Weird!!

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd
Thanks to CU

->News that Sounds Like a Joke
In July, National Hockey League player Derek Boogaard, an "enforcer" known for his willingness to brawl, opened the Derek and Aaron Boogaard Fighting Camp in Regina, Saskatchewan, to train teenage hockey players in that highly essential skill. [Chicago Tribune-Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 7-17-07]
Sharing of best practices...!

Iran's state-sponsored news agency IRNA announced in July that its agents had broken up a Western countries' "spy ring" that employed more than a dozen squirrels trying to bring "spy gear" of foreign agencies into the country. [Washington Post-BBC, 7-20-07]
How creative can they get...!
------------ --------- --------- --------- ---------

->The Continuing Crisis
Modernizations: Congregants of Rev. Tom Ambrose, of St. Mary and St. Michael Church in Trumpington, England, met in September to complain of several things about their vicar, most notably that he delivered the Christmas sermon last year (and several since then) using Microsoft PowerPoint. [Daily Mail (London), 9-4-07]
Microsoft and sermon? ungodly!!


One priority of President Vladimir Putin's Nashi national youth movement is procreation to build up Russia's declining population, according to a July report in London's Daily Mail (which also charged the Nashi with inculcating authoritarianism). Its two-week convention in July (with 10,000 in attendance) featured on-site sexual encouragements with not a condom in sight. [Daily Mail (London), 7-27-07]
Guess its a great time to live in Russia...!

And in Russia's Ulyanovsk province, the government again this year promoted Sept. 12 as a patriotic conception day, featuring SUVs and other prizes to couples who manage to time their blessed events for June 12, which is Russia's Constitution Day. [Denver Post, 8-15-07]
Man..I should start floating my resume to Russian companies...!!
------------ --------- --------- --------- ---------

-> Civilization in Decline
Video Nation: A 38-year-old man drowned off Ocean City, Md., in July, trying to save his two sons from a rip current. Two men from a nearby parasailing boat had jumped in to help and could have used more assistance, one said, except that the boat's passengers declined, with several more concerned with video-recording the drowning. [KMGH-TV (Denver)-AP, 7-25-07]
How pathetic...!!
------------ --------- --------- --------- ---------

->Everyone Has a Button Waiting to Get Pushed
In August, employees at the bar Changes, in Seattle, had to break up a karaoke-night attack by a woman on a man who was singing the Coldplay song "Yellow." The woman had shouted, "Oh, no, not that song. I can't stand that song." She charged the stage, screamed at the man and shoved him (and it eventually took four men to hold her for police). [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8-9-07]
What song is that...!!

Megan Conroy, 18, pleaded guilty in Brisbane, Australia, in September, to assaulting a 40-year-old man in May (by kicking him in the testicles) because he had mispronounced her first name. (And if you ever meet her, it's "mee-gan," not "may-gun.") [The Age (Melbourne), 9-6-07]
Say that again...!!

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
->Least Competent People
Quinton Thomas, 22, inadvertently strengthened the murder charge against him in April when he mailed a letter from the jail in Rockville, Md., believing that the contents would not be read by jail officials. However, Thomas had gotten the recipient's address wrong, causing the post office to "return to sender," and, as longstanding policy, officials inspect all incoming mail (for contraband). According to an August Washington Post report, Thomas characterized his emerging alibis and also wrote about a witness, "This white (expletive) can't make it to court on May 7 through May 12, ya feel me. I don't care what you gotta do, you don't even gotta stink the cracker, he just cant make it to Rockville that whole week, Homie." [Washington Post, 8-10-07]
Ha haa...!!