Category: Strange News

Peace on Earth

From News of the Weird

Joy to the World! Jonathan Cantu, 39, and Charles J. Kern, 50, each feeling slighted at the other’s Christmas gift, smacked each other over the head with flowerpots and were hospitalized (San Rafael, Calif.). And Brandi Nicole Nason, 20, also dissatisfied with a gift, allegedly tossed a Molotov cocktail into her ex-mother-in-law’s house, causing $200,000 in damage (Hermosa Beach, Calif.). And a woman was arrested for beating a man with a Christmas tree after he complained that the gifts he was carrying were heavier than the tree that she was carrying (Victoria, British Columbia). And after Donna Simmons-Groover won her apartment complex’s Christmas-lights competition, a losing neighbor ripped out part of her display in a rage (Jensen Beach, Fla.)….

Police said a 29-year-old woman ordered her 11-year-old daughter to help her shoplift clothing, including some items the woman later returned to the girl as Christmas presents (Fort Myers, Fla.).

Wacky Warning Labels

The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch Seventh Annual Wacky Warning Label Contest:

A five-inch fishing lure which sports three steel hooks and cautions users that it is, “Harmful if swallowed,” has been identified as one of the nation’s wackiest warning labels in an annual contest sponsored by a consumer watchdog group….

The $500 grand prize for the wackiest label was awarded to Robert Brocone of Euclid, Ohio for a warning he found on a bottle of drain cleaner which says: “If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product.”

Iowa’s decision huge, until maybe tomorrow

Dave Barry reports from Iowa

This actually happened here, according to a Des Moines Register story that I swear I am not making up. A woman named DeAnna Rankins was working in a tax-preparation office, when a guy with a knife came in and demanded money. So Rankins grabbed a stapler — that’s correct: a stapler — and threatened him with it. And he ran away!

Rankins is quoted as saying: “I would have stapled him.”…

I’ll resume these reports Saturday from New Hampshire, the next crucial step in this strange — yet, at the same time, bizarre — process that we use to decide who should lead our nation.

Right now, I’m leaning toward DeAnna Rankins.

And for white?

From Wired News

Are you looking for love in 2004? How about a financial windfall? The color of the underwear you wore on New Year’s Eve may determine your success, according to Mexican tradition. The custom, whose origins are obscure, directs those seeking love to wear red underpants, and those desiring money to wear yellow. Party-goers who want to improve their odds can try “double bagging” and wear two pairs. The panty tradition is just one of many ways to promote good fortune in the new year, including eating certain foods like black-eyed peas.

Ferret-Loving Guv?

From Wired News: Furthermore

Ferrets, banned as pets in California for 70 years, may soon be back in favor. Some hope Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked with a ferret in Kindergarten Cop, may legalize the animals. “We have an inequity here and this man is sensitive to that kind of thing,” said Jeanne Carley, founder of Californians for Ferret Legalization. “The state wildlife agency doesn’t regulate cats and dogs, so why should it regulate ferrets?” The ban was put in place because of fears ferrets might weasel their way into the wild and ravage populations of ground-dwelling birds.

Don’t you just love stories with happy endings?

Woman Claims Thurmond As Father

A 78-year-old retired Los Angeles schoolteacher said she is breaking a lifetime of silence to announce that she is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of former U.S. senator James Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), once the nation’s leading segregationist. In an interview, the woman said that Thurmond privately acknowledged her as his daughter and provided financial support since 1941.

Illegally scaring deer

From The Associated Press (via KING5.com)

A western Pennsylvania woman who honked at hunters because she was upset they were in a tree stand that had been her late grandson’s will be cited for illegally scaring deer.

Norma Kramer, 77, of Export, Westmoreland County, will be cited for “creating an intentional interruption of the hunting process,” according to a state police report.

More Catholic than the pope

From the Santa Fe New Mexican

ALBUQUERQUE – A Catholic watchdog group is complaining about sex education at St. Pius X High School, saying it uses teaching of a “highly graphic and sexual nature.”

Archbishop Michael Sheehan said the complaints of Los Pequenos de Cristo were a “mixture of half-truths and gossip.”

“This is from a group that is very right-wing … more Catholic than the pope,” he said Wednesday.

Don’t you just hate it when sex education is of a sexual nature?

Woman knocked unconscious by trampling shoppers

NewMexiKen continues to be your source for Wal-Mart news. From CNN.com: “A mob of shoppers rushing for a sale on DVD players trampled the first woman in line and knocked her unconscious as they scrambled for the shelves at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.”

Key quote: “Ellzey said Wal-Mart officials called later Friday to ask about her sister, and the store apologized and offered to put a DVD player on hold for her.”

Absurdity alert

From The Cavalier Daily

University President issues statement regarding alleged racial epithet used by Medical Center employee….

Howell reported that the offender “said something like this: ‘I can’t believe in this day and age that there’s a sports team in our nation’s capital named the Redskins. That is as derogatory to Indians as having a team called Niggers would be to blacks.'”

Though Howell said no staff members said they were personally offended by the remark, they said they would have preferred if the word had not been used….

Jerks!

From The Associated Press

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK – A second man has been charged over damage to a geyser area at Yellowstone National Park, accused of not stopping a friend who drove his truck in circles on the geyser’s fragile soil before getting stuck.

Austin B. Olsen, 19, of Battle Ground, Wash., was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting Adam R. Elford, 22, of Vancouver, Wash., in the Oct. 10 incident. Workers have spent more than 80 hours trying to repair the damage.

Truth is stranger than fiction

From News of the Weird

In July, a judge relented and allowed Richard Quinton Gunn to act as his own attorney in his aggravated-murder appeal, following his conviction earlier in the year in Ogden, Utah, by a jury that deliberated just two hours. Gunn had confessed, saying he killed his tenant using a crowbar, a butcher knife, a handsaw, a fireplace poker, a 12-inch bolt, a straight-edge razor, an ax, walking canes, a pool cue and a large salad fork.

Demon Babies: LaFayre Marie Banks, 32, was charged with assault and child abuse in Port Huron, Mich., in May after her 7-month-old baby fell from Banks’ second-story bathroom window, suffering severe head injuries. Banks told a police officer that she was bathing the child when “it reared up and went through the window.” And in Wetumpka, Ala., in August, Melissa Wright, 27, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for putting her 18-month-old daughter in a hot oven. Wright’s version was that the child slipped from her arms, fell to the floor, and rolled into the oven, and then the door closed.