Off the wall news.

[Old-Navy]

Many voters, and critics in both parties, chided the "do-nothing" 109th Congress (2005-2006) as a body tied up in partisanship and divisiveness.

However, the Congress did manage to pass 383 pieces of legislation, except that almost 100 of those laws were merely authorizations to name post offices and other federal structures after famous Americans (such as Ray Charles, Ava Gardner and Karl Malden). [CNN, 12-13-06]

[Old-Navy]

The Texas Ethics Commission ruled in November that a public official in the Lone Star state, receiving money as a gift such as from a lobbyist, need disclose only that he received "a check" or "currency" and need not reveal the actual amount of money.

Said the district attorney in Austin, who was outraged by the ruling, it is now "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash." [San Antonio Express-News, 11-27-06]

[Old-Navy]

 0ne trick that zookeepers have used to get male pandas interested in mating with dowdier females (according to a December dispatch from Sichuan, China, in Australia's The Age) is to let an attractive female roam around a pen, leaving her scent, and then, in darkness, with the male in the pen and frisky at the scent, to introduce the less attractive female into the pen, back-end first, so that the pre-excited male will quickly begin copulating.

Said zookeeper Zhang Hemin, "When the males find out (that they've just mated with unintended partners), they get very angry and start fighting the female. We have had to use firecrackers and a water hose to separate them." [The Age (Melbourne), 12-17-06]

[bradley563]

Baggy Pants Trip Up Robbery Suspect

Jan 25 5:11 PM US/Eastern

   
         




COVINGTON, La. (AP) -- Police said they caught a 16-year-old robbery suspect who had eluded authorities on several previous occasions when his baggy pants fell down, causing him to stumble as officers chased him.
"We literally caught him with his pants down," Lt. Jack West of Covington police said.

Suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint and stealing another man's car after beating him with a brick, the teenager had run away from police several times in recent weeks, West said.

An officer spotted the teen standing on a street corner Monday, called in for two backup officers, then tried to make an arrest.

"They all converged on him from different directions," West said. "He started to run, but his low-riding pants fell down and he stumbled to his knees."

The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was booked on warrants for armed robbery, carjacking, two counts of aggravated battery and being a child in need of supervision.

[bradley563]

Man With Mannequin Fetish Sent to Prison

Jan 25 4:22 PM US/Eastern

   
         




PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) -- A man who acknowledged a sexual fetish for female-shaped mannequins was sentenced Thursday to more than a year in prison after repeatedly breaking into storefront windows.
Ronald Dotson, 39, of Detroit, was sentenced to 18 months to 30 years on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal.

He was arrested in October after police in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak spotted him near a smashed storefront window containing a mannequin wearing a French maid outfit.

The arrest came less than a week after he had been paroled for his sixth breaking-and-entering conviction in 13 years.

Some of the previous cases also involved mannequins. Police once found him in an alley behind a women's clothing store with three mannequins dressed in lingerie.

"I've never been able to take care of myself," Dotson told Judge Denise Langford Morris at sentencing.

Morris acknowledged that Dotson had never assaulted a person but said his behavior "strikes fear in the community."

[bradley563]

ANTWERP, Belgium (Reuters) - Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days.

Veterinarians at Antwerp's Aquatopia had sought to treat the animal's problem, but decided removal was the only solution because of the risk of infection. The good news for Mozart and his mates is that male iguanas have two penises.

Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed by the news.

"It doesn't bother him. He doesn't know what amputation means," said vet Luc Lambrecht, adding that Mozart's sexual activity should be undimmed by the operation.



"I don't think so. That's all in his head."

[Old-Navy]

Sudan Provost, 40, walked into the River City Bank in Sacramento, Calif., on Dec. 29 and, reported the Sacramento Bee, quietly announced to employees that he had come to "rob" it, but then handed a teller his driver's license and a money order to be cashed.

The teller asked if he had an account, and Provost replied, "This is not a joke. I have a gun. I do this for a living."

However, he opened his bag to reveal that he had no gun and then asked for a tissue for his runny nose.

The teller said she didn't have one. Provost said he'd be right back and walked across the street to a drugstore, and by the time he had returned, police were on the scene.

Provost was arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery. [Sacramento Bee, 12-30-06]

[Old-Navy]

The recent traditional Christmas Nativity play at St. Stephen's church in Tonbridge, England, centered on music from the Beach Boys, with Mary turning into a "surfer girl" to sing "God Only Knows" and the Three Wise Men portrayed as Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson performing such favorites as "Fun Fun Fun" and "Good Vibrations" (according to a December Agence France-Presse report). Said the pastor, "(N)ativity plays ... can just be a bit dull. (This) made it more realistic." [Agence France-Presse, 12-22-06]

[Old-Navy]

(1) A bill passed in November by the Michigan House of Representatives makes it a crime for a cohabiting boyfriend to pressure his pregnant girlfriend into having an abortion, including by simply moving out of the house.

(2) The Michigan Court of Appeals, ruling in November, said an obscure but unambiguous state law makes any "sexual penetration" a serious sexual assault if it occurs during any other felony, including simple adultery, with a maximum penalty of life in prison. [Detroit News, 11-30-06] [Detroit Free Press, 1-15-07]

[Old-Navy]

James Lane III, 27, was arrested in Carrboro, N.C., in January after police chased him, in his car and later on foot.

Officers tackled Lane about 20 feet into a wooded area and recovered a white plastic bag containing a pound of marijuana.

When police pulled Lane to his feet, he said that someone must have left the bag on the ground at precisely the spot in the woods where Lane fell, because he had never seen it before. [Chapel Hill News, 1-10-07]

[Old-Navy]

Neil Rodreick II, 29, shaved his body and posed as a 12-year-old boy, and then allegedly had sex with Lonnie Stiffler, 61, and Robert Snow, 43, in Chino Valley, Ariz., before all three were arrested in January (as the result of Stiffler's attempt to enroll Rodreick in a charter school as a boy).

The two men were said to have been quite upset when police told them Rodreick was not 12 years old.

[Old-Navy]

After Emmalee Bauer, 25, was fired by the Sheraton hotel company in late 2006, she sought unemployment compensation from the Iowa agency that offers benefits to employees terminated through no fault of their own.

However, the judge noted that Bauer had written a 300-page journal, during office hours, chronicling her efforts to avoid work.

Among her entries: "This typing thing seems to be doing the trick. It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important," and, "Once lunch is over, I will come right back to writing to piddle away the rest of the afternoon," and, "Accomplishment is overrated, anyway." (Her claim was denied.) [Des Moines Register, 1-18-07]

[docbyers]

Theatre ruling gives Dutch peep shows a tax break
02/13//2007 - 11:14:02

An Amsterdam judge has ruled that peep shows – where sex workers performing strip shows and explicit acts can be watched from booths – are a form of theatre and club owners are entitled to a hefty tax break.

"Admitting customers to peep shows is equivalent to admitting them to a theatre performance," an Amsterdam Appeals Court judge wrote in a ruling published today. "The erotic character of the performance does not diminish that."

The national daily De Telegraaf reported that the owner of the peep show, who was not identified, will receive thousands of euros back from the tax service as a result of the ruling.

"Working in a peep show is very labour intensive, so it's great if you have to pay less tax," Andre van Dorst of an association of Dutch sex club owners told De Telegraaf.

"A judge has ruled for the first time that peep shows are also art forms," he added. "Great. It's the end of years of discussion."

[Old-Navy]

Denver International Airport was reputed to be an "all-weather" facility that would operate seamlessly in a blizzard, but when it failed during the January snowstorms (closed for 45 hours), an embarrassed airport spokesman, Chuck Cannon, admitted he'd like "to choke the person who came up with (the 'all-weather') term." The Associated Press then discovered a 1992 interview with Chuck Cannon, bragging to reporters about his new "all-weather" airport. [Rocky Mountain News, 12-28-06]

[Old-Navy]

Tennessee's death-row-execution procedures came under attack in February when critics realized they were a hodgepodge of lethal-injection rules intermingled with old electric-chair protocol. (Lethal injection thus now requires shaving an inmate's head and having a fire extinguisher ready.)

Also in February, at a hearing investigating Florida's botched December execution of Angel Diaz, a special commission concluded that the executioner should have re-checked whether the IV line was in the vein, instead of (as he did) merely continuing to push the resisting chemicals into the arm. (The only formal qualification to be appointed a Florida executioner is to be at least 18 years old.) [CNN-AP, 2-9-07] [St.Petersburg Times, 2-13-07; Tampa Tribune, 2-14-07]