Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe.
I dispute that.
I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
- Frank Zappa

Man shoots girlfriend for saying New Jersey
"A Galveston man is on trial for nearly killing his former girlfriend because of the words ("New Jersey") she was about to say. The man says the words make him crazy... Prosecutors say there are other words that Mitchell does not like, words like "Snickers" and "Mars Bar." Defense attorneys may question Mitchell's sanity at the time of the shooting, but court appointed psychiatrists have examined him with similar results."

"Innocent fun"
Borrowing a page from the Ozzy Osbourne Notebook for School Spirit, wrestling coach Aron D. Bright bit the head off of a sparrow, earning him two weeks suspension. "It was innocent fun," Bright said after the meeting. The students who saw him do it "laughed and laughed. They're still laughing about it. I think everyone took it as such -- as innocent fun."

Frostbit offender threatens to sue detective
"A wanted Florida sex offender who fled into the Maine woods and got lost said he had to have several toes amputated due to frostbite because authorities were slow in apprehending him. Harvey Taylor, 48, spent at least three nights in the snowy woods in Mattawamkeag after running from a Penobscot County Sheriff's detective a few weeks ago. Taylor now threatens to sue the detective."

Dumb TV
Jon Schmitz (straight) kills Scott Amedure (gay) three days after an appearance on the trashy Jenny Jones TV talk show, where Amedure admitted having a crush on Schmitz. Allegedly the two men had an affair that evening after the show, but the backlash from their rural community was going to be so severe that Schmitz panicked to defend his manlihood, filling his admirer with buckshot. Amedure's famly later sued the Jenny Jones show for $50M.

Dumb video
In Ladson, South Carolina, Daniel Rudolph -- brother of Olympic Games bombing and abortion clinic bombing suspect Erik Rudolph (a fugitive) -- videotapes himself severing his own hand with a power saw in order to "send a message to the FBI and the media". Mmmm, inbreeding?

Child-molesting Judge
File this under further proof that perhaps not everyone should be allowed to vote. Orange County California Superior Court Judge Robert Kline has been arraigned on child molestation charges. While he has not been convicted of any charges, a federal judge did rule Kline a "danger to children". And despite national media attention about his case, one third of Orange County voters still felt that he should still continue to hold his judgeship.

Sock Bandit apprehended
"Police said Derrick A. Cobb, 25, has on several occasions approached girls, usually between 12 and 14 years old, and told them that he was taking a survey. He would ask them what brands of socks and shoes they prefer and would persuade them to take off their socks. When they did so, police said, he would take the socks and flee."

Loving family
A 19-year-old daughter took the witness stand Wednesday to testify against her mother.
Narda Goff, 43, of Stow, Ohio, is accused of helping her husband, John, impregnate her daughter using a syringe.
The teenager was the first witness to testify.
"I was confused, I didn't know what to think," she said. "I thought it was a joke."
The teen remembers when her mother and stepfather allegedly approached her with a proposition.
The 19-year-old claimed that they wanted her to carry her stepfather's baby because her mother was barren.
She was only 16 at the time, and she told them no.
"A little bit afterward, John pointed a gun at me," she said. "He had a gun and said, 'If you don't do this, I will kill your mother.'"
The daughter said that she was supposed to insert the needleless syringe containing her stepfather's semen inside her body. But she said that her stepfather did the procedure twice, with help from her mother.
"She told me that she was planning my fertility cycle, and she knew what dates I was the most fertile," the teen testified.
Narda Goff is charged with conspiracy to commit sexual battery and child endangering.
The 19-year-old explained how she, her mother and stepfather learned that she was pregnant.
"(On) Christmas Eve, they went and bought me a pregnancy test," she said. "I took it and that was my mom's present for John, that I was pregnant."
She gave birth to a son, now 2 ½ years old. The boy is in foster care.

Mmmmmm, vomit...
"Drug-addicted women inside Prince Albert's Pine Grove Correctional Centre have been drinking each other's vomit in a desperate effort to get high off a dangerous prescription drug administered inside the jail, The StarPhoenix has learned... Inmates forcing other inmates to throw up their daily dose [of methadone], and then drinking or selling the liquid, sounds unbelievable but happens frequently, the source said."

No Fat Cheerleaders
"CU's coach, worried about injuries to male cheerleaders, has told women planning to attend next month's tryouts that they should weigh less than 120 pounds if they hope to make the competitive team." (Also, they should be hot.)"The new weight guideline, for women shorter than 5-foot-7, replaces an informal 130-pound limit that Coach Travis Prior instituted last season — a rule that temporarily sidelined several female cheerleaders."

Sportscaster scrawls profanities on telestrator
"CBS broadcaster Eddie Fogler apologized to the father of Georgia players Jarvis and Jonas Hayes after scrawling profane remarks on a telestrator during the Bulldogs' second-round loss to Southern Illinois on Sunday. During a commercial break late in the second half, Fogler -- in his first season at CBS -- drew a circle around a camera shot of James Hayes, who was sitting with his wife, Yvonne, and other Bulldogs supporters. Fogler also scrawled two profanities on the telestrator, along with "me" and circled them."

Dead Man Flying
"Authorities disagree on whether Walsh, who had a history of heart- and kidney-related health problems, died midflight or before he boarded the plane. "We're very satisfied that this passenger was alive when he boarded our aircraft," Patty Nowack, spokeswoman for the Phoenix-based America West Express, said Sunday. "We never would have allowed a passenger who had passed away to board an aircraft."

'Guns don't kill people'...
The family of a teacher killed in the Columbine High School tragedy brought the case to court. According to the family, video games were the reason that the gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold when on the rampage at their local school. The court case named Activision, Sony Computer Entertainment of America and Doom creators ID Software as the companies behind the problem. One of the prosecutions main points was that one of the gunmen used a shotgun in the incident, that he called 'Arlene', the name of a character from Doom.

Priest a founding member of NAMBLA
Rev. Paul R. Shanley had preached the Gospel in major cities. And in December 1978 he preached the virtues of pederasty at the first meeting of the Man-Boy Lovers of North America (later to be renamed the North American Man-Boy Love Association). When this was reported in print three months later, the Catholic church relocated him to another parish. When he was accused of molestation and rape, the church moved him to San Diego. Shaney believed that incest and bestiality were harmless activities, and continued to espouse "man-boy sex" and openly associate with NAMBLA members. All of this appeared in documents recently turned over by the Archdiocese of Boston.

More chicken?
Last week, U.S. negotiators confirmed that their producers used antibiotics and dosages prohibited in Russia. Doses of tetracycline, for example, are 200 times the legal limit. They also admitted to using arsenic to make their chicken more aesthetically pleasing." Arsenic??

Dirty Bombs for Peace
The Energy Department is now reporting that "small" amounts of radioactive material that was shipped to U.S. allies (Iran, Vietnam, and other countries to promote Atoms for Peace) is missing. Is it enough to make a big one? Not to worry, claim the big-nit-wits who say only a few thousand can be killed by a dirty nuke.

Louisiana not gay. No way.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana refused to strike down Louisiana's 197 year old ban on oral and anal sex Thursday. Recent attempts to decriminalize these forms of sexual congress through new legislation were scuttled last year by state representative Tony Perkins. His rationale? "The heart of this legislation has nothing to do with what married couples choose to do. This has everything to do with legitimizing homosexuality."
"I don't want to see this country to go that way. You know what happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, we all know that, so was Socrates."

Ironic splat
"The world's leading expert on road safety has been knocked down by a bus and killed. Susie Stephens, 36, died as she ran across the street during a conference on how to cut road deaths in America. Friends and fellow campaigners were stunned by the savage irony of the tragedy."

Stripper-Mayor facing recall
"Mayor Koleen Brooks no longer has keys to the town hall. She's been investigated for ordering a hit on a police officer, accused of flashing her breasts in a bar and faces criminal charges for allegedly making up a story about being assaulted. Now, the former stripper-turned-mayor is the target of a recall vote, just halfway through her first term."

Let Jesus fuck you!
During a homebrew exorcism in Rhode Island, a man accidentally punctured the esophagus of his mother in law when he jammed two pointy steel crucifixes down her throat, causing a large amount of blood to gush out. Mario Garcia was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

Thou shalt not be so fucking stupid
Authorities in a Tennessee county recently voted to post the Ten Commandments in public facilities.

Cat Attack on Dog Constitutes Hate Crime
Richard Espinosa of Escondido, California has added a Hate Crime allegation to his $1.5 million lawsuit of last November, following an attack by a feline library mascot on his dog. Excerpts of its original text follow: "The feline then suddenly and without provocation began hitting and clawing Kimba with both front paws with claws extended while screeching, pausing briefly and then renewing the attack" As a result, Espinoza has suffered "significant lasting, extreme and severe mental anguish and emotional distress including, but not limited to, terror, humiliation, shame, embarrassment, mortification, chagrin, depression, panic, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, loss of sleep [and] loss of full enjoyment of life as well as other physical and mental afflictions and pain [and] suffering." What a whiner.

Dumb deaf dykes
A deaf lesbian couple have admitted deliberately creating what are believed to be the world's first designer handicapped babies.
The two women tracked down a deaf sperm donor to ensure that their daughter, who is now five, would inherit the same inherited hearing disabilty that they both share.
The couple were so pleased with the result that they have just had a second child, called Gauvin, using the same technique. Doctors who examined the boy say he is completely deaf in one ear and has only partial hearing in the other.
In an interview with the Washington Post, the women - Sharon Duchesneau, who gave birth, and Candace McCullough, her lesbian lover - say that they believe deafness is "an identity not a medical affliction that needs to be fixed".
After their daughter's first hearing test, the couple wrote happily in her baby book: "Oct 11, 1996 - no response at 95 decibels - DEAF!'' Their daughter attends a special kindergarten for children with hearing problems.
After tests on their baby son showed he also had severe problems, they decided against giving him a deaf aid in the one ear that still has some hearing, saying they will leave the decision to him when he is older.
Even a leading member of the American National Association for the Deaf, Nancy Rarus, said she "can't understand why anyone would want to bring a disabled child into the world".

Personally, I blame the parents multi-player game
A mother of an Everquest fan that died shortly after playing the massively multiplayer title is suing Sony over his death.
The report states that Elizabeth Wooley of Osceola, Wisconsin USA will be suing the company in an attempt to have warning labels placed on the boxes of the game regarding its addictiveness. Her son, Shawn Wooley, who was epileptic, and had been diagnosed with depression and schizoid personality disorder, was playing the online game minutes before he shot himself on Thanksgiving morning last year.

Magic Marker is new weapon of terror
A 11-year-old honor student was suspended for three days by her suburban Pittsburgh middle school for doodling two teachers with arrows through their heads. The sixth-grader said it was her way of "saying I'm angry" after she performed unusually poorly on a vocabulary test. School officials called the student's Magic Marker doodling "a terroristic threat." And 'terroristic' isn't even a proper word...

Useless tame president
"Members of an Israeli tank brigade waging an offensive in the West Bank found a unique way to show how they felt about the U.S. President: they adopted a stray dog and named it George W. Bush. "He's a cowboy," one soldier said as the brown pit-bull terrier prowled an Israeli hilltop encampment overlooking the city of Nablus. "He barks a lot," said a second. "But he's useless," another chimed in.

Forget about Junior, let's have sex in public
A woman and her "friend" are in a slight bit of trouble after having sex in a parked car while the woman's 18 month old kid wandered around nearby. But that's not the frightening part. Apparently they were so horny they couldn't wait to find a good place, so they just parked across the street from the county courthouse. In mid-morning.

Dumb motivation
A Central Florida school principal made good on a promise Friday to eat a bowl of worms if his students read a certain number of books.
Earlier this year, Pinewood Elementary principal George Nolan developed a point system to motivate his students to read.
Nolan said that he would eat several worms if the students could reach 20,000 points during the school year. This week, the students surpassed the total.
Nolan ate the bowl of worms with ketchup in front of an excited student body. He said it was worth it to get his students to pick up the books.

Highway officials want 17-foot Jesus moved
HUNTSVILLE -- Faith is literally getting in the way for New Waverly resident Evelyn Blazek.
Officials with the Texas Department of Transportation say the 83-year-old woman's 17-foot statue of Jesus is violating state right-of-way laws with its location on Highway 105 East.
"We are working with her to come up with a solution," said David Stephens, a TxDOT area engineer.
An official report from a survey of Blazek's property places the statue inside the state right-of-way, Stephens said.
But Blazek believes TxDOT's survey is wrong and hopes she won't be asked to remove her "Christ of East Texas" statue, The Huntsville Item reported today.
"It's buried 4 feet in the ground," she said. "I don't want it moved. I'm just a little old lady that doesn't know much." She's living in the right country then.

Hello occifer, wanna see my kiddy-porn?
"Temple Terrace police tried to confront him about sending potentially threatening e-mails to his family in another state, Schurgard answered the door with a gun tucked in the waist of his pants. He threatened the officers and then informed them that he had child pornography on his computer."

Jesus chainsaw massacre
Pastor Havell Stephens-Smith placed chainsaws on the altar and later conducted members of his congregation who brought their equipment to the service in an impromptu chainsaw orchestra outside. Children were given pictures of chainsaws to colour in which they presented to churchgoers. One child had a drawing of Jesus holding a chainsaw.

Fuck justice - let's make a movie!
Prostitute Aileen Wuornos found guilty after she killed seven "johns", often leaving cum-filled condoms near their bodies. She claimed self defense but is still sentenced to death.
Oddly, prosecutors had arranged movie deals before an arrest had even been made.

Beating Evil is that easy
Inspired by the pastor of a local church, Mayor Risher sat at her kitchen table on Halloween night and crafted the five-paragraph communique, which was later typed on town stationery.
"Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis," it read.
"Satan is herby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens."
The proclamation, which referred to Jesus several times, was inserted into hollowed-out fence posts at the four entrances to town. The posts were painted with the words Repent, Request and Resist.

Ford dropping bondage & discipline lines
Ford Motor Company is in the leather underwear and silver handcuff business, and wants out. It's telling its Aston-Martin subsidiary to stop selling these items and any others not conducive to a family-oriented business. Of course, founder of the company Henry Ford used money earned by the Ford Motor to finance his other family-oriented crusade, the dissemination of anti-Semitic propaganda into every U.S. public library.

Explosive trailer trash
A pregnant 19-year-old Walled Lake woman remained hospitalized Wednesday with serious injuries suffered when she extinguished a cigarette in a can of gunpowder... The boyfriend said he and a friend had been entertaining themselves with the powder a couple days ago and he had put what was left into a pop can, set it up there near his bed and then forgot about it. Authorities are skeptical.

A car theft suspect who got away from Southfield police on Christmas Eve was so pleased, he sent the department a postcard days later.
"Better luck next time," he chided.
"Obviously he didn't sign it," said Margaret Scott, who leads the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office's auto theft section.
But police said they got the last laugh when they arrested a 49-year-old Detroit man this week. And they say if they needed any more proof he was their man with the hot car and mocking pen, they need only offer up his day planner filled with such mundane information as what he ate for dinner.
A notation for Dec. 24: "Southfield PD and me. I won. What an adrenaline rush."
And Dec. 27: "Slow day. SPD card."
Douglas Ulysses Johnson, also noted he ate chili fries and a coney dog the day he sent the card.

Mistaken Rapture
"I was slowing down, but Georgann wouldn't wait till I stopped."
Everett Williams told police after the death of his wife in a freak motoring accident in Arkansas City.
"We both saw Jesus at the side of the road, with what looked like twelve people slowly floating up into the air. She started screaming
'He's back! Jesus is back!'
and we both thought that the rapture was happening. I tried to pull over, but she wouldn't wait, because she was convinced Jesus was going to lift her up into the sky, there and then.
Before I could stop, she climbed right out of the sunroof crying
'Take me Lord!',
jumped off the car, and was run over by the car behind."
Officer Paul Madison later explained precisely how the accident had happened.
"What we have here is a case of mistaken rapture. It seems that a motorist, Ernie Jenkins, was on his way to a toga costume party, dressed as Jesus, with twelve blow-up sex dolls filled with helium in his truck. The tarp covering the dolls came loose and they started floating into the air, so he stopped, got out, and tried to catch them.
The Williams were driving past, saw Mr Jenkins with his arms raised high, assumed it was the Second Coming of Jesus, and Mrs Williams jumped to the wrong conclusion. And to her death. I tell you, this is the strangest thing I've seen since I've been on the force."
Asked to comment, Mr Jenkins replied:
"This is all just too wierd for me. People have often told me I look like Jesus. That's why I thought I'd go to the party as Christ with His twelve disciples. I never expected anything like this to happen. I wish I'd gone as Nero instead."

If the constitution said you had to jump off a cliff, would you do that too?
A two-year-old boy in the US state of Ohio has shot and killed his grandfather, authorities have said.
The toddler was playing with a loaded .45 calibre gun, belonging to his grandfather, Thomas Hopps, at his home when the accident occurred. The child had found the gun and was playing with it behind Mr Hopps' chair, Stark County Sheriff Tim Swanson said.
The gun fired and the bullet went through the chair and fatally struck Mr Hopps in the back.
There are an estimated 200 million privately held guns in the USA.
But gun ownership has come under increased pressure in recent years, following a spate of school massacres and shootings carried out by chidren.
But the gun lobby in the US is immensely powerful - the National Rifle Association argues that the right to bear arms is enshrined in the American constitution and should not be withdrawn.

Bad bunny
An alleged parole violator was about to be taken into custody in the county courthouse in Annapolis when he suddenly ran from the courtroom. So far, so good; criminals are supposed to flee. The suspect, pursued by sheriff's deputies, ran into the nearby Maryland Inn, where he hid in a closet. This is still acceptably competent criminal behavior.
But then the man decided to disguise himself by putting on a bunny suit. I am not making this up. For some reason the closet contained a full-size bunny suit, with large pink ears, and the suspect climbed into it. Maybe he thought this would fool the deputies.
FIRST DEPUTY: He ran into that closet!
SECOND DEPUTY (opening closet door): Nope! There's nobody in here but a giant bunny!
FIRST DEPUTY: Darn!
But the deputies were not deceived, and they apprehended the suspect after a struggle. An inn employee said: "It looked like they were attacking the Easter Bunny."
As pathetic as that criminal was, he was Albert Einstein compared to our next example. A man armed with a knife held up a Taco Bell and got $2,300. The robber wore a ski mask to disguise his identity. This plan would have worked flawlessly, except that, during the robbery, the robber made one teensy mistake: He pulled one of the Taco Bell workers aside, lifted his mask, and said, quote, "It's me, Tim."
Yes. It turns out that the robber used to work at this Taco Bell, and he chose that particular moment to say hi to a former co-worker. This meant that the police had a pretty good clue as to the identity of the robber -- namely, his name -- and thus were able to apprehend him, which is good, inasmuch as a person of his apparent mental caliber should not be walking around with a sharp object.

Would you get mad if I killed you?
Just a week into Big Brother 2's nearly three-month run, the network has booted one of the contestants, after he allegedly pulled a knife on one of his roommates and threatened another.
Justin, the tough-talking 26-year-old bartender from New Jersey, was kicked out of the house Wednesday morning by producers after he put a knife to the throat of Krista, the 28-year-old divorced mom from Louisiana.
The incident happened during a night of boozing among some of the houseguests, according to network sources who saw the incident. Justin and Krista had been talking and kissing, when he suddenly reached into the kitchen drawer, pulled out a long knife and held it to her throat.
"Wait hang on, I'm gonna slash your throat," he reportedly told her. "Would you get mad if I killed you?"

Bake dem fireworks white trash!
Fireworks hidden in a Kansas City man's oven turned out to be a recipe for disaster when the man attempted to heat up some food but instead blew his kitchen to bits.
The explosion occurred early on U.S. Independence Day holiday at the home of a 28-year-old man who had spent the night celebrating with a group of friends, Kansas City Assistant Fire Marshall Jim Duddy said on Thursday.
According to Duddy, the group, "who had been drinking heavily," were shooting fireworks off for several hours on Tuesday night at the Northland area home, disturbing neighbours who called police.
Someone in the group attempting to hide a stash of fireworks from the police, stuffed them into the oven and then forgot about them, Duddy said.
About 3 a.m. the homeowner decided to bake some lasagne and turned the oven on. "It blew the kitchen all apart," said Duddy. "The walls were all blown out, the oven flew right through one of the walls."

Schoolboy handcuffed and thrown out of school for the year for 'drawing weapons'
A fifth-grader was taken from Oldsmar Elementary School in handcuffs Wednesday after a teacher found drawings he had made of weapons, school officials said.
The 11-year-old, who is not being named because of his age, was not charged with a crime. The boy was taken to meet with his parents and counselors after classmates told school officials about the drawings.
"There were some drawings that were confiscated by the teacher," principal David Schmitt said. "The children were in no danger at all. It involved no real weapons."
The boy has received a discipline that Schmitt said he couldn't discuss. But he said the boy probably won't return for the rest of the year and probably would be moved to another school.

Get pissed and earn big bucks
William E. Larsen should get worker's compensation benefits for his injures a Milwaukee's state supreme court ruled. Mr Larsen fell down drunk in sub-zero temperatures because he couldn't open the door of a mobile home. Mr Larsen, on a sales trip to Wisconsin for his job, had been drinking in a nearby bar.
He will pick up $85,000.

Guns don't kill people, Marilyn Manson Eminem Games do!
Attorney General John Ashcroft Wednesday highlighted video games, television and even a game called "Dope Wars" that can be downloaded on the Internet as examples of the "the culture of violence" that may have contributed to a spate of recent deadly school shootings.

Bang bang, you're dead
A 4 year-old girl was shot by her 5 year-old brother in New Orleans. It's only a matter of time until foetuses are armed: "No way are you aborting me!"

1939-1945! Pay attention!
During World War II Desmond Llewellyn (the actor who played Q in the Bond films) was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Allied forces came to liberate the POW camp he was interned in, Llewellyn was singled out by an American officer who thought he was a spy. The reason? When the officer asked him how long he'd been there, the date he gave was 'before the war started'...

They don't even know what they're missing...
According to a recent survey, 80% of American men won't eat pussy.

The best democracy money can buy
The Palm Beach Post has recounted all the votes in Palm Beach by hand to see who really won the state. The recount, that the Democrats wanted but the Republican-controlled Supreme Court stopped, gave Al Gore 784 new votes. If the count had been used in the election result then Gore would have won Florida and become the new president of the USA - "the world's biggest democracy". - Aftonbladet, Sweden

Will they never fucking learn?!
After telling disbelieving friends all weekend that he was going to shoot up the school where he was taunted for being skinny, a smiling 15-year-old boy opened fire in his high school, killing two teenagers and injuring 13 other people.
It was the worst act of violence at an American school since the April 20, 1999 attack by two teenage gunmen at Columbine high School in Colorado in which 15 people were killed and it threw this San Diego suburb of 58,000 into shock and panic.
A stunned Santee Mayor Randy Voepel told a news conference: "I've been mayor for nine weeks and if I was mayor for 900 years, it would not prepare me for this moment ... We're a town of little leagues, soccer, community meetings ... and this is one of our children."
He added, "This could happen in any town in America if it could happen in a town such as Santee. We are America." Santee is a suburb of San Diego.
The shooting was the latest of more than a dozen incidents of gun violence to have claimed casualties in American schools in recent years, including multiple killings in Oregon, Arkansas, and Kentucky, as well as Colorado.

Guns are legal, hugging isn't
It's hugs, not drugs, that have some teachers handing out discipline at Pequot Lakes School. Some students say they get 40 to 60 hugs a day from their friends. Administrators say it is getting out of hand, and some teachers are doling out reprimands to students caught embracing in the hallway. Ashley Bennett, 12, said the hugging started this year when she and her classmates were excited to see each other after summer vacation. Now most of the girls and some boys in seventh and eighth grades hug each other often throughout the school day whenever they see each other. It's become a standard junior high greeting and a way to say goodbye. Bennett has received disciplinary checks from a teacher for hugging. Three checks in a day or four checks during the week means a two-hour detention after school. "They think it's sexual and it's not appropriate," Ashley said. "But that's how people express their feelings. It makes people feel better." There is no official school policy on the issue. "We don't have a hugging epidemic because we've clamped down on that," said Chuck Arns, Pequot Lakes middle level principal. "We as a staff decided it was an unnecessary behavior. It has a tendency to change the atmosphere in school." Arns said he has discouraged boy and girl hugging, but hugging between girls is acceptable. Students say some teachers are discouraging all types of hugging between themselves and their peers. "It doesn't mean you're going out or anything, it just means you're friends," said Ben Clink, 12, who gets a few hugs from girls each day. "I don't get any hugs from guys or anything." "I think it's dumb," said Katrina Mattson, 13. "I think we should be able to hug." So does Karen Ettesvold. Her 13-year-old daughter, Hannah, is probably one of the worst offenders. "I can understand why, but I would hate to see it discouraged," said Ettesvold. "Hannah's a huggy child and I think that's a great thing as long as she gets to her classes on time."

Old and cold
A twenty-eight-year-old Yorkshire man who flew to America to meet his chatroom "love" got more than he bargained for when the woman, who he thought was 30, turned out to be a 68-year-old. Wynema Faye Shumate, from South Carolina, conned Tasker into the transatlantic tryst by sending him a semi-nude picture of her taken 30 years ago. Thinking things couldn't get any worse, Trevor Tasker went back to pensioner Shumate's flat to discover a corpse in her freezer. The body has been identified as that of Jim O'Neil, Shumate's flat mate. O'Neil died of natural causes, but Shumate had kept him in the deep freeze for a year so she could live in his house and spend his money. According to reports Shumate had to chop off one of O'Neil's legs to fit him in the freezer. Shumate has been jailed for a year, after pleading guilty to fraud and unlawful removal of a dead body. Tasker is back home in Selby, North Yorkshire, with his mother. Tasker reportedly said of Shumate: "When I saw her picture I thought 'Wow.' But when she met me at the airport I almost had a heart attack." Vowing never to return to the Internet, Tasker said: "I'll never log on again."

You sold the shovel to the man who hit me on the head with it
The American company IBM was an accomplice in the Holocaust because it knew its machines were being used in Nazi death camps, a lawsuit alleges. The lead attorney admitted Monday he does "not yet" have documentation proving that.

Barbie beauty contest banned
Colorado education officials backed a ban by a school in Boulder on a student's science project that showed white students preferred a white Barbie doll to a black one. A teachers' committee at the Mesa Elementary School which previewed projects submitted for a science fair told the girl her study had been rejected. "We support the decision of the teachers," Veronica Benavidez, executive director of elementary education at Boulder Valley Public Schools, told Reuters. She said the results of the science project, titled "Which Barbie is Prettier?", could be hurtful to the school's students of colour. In the project, all 15 students in an all-white fifth grade class picked the white doll and in a second class nine of the 15 white students picked the white doll. Fifth graders are generally 10 years old.

Cigarettes kill
Anthony Saduk Jr., 29, and his roommate, Wesley Geisinger, 31, were hosting a party at their Freemont Avenue home early Sunday when Saduk loaded a muzzleloader rifle with cigarette butts and paper towel wadding, police said.
Saduk aimed and fired the rifle at Geisinger, who was standing nearby, and he was hit in the chest, police said. Geisinger, a divorced father of two young daughters, collapsed and was later pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy performed Monday by Cape May County Medical Examiner Elliot M. Gross determined that three cigarette butts penetrated Geisinger's rib cage directly above his heart, causing his death.

Canadians are Amerikkkans too
A woman won $300,000 compensation from her employers after she drove home drunk from an office party.

Chicken finger .45
An 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying, 'Pow, pow, pow.' The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons. The boy was suspended last week.

Land of the Free (to be spied upon)
Super Bowl 2001 fans were secretly treated to a mass, biometric scan in which video cameras tied to a temporary law-enforcement command centre digitised their faces and compared them against photographic lists of known malefactors.

Eat bread or go to hell
5-year-old Jenny Richardson suffers from celiac disease, which causes her to get sick from eating gluten, a protein in wheat and other grains. She can safely eat rice. The Archdiocese of Boston has told the family that the church cannot substitute a rice communion wafer for the traditional wheat one, citing 2,000 years of tradition and faith. The Richardson family now worships at a Methodist church.

Why can't I own Canadians?
Laura Schlessinger is a US radio 'personality' who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that to an Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned in any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a US resident and also posted on the Internet:-
Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Lev. 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other laws and how to follow them...
a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die? i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

Hail to the Cheez Doodles
The United States is being led by a lowbrow from the upper-crust ghetto, largely unaware of culture, pop and maybe even yogurt a forthcoming biography of President Bush says.
Bush gives hats off to Chuck Norris, 'Cats' and the power of Cheez Doodles in new bio.
New York Times reporter Frank Bruni, who was assigned to cover Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and the first eight months of Bush's presidency, describes the 43rd President of the United States as affable and good-natured, but shallow and largely clueless about many aspects of the culture of the nation he heads.
Bruni's book, "Ambling into History," goes on sale March 5, and offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Bush's interaction with reporters on the campaign trail.
"At long last, the Republican Party had nominated its first baby boomer for the presidency, and the man they had chosen was no more culturally 'with it' than Bob Dole, the septuagenarian previous nominee, had been," Bruni writes.
Bush viewed the musical "Cats" as modern theater at its finest, Bruni writes, and openly admitted that martial artist Chuck Norris was his favorite film actor.
Leonardo Who?
The candidate had never heard of actor Leonardo DiCaprio or television newscaster Stone Phillips despite the enormous nationwide exposure of both, Bruni writes.
Asked about HBO's smash hit "Sex and the City," Bush thought it was "an inquiry into his erotic and geographic whereabouts," Bruni writes.
Bush, who gets generally positive treatment from Bruni in the book, nonetheless comes off in parts as a stranger to America outside his own upper-class WASP background. When reporters on the campaign trail used words like "vegan" or "yenta," Bush had no idea what they were talking about, Bruni writes.
Bloat Cuisine
Bush bragged to sushi-eating reporters about how good his peanut butter sandwiches were. His snacks of choice on the campaign trail were Fritos and Cheez Doodles.
Though he wasn't familiar with DiCaprio's role in "Titanic," the highest-grossing film ever, Bush knew the "Austin Powers" movies inside out.
Bruni writes that Bush often lifted his pinkie to the corner of his mouth to mimic the Dr. Evil character in the Powers flicks.

USA funneled arms through Islamic radicals
You won't see this widely reported in the US, it's far too damaging: "The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, released last week, contains one of the most sensational reports on western intelligence ever published... The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah."

U.S. might nuke non-nuclear states
The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday... In case of an attack on the United States, 'we would have to do what is appropriate under the circumstances, and the classic formulation of that is, we are not ruling anything in and we are not ruling anything out,' Mr. Bolton said."
"The secret report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or in the event of surprising military developments."

Shadow Government - it's best if you don't know
The Bush administration feels the American public isn't entitled to answers regarding the greatest attack on U.S. interests since Pearl Harbor. As part of a multipronged move to reduce government openness, President Bush is asking that the investigation be limited to committees whose proceedings are secret, keeping their findings out of the public eye. He is making the request on the grounds that it might divert personnel from from "fighting the war on terrorism".
"President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation's capital." He did, however, neglect to inform Congress he was doing this.

To protect and serve
Diana Baird took a taxi home because she had been drinking, but she wound up spending the night in jail anyway.
Baird, of Littleton, sued Denver in federal court Wednesday, contending that she was wrongly nabbed by police officers, hauled to the city's detox center, assaulted and then jailed.
Denver Assistant City Attorney Stan Sharoff said he could not comment because the city had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit.
The trouble started on the night in September 2000 when two Denver cops stopped a taxi driver for speeding and careless driving. Baird was a passenger in the back seat, on her way home.
She already had phoned her husband from the cab on her cell phone, to tell him that she would be home soon.
The cabbie got only a warning, but the cops ordered Baird out of the cab and asked if she had been drinking alcohol.
Baird said she had. That, she explained, was why she was taking a cab home.
Her lawsuit claims the police officers then illegally searched her and her purse and took her to the detox center -- seizing her cell phone and not allowing her to call her husband to let him know where she was.
At the detox center, Baird continued to complain, loudly, that she wasn't allowed to call her husband.
Detox staffers responded with force, according to Baird's lawsuit.
"She's either yelling or pounding on the door to make a phone call, so three of them come in and they grab her to quiet her down," said Baird's attorney, Walter Gerash.
"They charge her with assault and shift her over to the jail."
Gerash said the encounter at the detox center was videotaped, but detox staffers lost the tape.
Baird spent the night in jail, getting out the next morning after her husband, frantically telephoning around town, finally found her, said.
"It was like a nightmare," Gerash said. "It was pretty traumatic."
"Lying in jail with pukey people for not doing anything -- it eats in you," he said. "You get depressed."
He said Baird now is getting mental health treatment.
Because Baird is a British citizen, she had to report her arrest to federal immigration officials. She also had to report it to Colorado real estate regulators, because she works in the real estate industry, Gerash said.
The charges against Baird later were dismissed.