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Wacky News Stories

Looks like there's a good chance that circumcision will be banned in San Francisco? Could this be the first step towards banning circumcision in the entire United States? Do you think male circumcision should be illegal or not?

SAN FRANCISCO — A group opposed to male circumcision said on Tuesday they have collected more than enough signatures to qualify a proposal to ban the practice in San Francisco as a ballot measure for November elections.

But legal experts said that even if it were approved by a majority of the city's voters, such a measure would almost certainly face a legal challenge as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of religion.

Circumcision is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys, and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The leading proponent of a ban, Lloyd Schofield, 59, acknowledged circumcision is widely socially accepted but he said it should still be outlawed.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42784426...ing/?GT1=43001
 
xD:

Leaking Mass. house dials 911 for help

After months of enduring a leaking pipe that buckled its floors and sagged its ceilings, an empty Massachusetts house somehow called police for help.

The Salem News reports the 911 call went out to police from a house in Marblehead on Wednesday after water short-circuited the phone system, apparently sparking the emergency call. Officers were sent to the address after the call was recorded as a hang up and a return call got static.

Inside, they found the wreckage, including potentially toxic mold, from a pipe that apparently burst during the winter.

Town officials say the interior may have to be gutted.

Police couldn't immediately locate owner James Cowen. His cousin, William Cowen, said he's not worried. He says James was left financially secure by his father and often travels.
 
Boulder, CO DUI suspect arrested with office chair stuck to front fender

BOULDER -- A man was arrested after a University of Colorado graduation party when officers watched him drive with an office chair embedded in the front bumper of his car.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports 23-year-old Samuel Rolph of Golden was driving on University Hill at about 2:00 a.m. Saturday when the officers spotted his vehicle with the crushed chair stuck to the front it and pulled him over.

The officers wrote in their report that Rolph told them he had "a few" alcoholic drinks at a graduation party.

"Rolph appeared unaware there was a chair stuck in his bumper," the police report says.

The officers detected a strong odor of alcohol and they say his speech was slurred, while his eyes were glassy, bloodshot and watery.

The Camera reports Rolph's blood alcohol level was 0.21, well above the legal limit.

There was no word on exactly where the chair came from.

I can just imagine the guy whose chair it was going into work on Monday morning: "ALRIGHT! Who swiped my chair?!?" :woot
 
A dog that wasn't quite housebroken may have indirectly been responsible for a bomb scare at a New York courthouse

The trouble began Friday when 19-year-old Melvin Ruffin arrived at a court complex in Central Islip following a long bus ride from his home in Bellport.

During the trip, another passenger's Chihuahua urinated on his backpack.

So, he stashed the wet bag in some bushes while he went inside to answer a disorderly conduct citation.

But then a retired police officer saw the bag and alerted security.

The bomb squad was ultimately called in. Officers used a robot to determine that the bag didn't contain anything harmful.

Ruffin tells Newsday that authorities let him off with a warning to be more careful next time about where he left his stuff.
 
A driver who swerved to avoid a rabbit in the road made a splash landing when she sailed through a garden hedge into a swimming pool.

Martina Boller, 42, told police in Grafenwoerth, Austria, she'd braked and steered suddenly when she realised the bewildered bunny wasn't going to move.

One firefighter said: 'She managed to land exactly in the pool which would have been quite a stunt if she'd meant to do it. 'Apart from being very wet and very embarrassed the driver was not hurt.'
 
Japanese astronomers claim to have found free-floating "planets" which do not seem to orbit a star.

Writing in Nature, they say they have found 10 Jupiter-sized objects which they could not connect to any solar system. They also believe such objects could be as common as stars are throughout the Milky Way.

The objects revealed themselves by bending the light of more distant stars, an effect called "gravitational microlensing".

Objects of large enough mass can bend light, as Albert Einstein predicted. If a large object passes in front of a more distant background star, it may act as a lens, bending and distorting the light of that star so that it may appear to brighten significantly.

The researchers examined data collected from microlensing surveys of what is called the Galactic Bulge, the central area of our own Milky Way.

They detected evidence of 10 Jupiter-sized objects with no parent star found within 10 Astronomical Units (AU). One AU is equivalent to the distance between our Earth and Sun. Further analysis led them to the conclusion that most of these objects did not have parent stars.

'Common' objects Based on the number of such bodies in the area surveyed, the astronomers then extrapolated that such objects could be extremely common.

They calculated that they could be almost twice as common as "main-sequence stars" - such as our own Sun - which are still burning through their hydrogen fuel stock.

Co-author Takahiro Sumi, an associate professor at Osaka University in Japan, said these free-floating planets were "very common, as common as a regular star".

_52804893_moa4-23-6-11-1.jpg
The "rogue" planets act as lenses, bending the light from distant stars "The existence of free-floating planets like this is expected from planetary formation theory. What is surprising is how common they seem to be."

According to astronomical convention, planets orbit a star or stellar remnant, so if these objects do not have a host star, then they are not technically planets, even if they may have formed in the same way as what we call planets.

Indeed, the researchers hypothesise these objects were formed in a planetary disc, like the planets in our own Solar System, before gravitational forces ejected them from these systems.

Professor Joachim Wambsganss of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, who reviewed the study for Nature, said this was the "most plausible theory". However, he added there was a minority view that planets could form the same way that stars do, but fail to reach the critical point of thermonuclear ignition.

He too agreed the most "shocking" element of the data was the projected frequency of such objects.

Dr Martin Dominik of the University of St Andrews in Scotland agreed, and said he would be "a bit cautious" about the results.


"There is this theory that planets formed around a star and due to the gravitational effects between planets, one of them gets ejected from the system, so people have predicted that there are planets out there that are no longer bound to stars," he said.

"But they don't predict this number of them."





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13416431
Click to expand...




The line between gas planets and small stars is supposed to be blurry.
 
Gene Simmons voted for Barack Obama, but thinks Donald Trump makes more sense. Better yet, the rocker/entrepreneur suggests we make him "benevolent dictator" for six months and he'd cut $7 trillion in debt.

Unions, watch out.

In a wide ranging interview at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Simmons and KISS co-founder Paul Stanley were promoting Ortsbo.com, a translation service for social networking, Gene Simmons discussed everything from "KISS crack" to the President wanting to redraw Israel's borders to killing pedophiles on the spot.

Fasten your seatbelts. This interview rocks n rolls.

In this clip, Simmons describes his outlook on the economy, his disappointment in the President, and how he would fix America.

Here, Simmons explains how he chooses which products to put his name on.

Finally, the Israeli-born Simmons vents over President Obama's suggestion that Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders.




http://www.cnbc.com/id/43112129/
 
Tesco mistake leads to beer rush

An error which slashed the price of beer and cider led to a stampede of customers at a number of Tesco supermarkets in Scotland.

A deal offering three boxes of various alcoholic drinks for £20 was going through the tills at three for £11.

Police were called to Tesco in Greenock after heavy congestion was reported in the car park as customers rushed to get the deal.

A spokesman for Tesco said the pricing error was quickly spotted.

He said till operators changed the prices manually until the system was corrected.

It is understood the offer was supposed to be "buy three boxes of beer and save £11".

Instead customers were able to purchase up to 45 small bottles of lager or 36 cans for £11.
Beer 'stampede'

News of the error spread quickly from about 1900 BST, with many people posting messages on social networking sites.

There were also problems at a store at the Silverburn shopping centre in Glasgow and in Bellshill.

One customer said the situation was "bedlam" as people phoned their friends and some went home to change clothing to come back and buy more beer.

Twitter user Graham McKenzie tweeted: "Price glitch for beer has literally caused a stampede at the local Tesco. Tempers are flying in car park."

Rebecca Macdougall tweeted: "Was casually chatting to my dad about the beer situation at Tesco mention 3 crates for 11 quid and he sprints to the car."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13621315
 
Drunk sailor forgets wife, calls rescue to report she drowned


A drunken sailor called the Swedish coast guard yesterday to say his wife had drowned after falling overboard when in fact he had forgotten to bring her aboard.

The distraught man, drifting in his disabled craft with a broken tiller near Kalmar off the south coast of Sweden, claimed his wife had drowned after he couldn’t find her on the boat, The Local reports.

Rescuers soon found that the sailor’s wife had never been on the boat and was safe on land.

The boat was towed back to shore, and the drunken man was given a breath test and arrested for boating while intoxicated.

Well, blow me down!

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum
 
"Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, dies at 83

Reuters) - Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as "Dr. Death" for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said.

Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney and friend.

The Detroit Free Press reported that Kevorkian, previously diagnosed with liver cancer, died from a blood clot that lodged in his heart.

Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he ignited a polarizing national debate over assisted suicide by crisscrossing Michigan in a rusty Volkswagen van hauling a machine to help sick and suffering people end their lives.

Some viewed him as a hero who allowed the terminally ill to die with dignity, while his harshest critics reviled him as a cold-blooded killer who preyed on those suffering from chronic pain and depression. Most of his clients were middle-aged women.

"Dr. Jack Kevorkian was a rare human being," his longtime attorney Geoffrey Fieger told reporters on Friday. "It's a rare human being who can single-handedly take on an entire society by the scruff of its neck and force it to focus on the suffering of other human beings."

Kevorkian launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer's patient to kill herself using a machine he devised that allowed her to trigger a lethal drug injection. He was charged with first-degree murder in the case, but the charges were later dismissed.

Fiery and unwavering in his cause, Kevorkian made a point of thumbing his nose at lawmakers, prosecutors and judges as he accelerated his campaign through the 1990s, using various methods including carbon monoxide gas. Often, Kevorkian would drop off bodies at hospitals late at night or leave them in motel rooms where the assisted suicides took place.

He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999 after a CBS News program aired a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

STILL IN PUBLIC EYE

Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years. As a condition of his parole in 2007, he promised not to assist in any more suicides.

He himself had appealed to leave prison early because of poor health, but said he did not consider himself a candidate for assisted suicide.

Kevorkian did not leave the public eye after his exit from prison, giving occasional lectures and in 2008 running for Congress unsuccessfully.

An HBO documentary on his life and a movie, "You Don't Know Jack," starring Al Pacino, brought him back into the limelight last year.

Born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Kevorkian taught himself the flute and was a painter. Well read in philosophy and history, he cited Aristotle, Sir Thomas More and Pliny the Elder in his arguments for why people should have the right to die with dignity.

In a June 2010 interview with Reuters Television, the right-to-die activist said he was afraid of death as much as anyone else and said the world had a hypocritical attitude toward voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide.

"If we can aid people into coming into the world, why can't we aid them in exiting the world?" he said.

Doctor-assisted suicide essentially became law in Oregon in 1997 and in Washington state in 2009. The practice of doctors writing prescriptions to help terminally ill patients kill themselves was ultimately upheld as legal by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kevorkian was first dubbed "Dr. Death" by colleagues during his medical residency in the 1950s when he asked to work the night shift at Detroit Receiving Hospital so he could be on duty when more people died.

His career was interrupted by the Korean War, when he served 15 months as an Army medical officer.

After the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to reinstate the death penalty in 1976, Kevorkian campaigned for performing medical experiments and harvesting the organs of death row inmates -- with their consent -- before their executions.

(Reporting by Mike Miller in Detroit and James Kelleher in Chicago; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by David Lawder and Greg McCune)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/03/us-kevorkian-idUSTRE7523JP20110603
 
Anglers banned from using white bread bait amid 'fat fish claims'

British anglers have been banned from using white bread as bait because it makes fish fat, it has been claimed.

A fishery has become the first in the country to veto white bread amid fears it is unhealthy for the fish.

Instead, fishermen have been urged to cast out pieces of wholemeal and granary bread into lakes.

Experts say white bread lacks the protein that brown slices contain and too much of it leaves fish bloated, lethargic and with bad guts.

Anglers tend to throw bait onto the surface of the water to attract fish like carp to their "peg" on the bank and bread is often a popular choice.

White bread has also been commonly used as a hook-bait for centuries and is even referenced in the fisherman's Bible The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton in 1653.

But a fishery in Hampshire has become the first in the country to take the unusual step of banning it because of the poor dietary effects it has on the fish.

In some cases, anglers are getting through up to eight loaves in one fishing trip.

The move follows a sporadic trend across the country of members of the public being banned by local authorities from throwing white bread to ducks.

Graham Mabey, whose company FLE Angling own Greenridge Farm Fishery near Romsey, defended the scheme, saying they did not want to "discourage the tactic of using a surface bait".

"But we found that people were turning up with up to eight loaves of white bread which is an extraordinary amount," he said.

"People leave whole discarded slices floating on the water as well as on the banks which can attract rats.

"The salt and sugar levels in white and brown loaves are similar but in a typical white sliced loaf there is 3.5 grams of protein per slice compared to the 5.6 grams in brown bread."

He added: "There is not much nutritional content in the white bread compared to the brown.

"It's just like people, the fish tend to get lethargic and bloated if they consume too much white bread.

"We have put a note on our website and on our board of rules that no white bread is allowed. We'd rather baits that are better for the fish and will give them a normal healthy gut were used."

Other fisheries have outlawed other bizarre baits in the past such as cat food.

In his book on angling, Izaak Walton wrote: "As you are fishing chew a little white or brown bread in your mouth and cast it into the pond, about the place where your float swims.

"And yet I shall tell you that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for carp."

But many anglers expressed doubt that white bread can harm fish.

Malcolm Coller, of the Carp Society, said: "In my experience bait bans are the last refuge of the uninformed.

"Carp have been around since Biblical times so they will probably survive eating white bread.

"But if it is being done because of the quantity of bread being used then I can understand it because too much of one thing isn't good for anybody."

Ian Wellby, a fish health scientist, said: "If I were advising a fishery owner I would question the necessity of a ban as white bread is unlikely to do any harm in a fishery.

"Fish are pretty canny and will go looking for something else which means anglers will stop catching on it and switch to another bait.

"If there is a problem such as fish looking unhealthy you would need to start looking at supplementary feeding and instead of a bread ban I would suggest selling bags of coarse fish pellets very cheaply to encourage their use."
Click to expand...

Is it just me? Or do the British seem to be getting weirder?? xD:

I'm not sure which is stranger ...banning white bread ...or bringing 8 loaves fishing!! :facepalm

Original story here : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea...ng-white-bread-bait-amid-fat-fish-claims.html
 
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