Newsoftheweird.com:
Tennessee State Rep. Julia Hurley apologized in July and said she would pay for the refinishing of her desk in the legislative chamber after it was revealed that she had carved her initials in it during a January session. "It was like one in the morning on the last day of the session," she told WSMV-TV. "I wasn't thinking straight." Rep. Hurley, 29, who has a daughter, 14, unseated a nine-term incumbent legislator in 2010 with a campaign that touted her time as a Hooters waitress. "If I could make it at Hooters," she wrote in the restaurant's magazine, "I could make it anywhere." [Knoxville News-Sentinel-AP, 7-12-2011]
California's state and local governments are rarely discussed these days without the pall of budget cuts looming, but apparently the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is safe because it is spending a reported $1.5 million to move a big rock in from Riverside, about 60 miles away. It's a 340-ton boulder that the museum intends to display above a sidewalk ("Levitated Mass"). The move will require a 200-foot-long trailer with 200 tires, with one semi-tractor pulling and one pushing, at night, maximum speed 8 mph. [KNBC-TV (Los Angeles, 6-15-2011]
Georges Marciano, co-founder of the clothing company Guess? Inc. and ostensibly in no trouble with IRS, nonetheless demanded in 2009 that the agency audit him over the previous several years. IRS turned him down, and he sued the agency in federal court in Washington, D.C., but in July, a judge rejected the case, declaring that federal law and the U.S. Constitution do not give anyone a "right" to demand that IRS collect more taxes from them. (Marciano perhaps hoped for IRS to uncover cheating by his former employees and accountants, whom he thought were stealing from him. Paying higher taxes might have been worth it if the agency had made it easier for him to sue any cheaters.) [The Blog of Legal Times, 7-5-2011; Los Angeles Times, 12-15-2009]
In May, following near-record floods in fields south of Montreal, Quebec, farmer Martin Reid made sure to apply for his fishing license because he had learned the hard way that when his land gets flooded, he cannot remove the fish washed onto it unless he is a licensed fisherman. After flooding in 1993, Reid and his father failed to secure a license and were fined $1,000. A second offense brings a fine of $100,000. [London Free Press, 5-27-2011]
The elegant, expansive, gleaming new glass-and-concrete indoor stairway at the Common Pleas Courthouse in Columbus, Ohio, opened recently, to mostly rave reviews for its sense of space and light, creating the feeling of walking suspended on air. However, as Judge Julie Lynch and other women soon discovered, the glass partitions at each step make it easy for perverts to gawk from underneath at dress-wearing women using the stairs. "(Y)ou're on notice," Judge Lynch warned her sister dress-wearers, "that you might want to take the elevator." [Columbus Dispatch, 6-8-2011]
Pablo Borgen has apparently been living without neighbors' complaints in Lakeland, Fla., despite general knowledge that he is, according to sheriff's officials, one of the area's major heroin traffickers, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a month. Following a drug sting in June, however, neighbors discovered another fact about Borgen: that he and some of his gang were each drawing $900 a month in food stamps. Formerly indifferent neighbors were outraged by Borgen's abuse of benefits, according to WTSP-TV. "Hang him by his toes," said one. "I've been out of work since February (2008). I lived for a year on nothing but ... food stamps." [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 6-15-2011]
It's good to be an Arizona State University student, where those 21 and older can earn $60 a night by getting drunk. Psychology professor Will Corbin, operating with National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants, conducts studies of drunk students' memories, response times and decision-making processes through extensive questioning -- after he has raised their blood-alcohol level to precisely 0.08 percent (which Arizona regards as presumed-impaired for drivers). Students are served one type of vodka cocktail, three drinks' worth, in a bar-like room on campus, and after 15 minutes to let the alcohol be absorbed, the questioning and testing begin. (At the end of the night, taxis are called for the students.) [Arizona Republic, 7-22-2011]
New, on the News of the Weird Food Cart: (1) grasshopper tacos (at San Francisco's La Oaxaquena Bakery, but pulled in June by local health authorities, who were concerned that the bakery was importing Mexican insects rather than using American ones); (2) cicada ice cream (at Sparky's Homemade in Columbia, Mo., but also yanked off sale by local health authorities in June); (3) maggot-melt sandwiches (which are just what you suspect -- cheese and dead maggots -- at the California State Fair in July). [KGO-TV (San Francisco), 6-7-2011] [Kansas City Star-AP, 6-7-2011] [Sacramento Bee, 7-8-2011]
In June, officials of California's Alvord Unified School District announced that their brand-new, $105 million high school, Hillcrest, would remain unused for the coming school year (and perhaps beyond) -- because the budget-strapped state does not have $3 million to run the school for a year. (In any event, it costs $1 million per year just to maintain the building to prevent its deterioration.) [USA Today, 6-21-2011]
News of the Weird has mentioned various overseas prisons where crime kingpins serve time in relative comfort (through bribery or fear), but according to a June New York Times dispatch, Venezuela's San Antonio prison (which houses the country's drug traffickers) is in a class of its own. San Antonio's four swimming pools frequently host inmates' families and "guests," who lounge with barbecue meals and liquor. Paid "bodyguards" pass the time shucking oysters for alpha-dog-inmate Teofilo Rodriguez. DirecTV dishes serve the cells. Drug-smuggling via guards is so prevalent that Venezuelan locals actually visit the prison to buy the surplus (which they carry out because guards only "search" them upon entering). Rodriguez's enforcement is backed up by an openly displayed arsenal of guns. Said a Russian drug trafficker-inmate, "This is the strangest place I've ever been." [New York Times, 6-4-2011]
Cliches Come to Life (Bureaucrats' Edition): In November (2005) in Murfreesboro, Tenn., U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employees Joseph Haymond and Natalie Coker were charged with taking kickbacks on the purchase of 100,000 rolls of red tape (that is, red security tape used on packages of VA medications).
Budget cuts forced the closure of two of the three firehouses in Chillicothe, Ohio (pop. 22,000), and even that station failed a state fire marshal's inspection in March. Because the station's own alarm system was broken, the chief was required, until the new system is installed, to assign one firefighter per shift to be on full-time patrol at the station, walking around the grounds constantly, upstairs, downstairs, looking for fires. [Columbus Dispatch, 3-30-2011]
"Common sense lost its voice on this one," concluded a Wethersfield, Conn., city councilman, lamenting the local school board's having spent at least $630,000 to "resolve" an ethics complaint against the board's chairwoman -- all because her son had improperly taken a $400 high school course for free. The town's ethics board conducted more than 60 hours of hearings over 11 months, incurring $407,000 in legal expenses, and finally voted, 3-2, to uphold the complaint. (However, the ethics board ordered only that the chairwoman reimburse the $400; the school board then voted to pay all her legal expenses.) [Hartford Courant, 6-10-2011]
In June, as five young men gathered around the Mount Tabor Reservoir near Portland, Ore., one urinated in it, thus "contaminating" the 7.2 million gallons that serve the city, and, said Water Bureau administrator David Shaff, necessitating that the entire supply be dumped. Under questioning by the weekly Portland Mercury whether the water is also dumped when an animal urinates in it (or worse, dies in it), Shaff replied, certainly not. "If we did that, we'd be (dumping the water) all the time." Well, asked the reporter, what's the difference? Because, said Shaff (sounding confident of his logic), "Do you want to be drinking someone's pee?" [Portland Mercury, 6-15-2011]
Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act requires universities to offer "equal" intercollegiate athletic access to females, even though finding that many serious female athletes is difficult on some campuses. The easiest subterfuge, according to an April New York Times report, is to pad women's teams with whimsically enlisted females -- and in some cases, with males. Said former university president (and Health and Human Services Secretary) Donna Shalala, "Those of us in the business know that universities have been end-running Title IX for a long time, and they do it until they get caught." Sample dysfunctional result: When University of South Florida added football (100 male players) a few years ago, it was forced to populate more female teams, and thus "recruited" 71 women for its cross-country team, even though fewer than half ran races and several were surprised to know they were even on the team when a Times reporter inquired. [New York Times, 4-26-2011]
NuttyNewsToday.com:
Nutty News Ely, Nevada - On some days, the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nev., airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it. Federal statistics show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while the airline got $1.8 million in subsidies. The travelers paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket. The cost to taxpayers for each ticket: $4,107. Ely is one of 153 rural communities where airlines get subsidies through the $200 million Essential Air Service program, and one of 13 that critics say should be eliminated from it. Some call the spending a boondoggle, but others see it as a critical financial lifeline to ensure economic stability in rural areas. More
Nutty News Washington DC - At a time when many more cash-strapped Americans are stuck at home instead of vacationing at the beach, President Obama next week will lead an entourage of several dozens to exclusive Martha’s Vineyard island at a cost of millions to taxpayers. While technically he is paying for his estimated $50,000 a week rental of the 28-acre beachfront Blue Heron Farm in woodsy Chilmark, the dozens of U.S. Secret Service agents, communications officials, top aides, drivers, and U.S. Coast Guard personnel with him will be covered by taxpayers as with every other presidential vacation. Obama’s vacation comes at an awkward time because of the economic turmoil roiling the nation and Wall Street. Surveys show that a growing number of Americans can’t afford even small vacations. More
NNT's joke of the day:
A company had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Management said, “Someone might steal from it at night.” So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.
Then management said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?” So they created a planning department and hired two people; one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.
Then management said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing his tasks correctly?” So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.
Then management said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So they created the following positions, a timekeeper and a payroll officer; then hired two more people.
Then management said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?” So they created an administrative section and hired three people; an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then management said, “We’ve had this command in operation for one year now and we’re $18,000 over budget. We have to cutback on overall costs.”
So they laid off the night watchman.
Bonus NotW item: gold in the news!Who Knew? "The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold," said one of New York City's gold wranglers, as he, down on all fours and manipulating tweezers, picked specks of gold, silver and jewels that had fallen off of clothing and jewelry racks as they were rolled from trucks into stores. The man told the New York Post in June that he had recently earned $819 in redemptions for six days' prospecting. [New York Post, 6-20-2011]
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