial-era labor schemes that brought their ancestors to Malaysia as indentured workers.

I'm going to go ahead and guess he ends up with a figure a lot closer to, say, zero.

They don't make a big enough can of Raid

If you're one of those people who are afraid of bugs, I'd urge you not to read this:

This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.

"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.

"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," he said.

The research found a type of sea scorpion that was almost half a yard longer than previous estimates and the largest one ever to have evolved.

The study, published online Tuesday in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, means that before this sea scorpion became extinct it was much longer than today's average man is tall.

Prof. Jeorg W. Schneider, a paleontologist at Freiberg Mining Academy in southeastern Germany, said the study provides valuable new information about "the last of the giant scorpions."

Schneider, who was not involved in the study, said these scorpions "were dominant for millions of years because they didn't have natural enemies. Eventually they were wiped out by large fish with jaws and teeth."

Thank you very much, large fish! Life is hard enough as it is without having to deal with eight foot long bug monsters.

The accidental nudist

I'm going to tweak Dean Wormer's famous advice and say that naked, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.

A naked, drunk man was arrested after he caused three accidents by running into highway traffic, police said.

Two people stopped to try to help 26-year-old Ardonas Gilbert, who was running naked along the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 on Monday night, but he allegedly cursed at them and punched them, Delaware State Police said.

Gilbert then ran into traffic, causing three separate accidents as motorists tried to avoid him, police said. No one was seriously injured.

Gilbert, of Chester, Pa., was charged with two counts of assault and a single count of being drunk on a highway.

What, no indecent exposure charge? Maybe it's okay to run around naked in Delaware.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

Ugh. You people do realize that your dogs really, really hate you, right?

Darth Labrador. Dogzilla. Elvis the hound dog. No outfit is too outrageous for man's best friend.

The British do love a party animal -- they have gone crazy dressing up their dogs for costume parties.

Sales soared by 300 percent over Halloween. Now costumiers have lined up a festive big seller -- the one-size-fits-all Santa pet hat for the dog determined to have a great Christmas.

[...]

The costumes range in price from 10 to 20 pounds. Humans can hire outfits, canines are not allowed to. "Dogs can't put down a deposit," Webb explained.

At the Angels Fancy Dress shop in Shaftesbury Avenue, situated in the heart of London theaterland, proud pet owners bring in their dogs to pick a suitable outfit.

If the demand keeps soaring, the shop may consider putting in a special fitting room complete with mirrors.

Webb said "They use dressing up as an extension of their own personality. We have clients who have identical costumes for themselves and their dogs. It's the whole situation of -- Love me, love my dog."

No, it's more of the whole situation that these people are creepy weirdos who are coordinating outfits—no, strike that, costumes—with their pets. Yeah, that's more like it.

Bewildering

Okay, this is apparently from last month, but I hadn't seen it before tonight. What you're about to see is douchey, apparently drunk "musician" John Mayer arguing with the guy who plays the unbearably glib Apple guy in those Mac vs. PC commercials about...um, a certain presidential candidate whose name I won't mention lest his legion of zombie truther/Neo-Nazi morons show up here after a Google search. Anyway, well, "enjoy" doesn't seem to be the right word:


(I found this via Something Awful's Fashion SWAT, of all places.)

Fumare è proibito

I'm really not sure how I feel about this:

Naples brought in tough anti- smoking measures Monday, but not everyone was convinced Italians in a city famed for flouting the law would stop lighting up in parks or near pregnant women.

"However they try and enforce this, they will meet with laughter," local councilor Gennaro Capodanno commented on the ban on smoking at demonstrations, in parks, and near pregnant women or children under 12 in public.

I'm not usually in favor of nanny state regulations like this, but on the other hand, it's not cool to smoke around little kids and pregnant women. Maybe that's why I'm opposed to this sort of thing, though. Decent people avoid that sort of behavior on their own, anyway, without any coercion from the government. It's a matter of common sense and decency.

Also, that Capodanno guy has a good point:

One politician has proposed hiring special inspectors to enforce the new smoking ban but Capodanno was skeptical.

"How can they assess who's smoking too close? Do you need to use a tape measure? And how do we know if a kid is more than 12? Does he have to carry documents on him?" he said to La Stampa newspaper.

It probably would cost more to hire a whole squad of anti-smoking cops than the city would take in on the fines.

The improbable happens

I sure hope the owner of this Michigan carpet store has a good insurance policy.

Police said two men face drunken driving charges after losing control of their cars and simultaneously driving into the same business.

WDIV-TV said the 21-and 22-year-old drivers were heading north on Milford Road in western Oakland County's Highland Township, when both lost control of their vehicles and drove into the Carpet Classic Floor Studio.

That's some bad luck right there. I mean, what are the odds of two drunken idiots slamming into your business at the exact same time?

A father-son bonding experience

Normally, it's nice when a father and his son share common interests and can do things together. This time, not so much.

A police officer checking on a truck that got stuck in the mud at a city park was startled to find a 13-year-old boy behind the wheel. The boy's father, who was sitting in the passenger seat, told police he had had too much to drink and let his son drive. The boy had been drinking, too, police said.

"(The boy) even said he didn't want to drive because he was too drunk," McLellan told The Flint Journal for a story published Thursday.

Open containers of beer and liquor were found in the vehicle, said Clio Police Chief James McLellan.

The father, a 41-year-old Flint-area man, is facing several misdemeanor counts, including child endangerment, allowing an intoxicated person to drive his vehicle and allowing an unlicensed minor to drive, police said.

Getting a DUI is never a good thing, but when you get your first (God, I hope this was the kid's first!) at age thirteen, your life hasn't really gotten off to a promising start, has it?

Having trouble with the missus?

I guess there are some countries where the concept of marriage counseling hasn't really caught on.

A woman in Cyprus is on trial for sorcery after pledging to shake off a curse apparently plaguing a man's relationship with his wife and mother-in-law.

The suggested remedy consisted of an egg, a spoon, a nail, some pubic hairs and underpants, local media reported Friday.

"She cracked the egg into my underpants," the 37-year-old man told a district court in the capital Nicosia.

The elderly woman wanted some 5,000 Cyprus pounds ($12,195) for her efforts, the man said, so he went to police.

Now that you mention it, that price does seem a little steep. But isn't that really a matter better dealt with by the local Better Business Bureau?

The wheels of justice turn stupidly

Usually, it's a good idea to pay attention to the little details in life. This would be an excellent case in point:

A convicted pedophile sentenced to do community service in a German kindergarten will return to court next week to face charges of abusing two children there, a regional prosecutor's office said Thursday.

The man was allowed to work as a janitor at the Evangelical Kindergarten St Petri in Melle, near the northern city of Osnabrueck, because a court worker missed three prior pedophilia convictions on his record, said Alexander Retemeyer, spokesman for the Osnabrueck prosecutor's office.

The man, identified only as A.B., had been sentenced to 720 hours of community service earlier this year for working on the sly while collecting welfare payments.

"The colleague didn't pay attention and didn't see he had a sexual conviction, so she allowed him to serve in a kindergarten," Retemeyer said. "She didn't read the file."

The article doesn't mention whether or not the court worker who so thoroughly screwed the pooch in this case was fired. One would certainly hope so.

Musclehead indicted

Ah, I love it when bad things happen to bad people.

Barry Bonds, baseball's home run king, was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice Thursday and could face prison instead of the Hall of Fame for telling a federal grand jury he did not knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs.

The indictment, culminating a four-year investigation into steroid use by elite athletes, charged Bonds with four counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice. If convicted, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Something tells me his value on the free agent market just took a pretty precipitous drop.

Sex scenes are a "consumer right," damnit

Huh. Who knew that you could sue a branch of the Chinese Communist government?

A Chinese moviegoer is suing China's film watchdog in frustration with the censored version of Ang Lee's steamy World War Two drama "Lust, Caution," Beijing media reported Wednesday.

The Golden Lion award-winning film opened in China last month minus much of the on-screen sex and other scenes that Taiwan-born director Lee cut himself at the behest of local censors.

Dong Yanbin, a Ph.D student at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, had filed a suit against the nation's film censor, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), for infringing upon his "consumer rights," the Beijing Times said.

"I felt greatly disappointed after seeing the movie," the paper quoted Dong as saying.

"Compared to Eileen Chang's original, the incomplete structure of 'Lust, Caution' and fragmented portrayal of the female lead's psyche makes it hard for the audience to appreciate the movie's art," Dong said.

Well, yeah, there's that, and I'm sure the female lead's psyche and the art are important, but I have a feeling the dude really wanted to see the sex scenes because, well, he's a guy. And speaking as a person who sports a Y chromosome, we likes our movies what has a little slap-and-tickle action.

Oh, and "Dong." Heh.

Bad day at the bank

If I worked at this bank branch, I might consider calling in sick tomorrow.

The TCF Bank in a Cub Foods was held up twice in one day — by different robbers. Kyle Loven, a supervisory special agent at the FBI's Minneapolis office, said the first robbery happened around 9 a.m. Tuesday, when a man presented a demand note to a bank teller and implied he had a gun.

The man got an undisclosed amount of cash, then left the grocery store and ran away to a wooded area. Police West St. Paul police officers, FBI and a canine team searched the area but could not find the suspect, West St. Paul police Chief Bud Shaver said.

The law enforcement officers left after the first robbery, except for one West St. Paul investigators [sic] who stayed to gather more witness statements. He left the bank about 1:50 p.m. to get more paperwork out of his unmarked car.

That's when the second robber struck.

"I kid you not," Shaver said. "When he got back a few minutes later, a bank employee said, 'We've just been robbed. Again.' "

The second suspect showed bank employees a handgun tucked into his waistband, then also ran away into the nearby woods with an undisclosed amount of cash.

He also wasn't caught.

One FBI agent is quoted as saying that he'd never seen the same bank robbed twice in the same day before. Which is a good thing, considering the fact that they couldn't catch either of the bad guys.

I know, I know, that's a tad unfair. After all, all they had was a team of FBI tracking dogs to work with.

Sean M. sells out

So, yeah, there will be some Google ads on my blog from now on. Although their terms of use prohibit their use by people who post "adult content" on their websites, apparently that term is somewhat fungible, since I was approved. So, yay me!

Uh, maybe I shouldn't be saying that. Oh well.

Anyway, they're currently running on the top left hand of my sidebar. Apparently, I'm not supposed to ask you to click on them, so I guess you should just...notice or admire them, or something. Yeah.

I'm sure the blind orphans will be satisfied with that. I mean, it's not like they could get any blinder, right?

Yeah, "silly"

There's something deeply, profoundly unsurprising about this story:

A 54-year-old woman was recovering in the hospital after being hit by a Union Pacific freight train south of Marysville.

Deborah Thompson told authorities afterward that she drank a bottle of whiskey before she wandered to the railroad tracks and tried to wave the train to a stop. When asked why, she told Yuba County sheriff's deputies she was just being silly.

You mean she was drunk? The hell, you say!

A noble calling: keeping Norwegian pervs safe

Wow, it sounds like being a food safety inspector in Norway is really exciting. Well, not really:

Norway's largest erotic chain store was forced to change the labeling on products such as penis pasta, candy cuffs and chocolate body painting, to comply with Norwegian food regulations.

I'm not sure I want to know what penis pasta is. Actually, I'm positive that I don't want to know what it is.

The Norwegian food safety authority, whose goal it is to make sure consumers have healthy and safe food, conducted a surprise inspection at one of the chain's stores and found that several products violated food labeling regulations, top-selling tabloid VG reported on Tuesday.

"We were a bit surprised to have the food safety authority on inspection. Food is not really our core product," Kjersti Antonsen, a sexual adviser in the store, told VG.

Products containing food must be marked with a Norwegian label, listing all ingredients.

[...]

The food safety authority also said the store also breached rules of importing erotic candy, which should be reported to authorities at least 24 hours before arrival.

Um, does that 24 hour rule apply to all imported candy, or just the erotic stuff?

I'd vote for none of the above

Well, it looks like one of the most important questions of our age has finally been answered:

More Australian voters would like to see Labor Opposition leader Kevin Rudd naked than their current prime minister, John Howard, a poll showed on Sunday just two weeks out from a hard-fought general election.

The question was posed in a Galaxy poll of 1,200 voters and published in Zoo magazine, the Australian Associated Press reported.

The survey found 34 percent of respondents wanted to see Rudd, 50, with his gear off, more than double the 16 percent who said the same thing about Howard, 68.

Even Howard's usually strong following among the over 50s slipped, with the poll showing just 16 percent wanted to see him naked compared with 27 percent for Rudd.

"No one wants a prime minister who doesn't look good naked," Zoo editor Paul Merrill was quoted as saying.

Now, I'm no expert on Australian politics, but somehow I doubt that sort of thing comes up very often. At least not in public.

I hope not, anyway.

Stay classy, Mr. Walker

When they started putting teevees in cars, I figured it was only a matter of time before this started happening:

Police issued a citation for a man accused of watching pornography on his car DVD player. Cameron J. Walker, 24, of Irving, was issued misdemeanor citations for obscene display or distribution, not having a driver's license and having an open container of alcohol, Fort Worth police said.

It never ceases to amaze me how, when people are doing illegal stuff in their cars, they invariably do something to attract the attention of police.

Veterans Day

I want to simply say thank you to all of the brave men and women who have honorably served our country in uniform over the years. And if you know a vet, take a minute to thank them in person.

Have a ham and a smile

I don't know anything about running a beverage company, but this doesn't really sound like a good way to make money:

Coming soon next to the Coke and Pepsi in a store near you: ham-and latke-flavored soda to make your holiday feast complete. It even will be kosher, the company making it says — including the ham.

Jones Soda Co., the Seattle-based purveyor of offbeat fizzy water, is selling holiday-themed limited-edition packs of flavored sodas.

The Christmas pack will feature such flavors as Sugar Plum, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Christmas Ham. The Hanukkah pack will have Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Latkes sodas.

"As always, both packs are kosher and contain zero caffeine," Jones said in a statement.

[...]

Jones' products feature original label art and frequently odd flavors. Last year's seasonal pack was Thanksgiving-themed, with Green Pea, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Turkey and Gravy, and Antacid sodas.

Those don't really sound like great flavors for sodas (especially the last) but, if you can believe it, they've made some that sound infinitely worse:

For its contract to supply soda to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, Jones came up with Perspiration, Dirt, Sports Cream and Natural Field Turf. The company — fortunately or unfortunately — prides itself on the accuracy of the taste.

Something tells me none of those have been really big sellers.

Why am I not surprised?

I'm watching a PBS show called Social Studies in Action, which seems to focus solely on the ways in which teachers can indoctrinate their students to be good little lefties. For example, there was a classroom demonstration where the students were representing various parts of the world and those regions' food resources as compared to their populations.

Suddenly, the discussion shifted to energy resources and consumption, and the teacher was asking her students if they could think of a country that had invaded another country "for oil." The kids (they appeared to be junior high students) didn't offer an answer, so she helpfully suggested: "The Persian Gulf?"

Some of the other social studies teachers suggested that their job included a responsibility to turn their students toward "activism."

I may be a quaint relic of days gone by, but when I was in high school, "social studies" included American and world history, civics (where we learned about the structure of the three branches of the federal government, and not ways in which we should protest against some of those branches which the civics teacher disagreed with), and economics. I honestly don't remember much about the latter, but I don't think it had much to do with making me feel guilty about living in a country where we have the freedom to vote and spend our money in ways which we felt were fit.

But I guess that doesn't "speak truth to power," now does it?

And would it surprise anybody that one of the classrooms highlighted was in Berkeley? It certainly didn't surprise me.

Something in the air

Man, am I glad I was nowhere near Redkey, Indiana yesterday. Or today, or, probably any time in the near future:

A semitractor tanker hauling about 6,000 gallons of liquefied hog manure tipped over, spilling half of the waste along an eastern Indiana highway, police said.

An estimated 2,500 gallons of the hog waste spilled from the truck in Wednesday's accident but the environmental impact appears to have been minimal, said Steve Polston, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

"Mostly, the environmental impact is to the soil at the site of the incident. About 100 gallons might have spilled into a ditch," Polston said.

Um, how about the environmental impact of the stench of 2,500 gallons of pig shit in the air. I've got to believe that's the sort of unpleasantness that tends to linger for a while.

Bathroom humor not appreciated

Gee, who would have guessed that the Chinese Communist Party doesn't have much of a sense of humor?

Beijing authorities have scolded a local Communist revolution-themed restaurant for harming national sentiment by painting a sign "liberation zone" pointing the way to its toilets.

"Times Gone Past," a restaurant featuring waiting staff clad in People's Liberation Army uniforms and decorated with photos of revolutionary heroes and maps of military battles, had taken the "red" theme too far and had been ordered to remove the sign, Thursday's Beijing News said.

"Many customers had expressed their dissatisfaction, believing that putting 'liberation zone' on par with a toilet was akin to blaspheming the revolution and was an overly-casual use of the term," the paper said.

China's Communist Party referred to regions captured from occupying Japanese troops during World War Two as "liberation zones" and later applied the term to territory seized from U.S.-backed Nationalist forces during the 1945-1949 civil war.

[...]

A restaurant spokesman said the sign was "just a joke in keeping with the restaurant's 'red' theme."

But the local commerce bureau failed to see the humor, saying the sign's "creativity was inappropriate" and constituted a "malicious satire detrimental to culture" in a notice ordering the restaurant to change the name.

I'm pretty sure this blog also counts as a "malicious satire detrimental to culture."

A couple of questions for my (few) regular readers

Actually, it's a question for anybody who wants to chime in, so please respond in the comments to this post...

I've been thinking about signing up for AdSense ads here on my blog. I could honestly use a few extra bucks, and it's not like I could set up a tip jar or anything, seeing as how I don't do anything important here. After all, I'd be a real cretin if I thought I deserved any of your hard-earned money for posting stuff about dumb criminals and people who have bizarre sex fetishes. But some ads would, hopefully, provide me with a few bucks each month to spend on beer and smokes (and my charity work with blind orphans...yeah, the blind orphans...very important, that). I think the way the ads work is based on the content of the website and its popularity, so I'm probably not going to be pulling down any substantial sums of cold, hard cash.

So, what do you think? If the ads are really obtrusive (like at the very top of the page) I probably wouldn't do it. But if they're out of the way, I might. And would you bother to click on them?

Let me know what you think.

Shock: Germans do something creepy

Once again, the holiday season is rapidly approaching, and soon we'll be seeing all the traditional trappings—Christmas trees, mistletoe, stockings hung by the fire, and, appaerntly, an infamous serial killer:

A German advent calendar for children has become a hot seller since word got out it has a picture of a notorious serial killer on it.

The cartoon calendar shows Fritz Haarmann, who murdered 24 young men and boys in the 1920s, lurking under a tree with a hatchet next to the door for December 1. Below him, Santa Claus hands out presents to children in a festive-looking Hanover.

A local tourism office included the serial killer alongside 23 other celebrities in the northern city, including philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and hard rock band The Scorpions.

What the hell kind of creepy children's advent calendar features a picture of The Scorpions?