[652] in Humor
HUMOR: News of the Weird
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Mon Jan 9 20:27:14 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 09 Jan 1995 20:23:37 EST
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 1995 16:18:29 -0500
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
From: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.358 (News of the Weird, December 16, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* Among the Republicans swept into office in November was Steve Mansfield,
elected to Texas's highest court that handles criminal appeals. Among
Mansfield's pre-election lies or exaggerations (freely admitted in a
post-election interview in the publication Texas Lawyer) were his claim
of vast criminal-court experience (he is an insurance and tax lawyer),
that he was born in Texas (actually, Massachusetts), that he dated a woman
"who died" (she is still alive), and that he had "appeared" in courts in
Illinois (never) and Florida (advised a friend of his, but not as a
lawyer). During the interview, Mansfield said that he lived in Houston
as a kid, but when the reporter asked him if that was a lie, Mansfield
reluctantly admitted it was. Mansfield called those and other instances
"puffery" and "exaggerations" and said he would stop doing that now that
he is one of the highest-ranking judges in Texas. [Texas Lawyer,
11-21-94; Houston Press, 11-17-94]
OOPS!
* In September, a judge in Santa Ana, Calif., suspended a murder trial
for one day so that a juror could get medical help after she mistook nail
adhesive for contact lens cleaner and glued her eye shut during a recess.
[St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9-28-94]
* In July, an Army National Guard unit on maneuvers near Grayling, Mich.,
miscalculated in firing a 105mm artillery shell, and instead of providing
tactical cover for troops, blasted the yard of Robert and Joan Hutton in
a subdivision in the next county, sending shrapnel and smoke through the
house. [Chicago Tribune, 7-20-94]
* The Times (London) reported in August that a woman was taken to Wexham
Park Hospital in Berkshire after falling from a tree in a park just a few
hundred meters from Windsor Castle. According to rangers at the Windsor
Great Park, she fell out of the tree, naked, during a lovemaking session
with her boyfriend. [The Times, 8-2-94]
* In April, runner Mauro Prosperi took a wrong turn and got lost in the
desert between Morocco and Algeria during the Des Sables marathon. He
was missing for nine days. And in August, Tobago marathoner Michael
Alexander, out for a practice run in Burbank, Calif., took a wrong turn
and was missing for 13 hours in the San Fernando Valley. During that
time, he jogged four miles illegally on the Ventura Freeway and called a
relative in Tobago to ask for help. [Globe & Mail, 5-3-94; Los Angeles
Times, 8-3-94]
* Paul D. Kimball, 25, was charged with sexual assault in Ogden, Utah, in
August. Even though he escaped, he was identified by the woman he
allegedly assaulted because he left her house without his pants, which
contained his wallet. [Salt Lake Tribune, 8-10-94]
* During a spirited on-stage sword fight during a September performance
of the opera, "The Vagabond King," in Denver, Colo., one of the swords
broke off, flew through the air, and severed the bow of a violinist in
the orchestra. Opera officials were considering stringing a net over the
orchestra pit for protection. [[Milwaukee Journal-Scripps Howard,
Sept94]]
* Among recent truck spills: In Adams County, Colo., in May, 200 tons of
carpet-tacking strips with nails; near Remington, Va., in September, 20
tons of jalapeno pepper powder. And in February, in Michigan, a 30-ton,
2,400-square-foot house being driven across largely-frozen Lake Walloon,
fell through the ice. [Rocky Mountain News, 5-22-94; Washington Times-AP,
9-28-94; Chicago Tribune-AP, 2-14-94]
WEIRD SCIENCE
* In September, the makers of Michelin tires said they would reformulate
a substance used to make new-model tires grip the road better on wet
pavement because the old formula permitted a buildup of static
electricity. For months, attendants on the Illinois Tollway had reported
taking measures to insulate themselves every time new Honda Accords (which
feature the new Michelin tires) stopped to pay tolls. Some attendants
even refused to accept money from some drivers for fear of shocks. [Kansas
City Star-Chicago Tribune, 9-21-94]
* According to a September issue of American Medical News, physicians at
the Medical College of Georgia and engineers at Georgia Tech are working
to develop a synthetic finger to enable a person in one site to be touched
and a doctor at another site to feel exactly what would be felt if the
doctor were touching him in person. [American Medical News, 9-5-94]
* At a June open house, officials at the Sandia National Laboratories
demonstrated its latest law enforcement technology, including strobe
lights that make criminals disoriented and nauseous (but Sandia has not
yet perfected eye shields to immunize police officers from the light), a
receiver inside an officer's gun so he can disable it if a criminal steals
it, and a gun that shoots out a goo so sticky (actually developed by a
guy named Tom Goolsby) that it completely immobilizes the target.
[Albuquerque Journal, 6-3-94]
* In November, the Netherlands Liver and Intestine Foundation, which
supports research on digestive problems, announced a publicity campaign
to encourage people to pass gas as much as 15 times a day to ease
intestinal discomfort. [Montreal Gazette-Reuters, 11-10-94]
LEAST COMPETENT PERSON
* In July in Kirkland, Wash., a 30-year-old man on a motorcycle, who said
he wanted to test a radar sign that measures how fast vehicles approaching
it are traveling, rode to the end of the street, turned around, gunned
his engine, and raced toward the sign, which he watched rise to "59" mph.
However, the man then smashed into the sign; he was taken to Evergreen
Hospital Medical Center with numerous cuts and bruises. [Seattle Times,
7-8-94]
I DON'T THINK SO
* In November, a jury in Taos, New Mexico, deadlocked for a second time
in five months on a charge of vehicular homicide against Gordon House,
35. In December 1992, according to police investigators, House drank at
least 17 beers and then, driving 89.9 mph the wrong way on an interstate
highway near Albuquerque, rammed another car, killing a woman and her
three young daughters. House denied he was drunk and said he was not
responsible in that he had a severe migraine headache at the time.
[Albuquerque Journal, several May 1994, November 1994 stories]
Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the personal entertainment of readers. No commercial
use may be made of the material, or of the name News of the
Weird.
