TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

[TexasStooge]

Dart injuries rise as beginners get the point

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) - A wave of international victories for Dutch darts players has prompted an increase in the number of injuries as people take up the game at home, according to the Dutch consumer safety association.

Over-eagerness caused some of the most injuries, said a spokeswoman for the group, with players hurling their darts before opponents had finished retrieving their own.

Poorly hung dartboards also posed problems. "Often the board falls down on someone's foot or worse on someone's head," she added.

About 120 people are admitted to hospitals each year with injuries sustained during darts, with pierced fingers and wrists most common. Eye injuries were rare, the association said.

"Maybe it is national pride that when one of us is good at a sport, we all want a go," the spokeswoman said.

Last month 21-year-old Dutchman Jelle Klaasen wowed audiences at the World Darts championship, with a victory over fellow Dutchman Raymond van Barneveld, to become the youngest ever world champion and a national hero.

[TexasStooge]

Swedish Hell's Angels find biking gets you down

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The Stockholm chapter of the biker gang Hell's Angels is being investigated for fraud after police found 70 percent of members were certified as depressed by the same doctor and were getting state sickness benefits.

"It seems to be depressing being a member of this club," Christer Nilsson, deputy head of Stockholm police's criminal investigation department, told newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Biker gangs like the Hell's Angels and their deadly rivals the Bandidos have a history of violent crime in Scandinavia including shootouts and bomb attacks, but have also branched out into benefit and tax frauds in recent years, police say.

Sweden has estimated that as much as a fifth of the workforce is on long-term sick leave or early retirement due to sickness, often put down to "burn-out" and the government has been cracking down on fraud to get more people back to work.

[TexasStooge]

Retired couples told cruise may sink marriage

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese couples who celebrate the husband's retirement with a leisurely cruise or overseas trip may find themselves headed for a divorce court when they get home.

Many Japanese men who retire have spent decades living largely apart from their families as they devoted themselves to their jobs -- a recipe for trouble when they decide to take extended trips abroad with their wives.

"It is dangerous for couples to suddenly go on overseas trips after the husbands retire," author Sayoko Nishida, who wrote a popular book called "Why Are Retired Husbands Such a Nuisance?" was quoted as telling Kyodo news agency.

Nishida, who runs a school in Tokyo called "Retirement Cram School" to help couples deal with the issue, recommends that couples take one-day bus tours as practice.

Others say the real kiss of death for a relationship is a cruise, since couples are stuck together with each other on a ship for days or even weeks.

The number of divorces among couples married 20 or more years hit 42,000 in 2004, double what it was in 1985, while the number among those married over 30 years is four times higher, according to Japan's Health Ministry.

"What is most important for couples after retirement is communication," Kazumi Taniguchi, editor of a magazine aimed at retiring baby-boomers, was quoted as saying.

"Overseas trips and moving abroad without considering this factor ... will only enhance the possibility of divorce."

[TexasStooge]

Well, that should wipe the pandemic right out.

JOHANNESBURG, Zambia (Reuters) - Zambia has budgeted just over $4,000 to fight bird flu this year, outraging local media commentators who said the funds were too little to combat the deadly H5N1 strain that reached Africa earlier this month.

A Treasury official said the government had set aside 20 million kwacha ($4,334) in its 2006 state budget for the health ministry to tackle a possible pandemic.

The privately owned newspaper The Post said the sum was less than the 70 million kwacha allocated to wrestling, a sport with little appeal in Zambia.

"We need to pay special attention when it comes to improving our preparedness for a pandemic," the Post said in an editorial.

Africa's first confirmed cases of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu were reported in birds in Nigeria this month. H5N1 has killed at least 92 people in Asia and the Middle East.

African governments are rushing to register medicines and set aside millions of dollars to deal with a bird flu outbreak.

Impoverished Zambia is already struggling under the twin burdens of AIDS and malaria and could prove fertile ground for human infections from bird flu, with millions of rural dwellers living in close proximity to backyard chickens.

[TexasStooge]

Co. Unsure How Bird's Head Got in Beans

EATON, Ind. (AP) - The manager of an Indiana canning plant said Monday that he did not know how it could have produced a can of pinto beans with a bird's head inside as claimed by an Illinois woman.

Chicago-based La Preferida Inc. announced a voluntary recall on Friday of a limited number of its cans as it investigated how the head ended up in the 15-ounce can.

David Morrow, general manager of Eaton-based Meridian Foods, said he was eager for answers about the discovery last week by a DeKalb, Ill., woman who reported buying the can at a grocery store in nearby Aurora, Ill.

"We don't know anything, and we are waiting on the results of tests," Morrow told The Star Press of Muncie. "We have procedures in place to prevent these things from happening, and we have reviewed those procedures."

A canning company for 40 years, Meridian has been owned by Clinton, Mich.-based Eden Foods since 1994. Meridian is Eden's sole canning plant.

The 29-employee plant about 10 miles north of Muncie packs about a dozen varieties of cooked-in-the-can beans.

The La Preferida beans covered by the recall have the lot number 5348 MF on the can lids. The batch was canned Dec. 14 and is marked by a best-buy date of Dec. 14, 2007, La Preferida said.

[TexasStooge]

Former Stripper Not Typical Evangelical

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - Heather Veitch is not your typical evangelical Christian.

The 31-year-old married mother of two visits one strip club a month, paying for lap dances so she can talk to the strippers about God.

The Web site for the ministry she formed with two other women — JC's Girls Girls Girls — features glamour shots of the three that were taken by a stuff film director.

The three attend stuff conventions, where they pass out Bibles wrapped in T-shirts that read Holy Hottie.

Veitch's approach is based on experience: In the 1990s, she worked as a stripper and, she says, acted in a handful of soft stuff movies. She plays up her sex appeal because adult industry workers relate to that, she said.

"I understand the culture of these girls. They respect that," said Veitch, whose work has received national and international media coverage.

In a posting on the ministry's Web site, Veitch said she was a successful Las Vegas stripper but inwardly feared that her lifestyle was a ticket to hell.

She began attending church, became a Christian, went to beauty school and got married. A year ago, she began reaching out to sex industry workers.

She has an ally in Matt Brown, her pastor at Sandals Church of Riverside. The 1,700-member Southern Baptist congregation is contributing $50,000 to her ministry this year.

"What good would it do to send the 'church lady' to an erotica convention?" Brown said. "She's going to get laughed out of the building."

Veitch said she doesn't keep track of how many strippers they successfully reach. Ultimately, she and Brown hope to offer alternatives, such as college scholarships, to women in the sex industry. But Veitch doesn't think the women should have to quit their jobs before entering a church.

"What we say to that is, 'Do we ask gluttons to stop eating too much before they come to church?' " Veitch said. "Sin is sin."

Her ministry partners include a part-time first grade teacher and a stay-at-home mother.

[TexasStooge]

In-car navigation systems can be dangerous?

LONDON, England (Reuters) - Fiddling around with in-car satellite navigation systems is causing motorists to lose concentration on the road, according to a survey on Tuesday.

The new technology, rather than helping motorists, could be even more distracting than trying to read a map at the wheel, it added.

One in 10 motorists with navigation systems set off on their journeys without bothering to program their route, and more than half admitted they had then had to take their eyes off the road to input the details whilst driving.

Nearly one in eight did not even bother to check out a route they were unfamiliar with and simply relied on the technology to get them to their destination.

In addition, almost one in four motorists said they had read maps while driving although research suggested that this might not be quite so distracting.

The survey of almost 2,000 people by Privilege Insurance found 19 percent of drivers who used their navigation system lost concentration compared to 17 percent reading a map.

The survey said most motorists who used either resource while driving would take their eyes off the road for 10 seconds, which at 60 mph, would equate to traveling twice the length of a football pitch.

"Our research shows even satellite navigation equipment, if used incorrectly, can lead to driver danger," said Ian Parker, Privilege's managing director.

[TexasStooge]

Four charged over guerrilla T-shirts

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish police have charged four people selling T-shirts bearing the logos of Colombian and Palestinian guerrillas with supporting banned terrorist groups.

The four are connected to the Danish clothing company Fighters and Lovers, which sells T-shirts with logos of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP).

Both groups have been classified as terrorists by the European Union and the United States.

"We have been investigating the case for about a month and have now charged four people for supporting, directly or indirectly, organizations on the EU's terror list," police spokesman Ove Dahl said Tuesday.

Police said they had seized about 24,000 Danish crowns ($3,833), computers and T-shirts from the company, which sells T-shirts over the Internet to customers all over the world. They have also closed down its Web site (http://www.fightersandlovers.com) and expect to charge another three people.

Colombia protested to Denmark last month about the T-shirts.

Fighters and Lovers said it donated 5 euros to a FARC radio station or a PLFP poster campaign for each T-shirt sold, adding that they were still available in some Copenhagen shops.

"Fighters and Lovers are not supporting terrorists but freedom fighters who are carrying out legitimate resistance against regimes which repress and torture citizens," it said in a statement.

The Colombian rebel group FARC, which has about 17,000 members, has been fighting for socialist revolution since 1964 and thousands of people are killed in the conflict every year.

The group funds its war with illegal drugs and kidnapping.

The Marxist-Leninist PFLP was founded by George Habash in 1967 to promote pan-Arabism. It has long opposed the mainstream PLO leadership as being too soft in its dealings with Israel.

[TexasStooge]

Eeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!!!

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) - A Bavarian village was flooded by liquid pig manure after a tank containing the fertilizer burst, German police said Wednesday.

Sewage rose to 20 inches in the courtyards and streets of Elsa after gushing from the tank, which held some 240,000 litres of pig manure.

"The village was swamped with green-brown liquid and it was pig manure -- the mother-of-all muck," said Rainer Prediger, a police spokesman in the nearby town of Coburg.

[TexasStooge]

Would-be rock star plunges from bed to death

SINGAPORE, China (Reuters) - A teenage guitarist got so carried away while bouncing up and down on his bed mimicking a rock star that he flew out of a third floor window to his death, a Singapore newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Straits Times said Li Xiao Meng, a 16-year-old from China who was studying at Singapore's Hua Business School, was a keen musician who liked to jump up and down while playing his guitar in his hostel room.

"But on November 17 he took things a bit too far," the newspaper said, reporting on a coroner's court findings.

Ruling death by misadventure, the court said evidence "points to the deceased unintentionally falling out of the window to his death when he was hyped up with exhilaration, jumping up and down on the bed placed against an open window while mimicking a rock guitarist.""

Normally the windows were locked, the newspaper said, but students sometimes forced them open so they could smoke, something prohibited by the hostel.

[TexasStooge]

Lonely deaths of elderly shock nation

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - They were five lonely deaths and only discovered because of the stench of decomposing bodies, but the realization that someone can die in their Sydney home unnoticed for months has shocked Australia's biggest city.

In the past 10 days, the bodies of five elderly Australians have been found in their loungeroom or bedroom -- one a mere skeleton after dying an estimated eight months ago.

The latest two, an elderly couple in their 80s, were found in their apartment Tuesday on Sydney's affluent north shore, police said Wednesday.

"What sort of a heartless society can it be in which elderly are so irrelevant and unimportant that they can die alone and unnoticed, unmissed for months on end?," asked Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper in its editorial on Wednesday.

"A society like ours, obviously."

Sydney won an international reputation as a warm and friendly city during the 2000 Olympics, but the elderly deaths have left many wondering what happened to their community.

"We have to come back to being a community, not only those that surround the older person living by themselves to make sure they are not isolated," Lillian Jeter, spokeswoman for the Elder Abuse Prevention Association told reporters Tuesday.

Sydney's radio bristled Tuesday with discussion on whether the city of four million people had become mean spirited.

A newspaper survey this week found half of Australians feel their country has become a meaner place in the past 10 years since Prime Minister John Howard first came to power in 1996.

The Sydney Morning Herald survey also found that one in 10 people felt Australia was a "less fair society."

The survey found the overwhelming majority supported Howard's economic stewardship, with Australia enjoying 15 years of growth, and his stand against terrorism, but 55 percent of people regarded the prime minister as divisive.

News of the elderly deaths in Sydney coincided with media reports that four elderly women suffering dementia, one aged 98, were allegedly raped while being cared for in nursing homes in the southern state of Victoria.

Police have charged one man with alleged sexual assault.

The Australian government has ordered an urgent summit on the country's care system for the aged following the rape reports.

Australian Minister for Aging, Santo Santoro, said on Tuesday he will consider mandatory reporting of elderly abuse, with some pro-elderly groups claiming thousands of abuse cases a year.

"There can be no guarantees because bad people do bad things when you least expect them," Santoro told Australian television.

[TexasStooge]

Woman in Spain Has 15 Pound Baby

MADRID, Spain (AP) - A Colombian woman has given birth to a 15-pound baby, the largest in 40 years in Madrid's main maternity hospital.

The 38-year-old mother, identified only as Rosario, had gestational diabetes — which can cause women to give birth to larger-than-usual babies — and a track record. Her first daughter, now nine, weighed 10.2 pounds at birth.

The new baby's father, Juan Carlos, said that with another woman he had a daughter that weighed 17 pounds at birth. "They told me it is genetic," he told reporters.

The proud parents showed off their daughter Arancha on Monday. She was born Feb. 13 at the Hospital Universitario la Paz.

The mother said she gained 48 pounds during the pregnancy and toward the end she could barely walk.

Arancha — 22 inches long — was born via Caesarean section in a procedure that ended up surprising even veteran nurses.

Rosario said: "I got scared when the nurses said: 'Oh my God!'. I was conscious, with an epidural, and I was afraid because I did not know if the baby had problems or in the end I was having more than one, as predicted by some people who had seen my belly."

[TexasStooge]

Girl Weds Dog to Ward Off 'Evil Eye'

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - A 7-year-old girl wed a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off the "evil eye" on her and her family in eastern India, a news agency reported Wednesday.

Shivam Munda's upper teeth appeared before her lower teeth — considered a bad omen by members of the Santhal ethnic group to which she belongs, the Press Trust of India said in a report from Dhanbad, a coal mining town in the eastern state of Bihar.

Kundan Munda, a coal mine worker, said his daughter married the dog only to "remove the evil eye," a superstitious belief that some misfortune could befall her and the family, and that she would be free to marry a man later.

Friends and family participated in three days of traditional ceremonies and festivities that are part of a Santhal tribal marriage, Munda said, according to the report.

[TexasStooge]

Woman Again Gives Birth in the Bathroom

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) - Twice now, one central Minnesota mother has given birth in an unexpected spot. Jessica Reed, a nurse at the VA Medical Center, gave birth to her daughter Faith Reed last Sunday in the middle of her shift.

"It was just beautiful," said Helen Mickelson, one of Reed's co-workers who helped her deliver in the women's bathroom. "It was just a miracle to be a part of a baby coming into the world — at the VA Medical Center, of all places."

For Reed, 26, it was the second time she'd given birth in a bathroom.

Reed gave birth to her son Seth in her bathroom at home. Her sister, Angela Reed, who was 19 at the time, delivered the baby with the aid of a 911 dispatcher. Seth is now 15 months old.

When Jessica Reed learned she was going to have another baby in the bathroom, she said she wasn't upset or dismayed. "I don't think that way," she said. "It's gotta be done, just go with the flow."

An emergency medical technician delivered Faith, a healthy, 7-pound, 11-ounce girl.

Faith Reed, Jessica's fourth child, was due March 20, but Reed knew something was amiss when she went to the bathroom and noticed blood.

Kristi Sauter, 23, a nursing assistant who works with Reed, planned to drive Reed to the emergency room. Sauter went to warm up her car in the parking lot. But as Reed went to meet Sauter, she had to stop in the women's bathroom.

"From that point on, it came so quick," Sauter said.

[TexasStooge]

Family Gives Seven Kids Presidential Names

LUBBOCK, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - If someone were to ask Richard and Regina Scheppler's children to name seven of the country's presidents, they wouldn't have any problem. They'd just have to think of their siblings.

The Schepplers' children all have presidential names. There's Tyler, Grant, McKinley, Kennedy, Harrison, Madison and Regan — although Regan's name is spelled differently than Ronald Reagan and wasn't intended as a reference to the 40th president.

"We named the first one Regan because her name meant princess; Regina's was queen; and Richard means king," Richard Scheppler said in a story in Monday's Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

"I had a great aunt who was a staunch Democrat, and she thought — she swore — that we named her after Reagan the president," he said.

Regina Scheppler said her great aunt didn't admire President Reagan. "She wouldn't call my daughter by anything but her middle name, and was very adamant about that," she said.

After Regan Nicole, now 17, came Tyler Landmon Keith and the Schepplers saw the presidential pattern developing. They perpetuated the naming system intentionally with their third child, Madison Elaine. She was followed by Grant William Earl, McKinley Ann, Kennedy Kate and Harrison James.

Regina Scheppler says that when the Declaration of Independence was a summer reading project, the children were enthused because Harrison was one of the signers.

She said the children are more interested in history because of their names.

But McKinley Ann, who is five, found it tough in kindergarten at first because of all the letters in her name.

"She would tell us, 'Mama, other people have short names of just four or five letters,'" Regina Scheppler said.

[rainstorm]

Co. Unsure How Bird's Head Got in Beans

EATON, Ind. (AP) - The manager of an Indiana canning plant said Monday that he did not know how it could have produced a can of pinto beans with a bird's head inside as claimed by an Illinois woman.

Chicago-based La Preferida Inc. announced a voluntary recall on Friday of a limited number of its cans as it investigated how the head ended up in the 15-ounce can.

David Morrow, general manager of Eaton-based Meridian Foods, said he was eager for answers about the discovery last week by a DeKalb, Ill., woman who reported buying the can at a grocery store in nearby Aurora, Ill.

"We don't know anything, and we are waiting on the results of tests," Morrow told The Star Press of Muncie. "We have procedures in place to prevent these things from happening, and we have reviewed those procedures."

A canning company for 40 years, Meridian has been owned by Clinton, Mich.-based Eden Foods since 1994. Meridian is Eden's sole canning plant.

The 29-employee plant about 10 miles north of Muncie packs about a dozen varieties of cooked-in-the-can beans.

The La Preferida beans covered by the recall have the lot number 5348 MF on the can lids. The batch was canned Dec. 14 and is marked by a best-buy date of Dec. 14, 2007, La Preferida said.

its another fraud

[TexasStooge]

School Pig Castration Sparks Protests

ROSAMOND, Calif. (AP) - A teacher who castrated a live pig in front of her high school class is the target of protests by animal rights activists throughout the country.

The protests began after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals posted information about the incident at Rosamond High School on its Web site last month. The posting does not say when the castration occurred.

"We're concerned not only because animals suffer during these routine castrations but also because of the message it sends to students who are still forming opinions about treatment of animals in our society," said Stephanie Bell, a PETA cruelty case worker.

Rod Van Norman, superintendent of the Southern Kern Unified School District school in the Mojave Desert about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, said animal castrations often occur in agriculture classes and are an important skill for students to learn.

"I don't know why they're picking on a little school district," he said.

Charles Parker, assistant state Future Farmers of America adviser at the California Department of Education, said anesthesia is not normally used during pig castrations, which are done to calm male animals, prevent them from breeding and improve meat quality.

Bell said she hopes the nationwide attention will prompt the school district to reconsider teaching castration.

Van Norman said that's not likely. None of the complaints have come from parents of district students, he said.

A posting on PETA's Web site, however, says the organization learned of the castration from Rosamond parents, who reported that one student vomited after observing the procedure and others were extremely upset.

[TexasStooge]

Urine Samples Taken From Probation Office

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) - Whoever broke into a state probation and parole office left with items that can be key evidence — urine samples of those under court orders not to use alcohol or illegal drugs.

Agents who work out of the state Department of Corrections Probation and Parole office periodically require people under the court orders to submit the samples for testing.

Police Capt. Mike Babe said someone broke into the Waukesha office Monday night or early Tuesday and took all the urine samples that had been stored in the office.

Babe said police were called at 7:19 a.m. Tuesday when someone discovered a door was broken and the samples were gone.

Police and probation and parole personnel would not comment on how many samples were stolen or if anything else was missing.

Police Sgt. Jerry Habanek said Wednesday evening the matter remained under investigation and no other information was being released. Probation and Parole supervisor Avery Gould declined comment while the incident was being investigated.

[TexasStooge]

Bloody hell - Australia swears by new ad campaign

By Paul Tait

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - Australia launched a new A$180 million (76 million pounds) advertising campaign on Thursday which seeks to attract international tourists by swearing at them.

"Where the bloody hell are you?" asks the new campaign launched by Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey.

Bailey said the campaign will target potential tourists in China, Japan, India, the United States, Germany and Britain and would be rolled out in the next few weeks.

It echoes the hugely successful "Put another shrimp on the barbie" tourism campaign of the 1980s, which featured singlet-wearing comedian Paul Hogan and which lured an estimated 250,000 American tourists to Australia.

The new campaign, which can be seen on Tourism Australia's Web site (http://www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com), features a series of Australian backdrops.

It begins with characters saying: "We've poured you a beer and we've had the camels shampooed, we've saved you a spot on the beach ... and we've got the sharks out of the pool."

A bikini-clad woman then asks: "So where the bloody hell are you?".

Bailey and Prime Minister John Howard both defended the campaign against complaints about the use of the word "bloody", a mild profanity used to express annoyance.

"It's a colloquialism, it's not a word that is seen quite in the same category as other words that nobody ought to use in public or on the media or in advertisements," Howard said.

"I think the style of the advertisement is anything but offensive but is in fact in context and I think it's a very effective ad," he told reporters in Sydney.

Howard complained last month about the decline of good manners in Australian society, blaming the drop in standards on increasing vulgarity on television.

Bailey said the campaign had been tested in some of Australia's key markets and had been successful, although she gave no details.

"This is presenting Australia as we are. We're plain-speaking, we're friendly. It's using the vernacular," Bailey told reporters.

While the "shrimp on the barbie" campaign attracted thousands of tourists, its crassness caused many Australians to cringe.

It was followed in 1995 by a A$100 million campaign -- then Australia's biggest single marketing and advertising campaign -- which sought to convince the world Australia also had culture.

Bailey said Australia's tourism industry was worth A$73 billion and employed 500,000 Australians.

[TexasStooge]

Where's my copy of the Gladiator Rulebook?

LONDON, England (Reuters) - Gladiators may have fought and died to entertain others in the brutality of the Roman arena but they appear to have abided by a strict code of conduct which avoided savage violence, forensic scientists say.

Tests on the remains of 67 gladiators found in tombs at Ephesus in Turkey, center of power for ancient Rome's eastern empire, show they stuck to well defined rules of combat and avoided gory free-for-alls.

Injuries to the front of each skull suggested that each opponent used just one type of weapon per bout of face-to-face contact, two Austrian researchers report in a paper to be published in Forensic Science International.

Savage violence and mutilation, typical of battlefields 2,000 years ago, were out of order.

And the losers appear to have died quickly.

Despite the fact that most gladiators wore helmets, 10 of the remains showed the fighters had died of squarish hammer-like blows to the side of the head, possibly the work of a backstage executioner who finished off wounded losers after the fight.

The report confirms the picture given of battles in the arena by Roman artwork, which suggests gladiators were well matched and followed rules enforced by two referees.

Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University, who was historical consultant for Ridley Scott's film "Gladiator," agreed with the findings of the report.

"The fact that none of the gladiators' skulls was subjected to a repeated battering does seem to confirm that discipline was exercised in gladiatorial combat and its aftermath," she was quoted by New Scientist magazine as saying.

The scientists, Karl Grosschmidt of the Medical University of Vienna and Fabian Kanz of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, used special X-ray scans and microscopic analysis to investigate the gladiators' deaths.

The bones were uncovered in 1993 and are thought to date from the second century AD.