The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Sat, 4 May 1996 19:24:15 +0100
Hiya Loonies...
Here's a bit of strangeness from Alan...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
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************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************
******************<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>*******************
*** ***
*** THE LOONY BIN ***
*** loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk ***
*** ***
******************Internet Goddess*******************
*********************ANDROMEDA***********************
------- Forwarded message follows -------
WEIRDNUZ.426 (News of the Weird, April 5, 1996)
by Chuck Shepherd
* Reading, Pa., county controller Judith Kraines complained at a
commissioners' meeting in January about having to type letters and do
other business on a typewriter because her computer was old and no one
had been able to get it to work for two years. "If we had a computer,"
she said, "letters would go out faster." Three days later, she announced
that the computer she was complaining about in fact had not been plugged
in to any electrical outlet and that when the plug was inserted and the
computer was turned on, it worked fine. [Reading Eagle-Times, 1-21-96]
* In February, the British Columbia Supreme Court acquitted a 26-year-
old man with a sleep disorder of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl
because the assault occurred while he was allegedly asleep. In 1995, a
man in Calgary was acquitted of sexual assault using the same defense,
and in 1987, an Ontario man who stabbed his mother-in-law to death after
having driven 20 kilometers on a busy highway to get to her house also
proved he had a sleep disorder and was acquitted on the same ground.
[Sault Star-CP, 2-3-96] Kirchmeir
* A Houston Chronicle investigation published in February revealed that
only rarely does a complaint to the state Board of Examiners of
Psychologists result in suspension or revocation of a license. One
Temple, Tex., psychologist admitted pointing a gun to his head in a
suicide threat, shooting a gun inside his home, seducing a patient, and
carving a pentagram into his arm with a knife; he's still practicing.
While the Board is not quick to pull licenses, it often requires that
troubled psychologists get psychological counseling. [Dallas Morning
News-Houston Chronicle, 2-5-96]
* The Washington Post reported in March that the Department of
Agriculture required Iowa's Oink-Oink, Inc., last year to begin dying
green its best-selling dog treat, Pork Tenderloin (which is made from
the penises of hogs). Oink-Oink thought the green dye would make the
product unappealing and took a $100,000 loss killing the product and
enraging dog owners who loved the treat. The Department's only reason
for requiring the dye was so the treats would be more obviously
identified as not for human consumption. [Washington Post, 3-1-96]
* Recent Highway Truck Spills: two dozen bags of coins from an armored
truck, and kegs and bottles from a beer truck, in Washington, D. C., in
November; a half-ton of cat litter, in Stafford County, Va., in March;
dozens of boxes of socks in Decatur, Ala., in January; and animal blood,
which dripped out of a tanker and stained a highway for 20 miles near
Syracuse, Kan., in February. [Washington Post, 11-8-95] [Fairfax
Journal, 11-10-95] [Washington Post, 3-14-96] [Decatur Daily, 1-10-96]
[Northwest Florida Daily News, 2-9-96]
* In December, Eric Dulkin, 19, failed his driver's test in Chicago when
he inadvertently accelerated as he was leaving the parking lot, causing
his car to fishtail and smash through a window in the licensing-office
building. In Greenville, S. C., in November, a 15-year-old boy driving
a stolen car saw his grandmother driving toward him in traffic, ducked
down to avoid her seeing him, and inadvertently hit the gas pedal,
causing his car to smash into hers. (Injuries were minor.) [Chicago Sun-
Times, 12-14-95] [Columbus Dispatch, Nov95]
* Lowell Altvater, 80, was charged with negligent assault in Sandusky,
Ohio, in November after he thought he saw a rat in his barn and fired
his shotgun at it. It turned out to be his wife's hat, which she was
wearing. Mrs. Altvater begged police not to file charges, but they did,
in part because Lowell had shot himself in the leg in 1992 in the same
barn after thinking then, too, that he had spotted a rat. [Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel-Toledo Blade, 12-20-95; Columbus Dispatch, Nov95]
* In January near Branford, Conn., Mark Sullivan, 41, was about to bite
into a Big Mac while driving on an icy road when his car spun into a
concrete divider. The first rescuer on the scene found "McDonald's
wrappers and french fries all over the place" and Sullivan turning blue,
the sandwich having been thrust down his throat by the impact. (He's
fine now.) [Hartford Courant, 1-5-96]
Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.