Category: Strange News

Home alone

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A California couple left their 5- and 9-year-old children home alone for the weekend while they went to gamble in Las Vegas.

Police said the parents could be charged with child neglect but have not been able to interview the couple in person because bad weather was delaying their return from Las Vegas until Wednesday.

The couple went to Las Vegas Friday, leaving the children cereal to eat and the father’s cell phone number to call in an emergency.

Yahoo! News

We gotta get off of this plane, if it’s the last thing we ever do

BERLIN (Reuters) – Six German airline passengers who said they were being held against their will on an aircraft stuck on the runway for hours during a snowstorm have filed “false imprisonment” charges, German police said on Saturday.

The passengers filed charges against the pilot of a British Airways Berlin-London flight that sat on the runway for seven hours before it could take off, a federal police spokesman said.

Yahoo! News

No, not Geico’s gecko

PORT JERVIS, N.Y. – A 19-year-old man was behind bars Tuesday after allegedly biting the head off a gecko as part of a bet.

Derrick Ford was being held in the Orange County Jail after being charged with felony animal cruelty, police said.

Ford was at a friend’s home Sunday when someone bet him $10 that he wouldn’t bite the head off a gecko, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown reported.

Though Ford won the bet, it wasn’t long before police showed up and placed him under arrest, the newspaper said.

Ford, who also was charged with violating parole, is now awaiting further court action.

AP via Yahoo! News

This seems like a decidedly unnecessary act, but illegal? And a felony?

Light theft

BALTIMORE – City streets are getting darker because thieves, some disguised as utility crews, are stealing 30-foot light poles, authorities said.

About 130 aluminum light poles have vanished this fall from locations across the city, despite the difficulty of carting off the 250-pound objects.

AP via Yahoo! News

You’ve almost got admire guys who’ll steal 250-pound light poles.

Drunken Drivers May Get Special DUI Plates

A Florida state senator wants to require convicted drunken drivers to have license plates that start with “DUI.”

The proposed law would also require bright pink license plates on vehicles driven by people with restricted driving privileges due to convictions for driving under the influence.

Yahoo! News

In New Mexico DWI offenders must install an interlock device on their vehicle for a period of at least one year. The device requires the driver to blow into the device before starting the car. If alcohol is detected, the car won’t start.

As a matter of effective prevention, NewMexiKen believes the interlock device is better than a special license plate. It is after all the driver who might be intoxicated, not the car.

What Time Is It in Indiana?

Several states* have two time zones. Why is it so difficult for the folks in Indiana?

What Time Is It in Indiana?, article in Sunday’s New York Times

* Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Idaho and Oregon. In addition, for seven months of the year the Navajo Nation goes on daylight time and the remainder of Arizona does not.

Three die playing catch with grenade

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) – A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said.

Two youths aged 19 and 20, one of them from neighboring Croatia, were killed instantly while a 20-year-old woman died on her way to hospital, police said. Her sister was slightly injured but two other youths suffered serious injuries.

One suspects alcohol was involved as the incident took place at 2 am. Even so, these weapons have been laying around since the war there 10-13 years ago. In other words, these “youths” have undoubtedly been familiar with hand grenades since they were 7-8 years old. Even so, they sound like Darwin Award material.

Or is that Intelligent Design Award material now?

Act like a pirate day

The 10,000-ton Seabourn Spirit came under fire at about 5.30am [Saturday]. The pirates approached in 25ft speedboats and shot at the ship with the grenade launcher and machineguns. Terrified passengers watched as the pirates tried to get aboard — only to be repelled by crew members who set off what one described as a “loud bang”.

The Bahamas-registered ship was carrying 302 passengers and crew, but there was only one casualty: a crew member suffered minor injuries from flying debris.
…

The Seabourn Spirit, owned by the cruise giant Carnival, was on its way from Alexandria in Egypt to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. It offers the height of luxury, with huge suites, marble bathrooms and more than one crew member to each passenger. Cruises aboard the liner cost from £6,100 for a 16-day sail to £18,270 for an epic 46-day voyage.

The liner used a sonic blaster to foil the pirates. Developed by American forces to deter small boats from attacking warships, the non-lethal weapon sends out high-powered air vibrations that blow assailants off their feet. The equipment, about the size of a satellite dish, is rigged to the side of the ship.

The waters off the Somali coast are among the most dangerous in the world. They are occasionally patrolled by a combined taskforce, known as CTF150, currently under the command of the French navy.

Somalia has had no recognised government since 1991. There have been at least 23 pirate attacks off its coast this year alone.

— Sunday Times (UK)

Sounds like he belongs in Congress

Freeway graffiti is a serious problem, and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has the solution: Cut off the thumbs of those who deface freeways on television. “You know, we have a beautiful highway landscaping redevelopment in our downtown. We have desert tortoises and beautiful paintings of flora and fauna. These punks come along and deface it,” griped Goodman, on the Nevada Newsmakers television show. “I’m saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb,” the mayor added, also noting that, “In the old days in France, they had beheading of people who commit heinous crimes.” Another panelist on the show, state university system regent Howard Rosenberg, countered that Goodman’s suggestion is not a viable solution, and encouraged the mayor to “use his head for something other than a hat rack.”

Wired News: Furthermore

Why not make those apprehended clean off the graffiti?

Oh, swell, one more thing to worry about

A passenger punched out the interior pane of an airplane window on an American West flight from Las Vegas to Florida, authorities said.

Ryan J. Marchione, 24, shattered the inner plastic shield covering the glass window and disconnected its frame about 90 minutes into the flight, according to an FBI affidavit. The outer window was not damaged and the plane did not depressurize, the airline said. …

“It appears to have come out of nowhere,” said Marchione’s attorney, Thomas Ostrander. “Perhaps it was some sort of a psychotic episode as a result of drug abuse.”

Yahoo! News

Leftovers in Tupperware?

Scientists said they had unearthed in China a sealed bowl of what they are calling the world’s oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, was made by Houyuan Lu of the Chinese Academy of Science and his colleagues near the Yellow River in northwestern China. “This is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found,” Mr. Lu said. The thin, yellow noodles were found in a bowl that had probably been buried in an earthquake or flood. They are 20 inches long and made from a millet indigenous to China. Of the old debate over whether the the inventors of pasta were Middle Eastern, Asian or Italian, Mr. Lu said, “This study has established that the earliest noodle production occurred in China.” (Reuters)

The New York Times

Recent natural disasters point to return of Jesus Christ

Prominent US preacher Pat Robertson said that recent natural disasters around the world point to the end of the world and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

“These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity,” Robertson told CNN, remarking on the coincidence of a major earthquake that killed thousands in Asia Saturday and recent killer hurricanes slamming the United States.

Those disasters come less than a year after a massive tsunami levels huge portions of South Asia, killing more than 31,000 people and leaving some a million left homeless.

Devout Christians believe that the “last days” will be marked by political and geological upheaval, and Roberts said recent events show that those days might have arrived.

Yahoo! News

Not before the World Series, I hope.

A whole new meaning for ‘Diamond Anniversary’

Leave it to a U.S. firm to find a way to turn cremated remains into jewelry. LifeGem needs just eight ounces of those precious ashes to transform a loved one into a diamond. Actually, enough carbon is present in those ashes to make quite a few gems — maybe 20 — with several pounds left over. Extremely hot ovens turn ashes into graphite, which is pressed into blue and yellow diamonds that retail for $2,700 to $20,000. The experience is extremely positive for those who immortalize their loved ones in baubles, according to a VP: “We have people that approach us who have just experienced a tragedy and they say I can’t wait, I’m so excited about this,” he said. Maybe you can’t take it with you, but you could be a stone around your family’s neck for a long, long time.

Wired News: Furthermore

Prayer, crystal meth, whatever

Ashley Smith, the woman who was held hostage by the courthouse gunman in Atlanta, is a big Christian hero because she stated that she talked the gunman down using her Bible and her copy of The Purpose Driven Life.

But now she explains how she really chilled him out. According to the AP, “In her book, ‘Unlikely Angel,’ released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols bound her on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says that he asked for marijuana, but that she did not have any, and that she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.”

Thanks to Jill for the pointer.