Bizarre News

[asandir]

Well i doubt that most of these criminals are societies brightest in the first place

Blood tests debunk cat-puppy birth claim
Blood tests have refuted a Brazilian woman's claim that her cat had given birth to three puppies, geneticist Adil Pacheco says.

Cassia Aparecida de Souza, 18, from a poor neighbourhood of Passo Fundo in southern Brazil, said last Friday that her cat Mimi had given birth to the three puppies as well as three kittens, which did not survive.

"People who aren't experts often imagine things," said Dr Pacheco, director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Passo Fundo.

"All the facts contradict her."

Mr Pacheco, who was asked by a local newspaper to conduct a chromosome test to check the spectacular claim which gained wide media attention, said mammals sometimes nursed the young from another species.

[ThunderTitan]

He ran DNA tests... how did these cats look like?

[asandir]

Kate Moss becomes 'total slag' for charity
Supermodel Kate Moss has made her theatre debut, playing what she called a "total slag" in the London stage version of a hit British television comedy series Little Britain.

Moss took to the stage as part of Comic Relief, which often features celebrities making fools of themselves to raise money for charity.

The model plays "Katie," the sister of Vicky Pollard, a character famous for her vulgarity in the television series.

At one point she declares her sexual availability after Vicky tells the audience: "I'm the pretty one."

"I'm the easy one. I'm a total slag," says Katie.

Little Britain, whose bizarre characters also include Daffyd, The Only Gay in the Village, and Lou and his wheelchair-bound friend Andy, has won numerous awards for its creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

Moss, one of the world's highest-paid models, has recently resurrected her career after drug-taking revelations earlier this year linked to her troubled boyfriend Peter Doherty, frontman of pop group Babyshambles.

bizarre news all by itself if pete doherty - what the hell is wrong with that man, he needs some serious slapping!!

[ThunderTitan]

pete doherty - what the hell is wrong with that man

I'm thinking it's all them drugs in his brain. But what do i know?

[asandir]

you could be right TT, but he's definately a tool, and then some!!

and something a bit christmassy for you all

Traffickers caught with cocaine Santas

Colombian police have arrested two men for moulding figurines of Santa Claus out of cocaine for smuggling to the United States and Europe in time for the holiday season.

The market-savvy artisans also cast festive cups, place mats and other Christmas decorations from the same gelatinous mix, which when dried, looks like plastic, Colombia's intelligence police, DAS, said in a statement.

The men's laboratory was found in Tolima province, 130 kilometres from Bogota.

The two men have been jailed.

[asandir]

To keep on the Christmas theme

Berlin ho-ho-hoping for more Santas
Berlin is facing an acute shortage of Santas just a month before Christmas, the head of a Father Christmas placement agency says.

The director of Berlin's Heinzelmaennchen agency, which provides Santas to thousands of Berlin families every Christmas Eve, says he is having trouble getting enough qualified help.

"We prefer chubby men, of course, ideally with a real beard but we're not picky and take what we get," director Rene Heydeck said, whose official title is Ober-Weinachtsmann (chief Santa Claus).

The Santas, many of whom are students, earn 28 euros a visit for bringing a sack of presents provided by the parents into each home and handing them out.

But Santas must also pay 45 euros for a costume and give the agency 15 per cent of earnings.

"In a lot of families in Berlin it's a tradition that carries on even after the children grow older and stop believing," Mr Heydeck said.

[ThunderTitan]

And it works...

Panda porn pays off

Scientists say a bid to encourage giant pandas to breed by showing them 'panda porn' has paid off.

They claim to have sparked a baby boom among the endangered animals by showing them DVDs of pandas mating.

"It works," Zhang Zhihe, a leading Chinese expert, told the Xinhua news agency.

Pandas are notoriously poor breeders and the 'panda porn' movies were just one of many techniques used to encourage them to breed.

In the first 10 months of this year 31 cubs were born in captivity in China and 28 survived, said Zhang.

Damn pervy animals.

And Chimps smoke?!

[Elvin]

One of many huh? So it turns pandas on too What can I say?Man's ways are mysterious!

[asandir]

well damn ....

Olympians warned over sweet and sour steroids
A senior Chinese official has warned that athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics could test positive for drugs after eating in local restaurants.

A top Chinese doping expert has warned that some Chinese food is so contaminated with anabolic steroids that athletes who eat it could later fail drug tests.

Yang Shumin, former head of China's Olympic doping control centre, said concerns about the matter went right to the top of the government.

Chinese farmers regularly give steroids to their livestock to get better prices for larger animals.

High tech surveillance will be installed to monitor food coming into the Olympic Village, but athletes who eat outside the village cannot be certain they will be protected.

[ThunderTitan]

Entreprenorialism at it's best....

[Caradoc]

And Chimps smoke?!

Actually, they do:

Charley, the smoking chimp picked smoking cigarettes after he picked up a pack of cigarettes thrown to him by the allegedly smarter humans who come to see him at a South African zoo.

"Charley's picked up the habit from watching people. He learns from mimicry," Daryl Barnes of the Bloemfontein Zoo told CBS News Correspondent Richard Schlesinger.

Adults should know better than to encourage smoking — children certainly do.

"Do you think it's a good thing that people give the monkey cigarettes?" Schlesinger asked one little girl.

"No," she replied.

"What will happen?

"They will get sick."

Everybody gets a laugh watching Charley smoke, like a hairy scary star of an old tough guy film. But the people who care for him and care about him are not amused. Zookeepers have asked people to stop offering Charley cigarettes.

[asandir]

Marijuana advocate plans to roll world's biggest joint
A medical marijuana user plans to see in the New Year on an all-time high - by rolling the world's biggest joint.

Los Angeles resident Brett Stone said he aims to usher in 2007 by building a 0.91 metre cigarette using around 112 grams of marijuana.

Mr Stone said he was inspired to try for a record after learning that the previous biggest joint was made with 100 grams.

"I thought the world's largest joint would have been a lot larger," said Mr Stone, 48, who runs the medical marijuana website dabronxnews.com.

Medical marijuana use has been legal in California since 1996, when voters passed a law allowing the drug to be used as a pain reliever.

Mr Stone said he would be careful to ensure that his record attempt would remain legal, indicating that the joint would be smoked in a local medical marijuana collective.

"We're probably going to do it as a fund raiser," he said. "And the mayor and police chief would be most welcome if they have a doctor's note to consume cannabis."

Mr Stone said he plans to roll an even bigger joint to mark the US football final at the Super Bowl next February, and has asked companies if they can provide custom made rolling papers to help the attempt.

"I think a metre would be a good, smokeable size joint," Mr Stone said.

"I'm not looking to make a torpedo, I'm looking to make a smokeable joint."

a marijuana torpedo?? Interesting idea

[asandir]

One for the Canadians amongst us

Nude people show off their potholes
From correspondents in Ottawa
November 30, 2006
PEOPLE in a small town in western Canada are so fed up with the rotten state of their main road that they came up with an unusual form of protest - a calendar that shows them posing nude in the potholes.

One inhabitant of Leader, Saskatchewan, is shown sitting in a canoe that is perched in a pothole.

Another has his dignity preserved by a well-placed camera while a third man covers up with a strategic hubcap.

"The initial impression when people open the calendar for the first time is 'Oh my God!' It's pretty dramatic," said Wayne Elhard, the local MP.

Leader, a town of just 1000 in a largely farming area of southwest Saskatchewan, says it can't afford to fix all its roads.

"The potholes are not small, one-foot diameter potholes. They are many feet across and sometimes they're as deep as a foot deep and sometimes they will stretch for yards," Mr Elhard told CBC television today.

He said that during the summer, local authorities had covered the worst stretch of the main road with gravel to improve safety.

"It's been a constant problem. We've raised it with the (provincial) government every opportunity we had ... all to no avail, frankly," he said.

[DaemianLucifer]

Please!They have no idea how a bad road looks like.They should visit here and let me see them complain after that!

Leader, a town of just 1000 in a largely farming area of southwest Saskatchewan, says it can't afford to fix all its roads.

All its roads? But,wasnt there only one road in canada?

[ThunderTitan]

Over here they started fixing the roads every few years. But not all of them, so some have been full of holes for decades while others that aren't broken have been fixed repeatedly. I just love this country....

[asandir]

sounds fab!

Firm hopes spray-on condom will offer snug fit
A German company plans to launch a spray-on condom tailor-made for all sizes.

The Institute for Condom Consultancy is developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts his penis first.

At the push of a button it is then coated in a rubber condom.

"We're trying to develop the perfect condom for men that's suited to every size of penis," spokesman Jan Vinzenz Krause said.

"We're very serious."

Mr Krause says the product aims to help people enjoy better and safer sex lives.

"It works by spraying on latex from nozzles on all sides," he said.

"We call it the '360-degree procedure' - once round and from top to bottom.

"It's a bit like a car wash."

He says the plan is to make the product ready for use in about five seconds.

Mr Krause says the spray-on condom would function more effectively as a contraceptive because it would fit better and not slip.

But before the new condom can be sold in shops, the firm must ensure the latex is evenly spread when sprayed, as well as optimise the vulcanisation process.

The company hopes the high-tech condom, which will be available in different strengths and colours, will be on the market by 2008.

Mr Krause says the spray would probably cost about $30 as a one-off purchase.

He says the latex cartridges, which are sufficient for up to 20 applications, would cost about $17.

Mr Krause says he hit upon the idea when considering the difficulties some people faced using condoms and drew inspiration from spray-on plasters now used in medicine.

[asandir]

'Grandfather' lobster draws crowds
A lobster is drawing the crowds in the northern Algerian coastal town of Jijel after a local fisherman landed an unusually elderly catch.

Abdelkader, who goes by one name, netted the sexagenarian shellfish and six others who the fisherman estimates have accumulated, at a pinch, 300 years between them.

The age of the veteran crustaceans was determined by their weight, according to the standard formula of 100 grams per year.

Abdelkader caught the 62-year-old senior shellfish, who he named grandfather, at a depth of 300 metres with two 59-year olds, dubbed grandmother and uncle, mum and dad aged 48 and 46 and two young nippers.

Abdelkader proudly displayed his haul to the public in a tank, but warned that anyone wanting to buy the 36 kilograms of seafood would have to shell out 120,000 dinars ($A2,150).

and a bit more for Christmas

Thousands set new world record in 'Santa Dash'
Thousands of people dressed as Santa Claus have taken part in the English city of Liverpool's annual "Santa Dash", setting a new world record in the process, organisers of the event say.

To raise money for local charities, about 5,000 people dressed up in red suits, white beards and black boots and ran for five kilometres through the streets.

The feat dwarfed last year's event that saw the north-west city earn a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most Santas in one place at one time with 3,921.

Though more than 5,000 people filled in applications to enter the 2006 event, the exact number of runners along with the total amount raised was not to be confirmed for several weeks.

The event's website acknowledges that it will faces stiff competition for the world record from an event in Las Vegas later this month.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Santas also dressed up to take part in similar charity runs in two Welsh cities, Newtown and Oswestry, attracting a total of just under 2,000 runners.

[Kalah]

Bizarre... and not so bizarre. A guy named John Waagaard was just sentenced to 30 days in prison for throwing a cake at the Norwegian Minister of Finance.

Right now you're probably thinking: "A cake? And he's sent to prison!?" So am I. In this democracy you'd think a certain amount of demonstration would be allowed and the guy would get off with a fine or something, but the court has just ruled that the Norwegian penal code 99 applies to this case - this law, which was initiated in 2000, says you can be punished for obstructing the members of Government from performing their work. The prison sentences range from 14 days to 15 years...

The case will be appealed to the next court, and if the verdict stands (or not), it is my belief it will be appealed to the Supreme Court. I sincerely hope that if the Supremes get their hands on this, they will reduce the sentence as "unreasonable", and instead issue Mr. Waagaard a fine.

[DaemianLucifer]

Ah,the beauty of (miss)interpretation of the laws.I thought that those things were made to be strickt and not ambiguous.

[Kalah]

The main problem here is that the prosecution used penal code 99 instead of 228 - assault. Thus they convicted him under the same penal code as people who issue death threats to politicians, instead of the same one as people who commit physical offence to any other person. This only because the victim in question was a politician.

There is no presedence with regards to code 99. The court therefore drew parallels to cases concerning offences against police and other officials (14-21 in prison) - and they thought acts commited against public figures like members of the government should be punished more severely.