SpikedHumor News Article Requests

[Jayne]

The previous thread started by digidante is getting spammed so this now the Official Request Thread.

That means NOTHING but news articles in this thread.


*Find a news article you think is worthy for our Admin to post.
(Follow digidante's example below.)

*Leave a small description with the source/link.

*Also, leave a link to your user profile (from SH.com) so we can credit your findings.


Remember, we can't promise ALL of your news will be posted.
We're mainly looking for odd/strange news. Nothing TOO political.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by digidante

PHILADELPHIA - A telephone call at midnight normally would have awoken Bill Whiting, but he hadn't been sleeping much since his dog disappeared. He picked up the phone and couldn't believe what he heard.

Children were demanding $600 or else they would kill Edna, his beloved beagle mix. Whiting listened in horror to what sounded like the jingle of Edna's collar, and an animal yelping in pain. He agreed to pay the ransom.

"You don't understand, mister," a boy replied. "I want to kill your dog anyway."

What happened to Edna remains a mystery, but Philadelphia police have charged a 15-year-old with harassment, terroristic threats, theft by extortion and other counts for allegedly calling Whiting. Police have yet to find the dog.


(Full Article here: Yahoo! News via AP)

[digidante]

Completed
Mexico boy tries to stick at home



A Mexican boy glued his hand to his bed because he did not want to go back to school after the Christmas break.

"The holidays were such fun," Diego Palacios, 10, who lives outside Monterrey, told Reforma newspaper.

His mother Sandra found him watching television with his hand stuck to the bedstead. "I don't know why he did it," she said. "He is a good boy."

Police and paramedics eventually managed to free him unharmed, and he was only a few hours late for school.

Diego had got up early to fetch some industrial-strength glue from the kitchen.

His mother spent two hours trying to free him with nail-polish remover before calling for expert help.

Diego watched cartoons while paramedics dissolved the glue with a spray.

Article Via BBC News

I'm not exactly sure how to link to my profile that isn't a /profile.aspx but I think I acquired it appropriately. Digidante User ID: 32419.

Edit: I don't think the link works? But I did achieve the user ID out of the link... Hope that helps?

Thank you for setting this up Jayne.

[digidante]

Completed
In The Name of God...

TYLER, Texas (AP) -- Friends and family of a 21-year-old who police say was killed and mutilated by her boyfriend struggle to put aside the grisly details of her death.

"You can't sleep. You can't think straight anymore," said Amy Gage, a friend and neighbor of the victim, Jana Shearer. "Then you just keep finding out more and more. It's the most difficult thing anyone can go through."

Shearer's boyfriend, Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, was charged with capital murder after police said they found her body, an ear boiling in a pot on a stovetop, and a hunk of flesh with a fork in it on a plate at the crime scene.

Source

Digidante

[ug7344]

Completed
DES MOINES, Iowa — Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone — by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

FULL ARTICLE - Source

ug7344

Completed
Original Link


HAYDEN, Idaho (AP) -- A man who believed he bore the biblical "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.

The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff's deputies arrived Saturday. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.

"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived," sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. "He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."

It was not immediately clear whether the man has a history of mental illness. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality.

The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury."

The book of Matthew also contains the passage: "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to do into hell."

Wolfinger said he didn't know which hand was amputated.

[The Master]

Completed
NEW YORK — Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said.

Source Link
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321197,00.html

Profile Link
http://www.SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=137476

[ug7344]

Completed
The mayor of a small Oregon town who posted photographs of herself in her undies online has been asked by some constituents to resign, according to a report.

Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, whose MySpace profile raised eyebrows in Arlington, Ore., faced residents Wednesday night at a town meeting, KATU.com reported Thursday.

The station reported that roughly 75 people showed up to the meeting in this town of about 500 people.

Source

ug7344

↓↓↓↓↓↓ WTF??? haha nova1999

[ug7344]

Completed
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — To get people to attend his new church campus, Robbie McLaughlin is sending his message out to where the people are.

Next Friday, staffers from Next Level Church of Matthews will go to bars in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte to hand out shot glasses which ask patrons to "give us a shot" and bear the slogan, "Real church for real people."

The idea is to draw people to the Ballantyne campus, which opens next month.

McLaughlin is the pastor, and said he is confident that it will be controversial, but he said the goal is not necessarily to impress people who already go to church. He said it's to impress people who don't.

Next Level is a nontraditional church that encourages members to dress casually and snack on coffee and doughnuts during services.

McLaughlin said the idea has caught on, and in two years, the church has grown from a handful of members to more than 700.

SOURCE

ug7344

[ug7344]

Completed
Can't understand what your dog wants when it barks? A computer may be able to help.

Scientists at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, recorded more than 6,000 barks uttered by 14 individual Mudis, or Hungarian sheepdogs, in six different situations — "stranger," "fight," "walk," "alone," "ball' and "play."

They then fed the sounds to a computer program, which was able to correctly categorize the barks 43 percent of the time — far from perfect, but much better than the 16.7 percent rate that would have arisen by chance.

FULL ARTICLE - SOURCE

ug7344

[Geoblaze]

Completed
SH ID = http://SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=105556

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/01/...space-station/ (original japanese source here)

Researchers from the University of Tokyo have teamed up with members of the Japan Origami Airplane Association to develop a paper aircraft capable of surviving the flight from the International Space Station to the Earth’s surface.

The researchers are scheduled to begin testing the strength and heat resistance of an 8 centimeter (3.1 in) long prototype on January 17 in an ultra-high-speed wind tunnel at the University of Tokyo’s Okashiwa campus (Chiba prefecture). In the tests, the origami glider — which is shaped like the Space Shuttle and has been treated to withstand intense heat — will be subjected to wind speeds of Mach 7, or about 8,600 kilometers (5,300 miles) per hour.

A large spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle can reach speeds of up to Mach 20 (over 15,200 mph) when it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, and friction with the air heats the outer surface to extreme temperatures. The much lighter origami aircraft, which the researchers claim will come down more slowly, is not expected to burn up on re-entry.

No launch date has been set for the paper spaceplane, but Shinji Suzuki, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Tokyo, is thinking ahead. “We hope the space station crew will write a message of peace on the plane before they launch it,” says Suzuki. “We don’t know where in the world the plane will land, but it would be nice to send a message to whoever finds it.”

[Geoblaze]

SH id = http://SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=105556

Title: Florida school board approves McDonald's report-cards and school-bus audio ads

The Seminole County Florida School District -- which recently signed up (and then had to cancel) McDonald's-sponsored report-cards has also approved a pilot program for school-bus audio advertising:

The company serves a sonorous mix of inoffensive music, public service announcements (buckle up, kids!) and a few harmless advertisements (maybe McDonald's?) to over 1 million children in 23 states. Bus Radio is based in Needham, Massachusetts, but lost its contract with the Needham school district after uppity parents objected to the crass commercialization of something as innocent as a bus ride.

source: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/19...ool-board.html
source 2: http://consumerist.com/346745/bus-ra...ool+bound-kids

[Geoblaze]

Completed
SH id = http://SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=105556
title: Brooklyn Bridge to get a waterfall

"Four giant waterfalls will be erected in New York for three months this summer as part of a public arts project. The waterfalls, including one that will fall from the famed Brooklyn Bridge, are the brainchild of Danish artist Olafur Eliasson."

Three of the waterfalls will cascade into the East River and New York Harbor from free-standing scaffolding towers that Eliasson said were part of his artistic vision, mirroring the scaffolding towers that sprout up throughout New York. The falls will be in place from mid-July to mid-October.
City officials are hoping to emulate the success of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, "The Gates," which drew around 1.5 million visitors to the city in February 2005 to view about 7,500 saffron panels draped through Central Park.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/..._waterfalls_dc

[Geoblaze]

SH ID = http://SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=105556
Title: Feds plan digital spying on pigs, llamas, terrorcritters.
Source: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...other-com.html
Al-Qaida is after our cows.

That's the concern of the Department of Homeland Security, which announced Friday a $33 million plan for a pair of academic centers to combat possible terrorist attacks on America's livestock and food supply.

The department contends that so-called "agroterrorism" is a "top priority for university research." But outside homeland security and biological defense circles, experts are deeply divided over how realistic the threat actually is.

Some see America's farms as tempting morsels for evildoers looking to sow economic chaos. Others think terrorists are much more likely to stick to their usual diet of exploding trucks, shoulder-fired missiles and suicide bombs.

"I'm not sure how attractive this is to the bad guy," said Phil Anderson, a homeland security analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "He likes body bags, explosions, things that look good on CNN. So I'm not that worried about the food chain."

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said it intends to set up two university-run research hubs, or "centers of excellence," for food-chain defense. One will spend $15 million over three years studying "post-harvest food protection and defense," focusing on how to keep food from being poisoned. The other, with a slightly larger, $18 million budget, will examine "foreign animal and zoonotic disease defense," or how to keep farm animals safe.

Top priorities will include developing a better understanding of how animal pathogens spread and improving animal disease detection techniques, according to the Department of Homeland Defense's announcement about the centers. The department will decide in February which universities qualify for the research grants.

If there is an agricultural attack, experts agree, it's most likely to hit America's increasingly centralized livestock supply. Nature-made assailants, like "mad cow disease," have shown how vulnerable our animals can be, noted David Heymann, Anderson's colleague at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Moreover, groups like al-Qaida have shown an interest in biological assaults. And animal ailments are much easier to handle and spread than plant diseases.

"There are five major feed lots in the U.S. and a pound each of FMD (foot and mouth disease) sprinkled close to them destroys the cattle industry. You'd have 40-foot-wide trenches 50 miles long to bury all the cattle," Anderson said.

Such a move could have a profound economic impact. The beef business alone generates more than $30 billion annually, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

And there could be major psychological consequences, as well. The reactions to naturally occurring problems, like E. coli food poisoning and mad cow outbreaks, have been irrational enough. The hysteria likely would be much more intense if such incidents were intentionally caused.

"Any major attack could undermine faith in the safety of the entire food supply," warned Calvin Chue, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health.

All true, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who chairs the Federation of American Scientists' working group on biological weapons, wrote in an e-mail. "But I fail to see why it is necessary or desirable to classify food safety or animal health as a terrorism issue."

[Geoblaze]

last one for today, once again, sh id above

title: Lawyer claims he owns "cyberlawyer" -- actual cyberlawyers laugh and laugh

Eric Menhart may call himself a cyberlawyer, but we think he has a lot of learn about cyberlaw -- and common sense. Menhart is the author of a blog about cyberlaw issues called, logically if not innovatively, "Cyberlawg." (As he says in the top right corner, "Cyberlawg = Cyberlaw + blog.") And he is "principal attorney" in a firm called "CyberLaw P.C." OK, OK, we get it, he practices technology law. Based on this, he's applied for a trademark on the use of the term "cyberlaw" in connection with the practice of, um, cyberlaw. That's like a soda company claiming a trademark in the use of the word soda in connection with the sale of soda. Or an apple farmer claiming a trademark in the use of the term apple in connection with the sale of apples. Or ... well, you get the picture.

source: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/01...and-cyberlawgs

Completed
Man Sentenced For Attacking Child With Hot Pocket Sandwich

WINCHESTER, Va. -- A Boyce man has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for burning a young relative with hot food.

Robert Eston Larrick Jr., 40, was sentenced on Tuesday in Winchester Circuit Court.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jason Caccamo said Larrick shoved a "smoldering" Hot Pocket sandwich in the 11-year-old victim's face.

Caccamo said the child suffered first- and second-degree burns around her eye. Larrick did not take the child to the hospital for medical treatment after the incident.

Last month, Larrick entered Alford pleas to charges of malicious bodily injury and felony child abuse. An Alford plea means he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged sufficient evidence exists for a conviction.


Source:

[ug7344]

Completed
Bus driver told him: 'No dogs allowed'

Given that she describes herself as a human pet – and is happy to walk around on a lead – Tasha Maltby is used to odd looks and even odder remarks.

But nothing had prepared her for the reaction of the bus driver who allegedly told the self-styled Goth and her boyfriend: "We don't let freaks and dogs like you on."

Miss Maltby and her fiance Dani Graves were so angered they have complained to the bus company of being "victimised".

Full Article

ug7344

[ug7344]

Completed
Call it a tale of revenge gone wrong.

When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss's phone number listed — she assumed she was about to be fired. So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years' worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.

Source

ug7344

Completed
Here's the source

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A teenage passenger from California was arrested in Nashville for plotting to hijack a plane from Los Angeles to Nashville, the FBI said Friday.
FBI spokesman George Bolds told The Associated Press the 16-year-old boy was removed from Southwest Airlines Flight 284 Tuesday night by authorities at Nashville International Airport and found with "suspicious" items.
Bolds said the teen had handcuffs, rope and duct tape in his bag and was believed to be traveling alone. The juvenile's name has not been released.

"His plan had a low probability of success," Bolds said.

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Brandy King could not provide additional details. Airport spokeswoman Emily Richard declined to provide additional information because the passenger is a minor.

Messages left by The Associated Press with the Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.
The teen is in custody at Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center, where he faced state charges, but Bolds did not comment on what the charges were. He said he expects federal charges to come.

Bolds dismissed earlier broadcast reports that the teen was planning to crash the plane into a "Hannah Montana" concert in Lafayette, La.
Bolds said it has not been determined if the boy was trying to crash the plane. He said authorities searched the teen's home in California and found a mock cockpit.
The teen is believed to be suicidal, Bolds said. Bolds said he could not comment further on the teen's mental condition because he is a minor.

Bolds said the teen was calm throughout the flight and never made an attempt to hijack the plane but told the FBI after he was apprehended about his original plans to commandeer the aircraft.

The Transportation Security Administration did not immediately return a message seeking comment to determine if the items were banned from air travel. TSA did not list the items the teen was carrying on its Web site as prohibited.

Profile link: http://SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=116999

Here's the Source

I didn’t realize Best Buy was struggling so badly that it had to resort to this “tribute” to Heath Ledger just a few hours after his death. Someone that works at the Mission Valley San Diego Best Buy threw a few DVDs on a table and erected a sign in the same format of a tombstone (name, dates of birth/death and a couple of lines about how the person’s going to be remembered) before many even knew he had passed away.

I’m not a movie geek, but this is really tasteless. I know that this was probably the work of a rogue manager who wanted to hit some sales goals or just be “creative,” but there’s a reason why big companies have centralized marketing efforts.

I’m not sure where this table was placed in the store, but there’s nothing like the thought of death to get someone out of a gadget buying mood than the thought of death. I’d be willing to bet at least one customer walked away from buying a laptop, TV or other high-ticket item at Best Buy because of this stunt.

Hope the 1 extra DVD Best Buy sold was worth this embarrassment…

[Geoblaze]

ID: Geoblaze http://www.SpikedHumor.com/Profile.aspx?UserID=105556
Title: The Dollars In The Shitter (not political)

source: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9040137
source 2: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/25...otebook-w.html

Kate Black made this notebook. She has just one for sale on Etsy for $24. It's called "The Dollar's In The Shitter.

The US Dollar is worth so little now, it's cheaper to bind books with banknotes than art papers.
This book is made with two 1 dollar bills, actual US currency.

The interior covers and spine reinforcements are emerald green batiked paper.

The textblock is made from 60lb, bright white drawing paper. The paper has a good amount of tooth and can handle ink, pencil and many other media.

- 5.5" x 2.125" (14 cm x 5.5 cm)
- 140 pages.
- Bound with forest green waxed Irish linen thread.

This book opens completely flat, for ease of use

[Geoblaze]

Completed
id is above
Title: Smugglers clone FedEx and Border Patrol vans
source: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4156618&page=1

Savvy criminals are using some of the country's most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement...
A fake U.S. Border Patrol van was found to be carrying 31 illegal aliens in Casa Grande, Ariz. An alert agent recognized that the "H" in the van's serial number is a letter used only on U.S. Border Patrol Jeep Wranglers. It should have been a "P."

[Geoblaze]

id is above
this one i dunno if it will be posted, but i found it funny

title: Books that make you dumb: chart
source: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/20...that_make.html
"Wikiscanner hacker Virgil Griffth told me a while ago about his latest data mining project, to visualise the relationship between books and SAT scores. Today he released his findings at Booksthatmakeyoudumb.
He does this by cross referencing the 10 most popular books at every college, as given by Facebook, and the average SAT score. He then presents it all in this nifty little visualisation."

[Geoblaze]

Completed
id is above
Title: Marijuana vending machine
After cinching up your doctor's consultation, hit an AVM location to get your prescription approved, fingerprint taken, and a prepaid credit card loaded with your profile: dosage (3.5 or 7 grams, up to 1oz a week) and strain preference (choice of five, including OG Cush and Granddaddy Purple, the mildly hallucinogenic forebear to Prince). Then day or night, all you do is hit a machine and walk away with enough vacuum-sealed, plastic-encapsulated cheeba to adequately treat your illness.

source: http://www.thrillist.com/archives/20...dwilshire.html

Here's the source.

It's long but it's a good one.


San Francisco's ban on handguns, blocked by a legal challenge since voters approved it in November 2005, suffered a possibly fatal blow Wednesday when a state appeals court ruled that local governments have no authority under California law to prevent people from owning pistols.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco agreed with a June 2006 ruling by Superior Court Judge James Warren, who said state laws regulating gun sales, permits and safety leave no room for a city or county to forbid handgun possession.

State courts have upheld some local restrictions, including prohibitions on the sale or possession of guns on public fairgrounds, Presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo noted in the 3-0 ruling. But in general, "when it comes to regulating firearms, local governments are well advised to tread lightly," he wrote.

San Francisco's ban was challenged by the National Rifle Association, whose lobbyist Chris Cox called Wednesday's ruling "a big win for the law-abiding citizens and NRA members of San Francisco."

Alexis Thompson, spokeswoman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said the ruling was disappointing, "particularly in light of the continuing plague of handgun violence here in San Francisco."

The city could ask the state Supreme Court to review the case. History would not be on the city's side, however, as the state's high court refused to review a 1982 ruling by the same appeals court striking down an earlier San Francisco ordinance that prohibited handgun possession in the city limits.

Drafters of the 2005 measure, Proposition H, sought to comply with the 1982 ruling by limiting the handgun ban to San Francisco residents. The ordinance allowed only law enforcement officers and others who needed guns for professional purposes to possess handguns.

It also prohibited the manufacture, sale and distribution of any type of firearms and ammunition in San Francisco.

Prop. H was approved by 58 percent of the voters but was challenged by the NRA a day after the election in a suit on behalf of gun owners, advocates and dealers. The proposition has never taken effect.

In Wednesday's ruling, the court said the city ordinance would interfere with an elaborate system of gun regulation enacted by the Legislature.

State laws allow law-abiding Californians to possess handguns in their homes and businesses and let them request a concealed-weapons permit or a judge's permission to carry guns in public, the court said. In addition, the court said, a 1999 state law banning the sale of the cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials, and setting safety standards for legal firearms, implicitly prohibited local governments from outlawing all handguns.

San Francisco argued that its measure was a legitimate response to violent crime. But Ruvolo said in the court ruling, "The ordinance will affect more than just criminals. It will also affect every city resident who has not, through some demonstration of personal disability or irresponsibility, lost his or her right to possess a handgun."

The Legislature, Ruvolo said, has determined the statewide balance between the public's interest in being safe from gun violence and law-abiding citizens' right to buy guns "to deter crime, to help police fight crime, to defend themselves and for certain hunting and recreational purposes." A local government has no power to disrupt that balance, he said.

The court also refused San Francisco's request to allow the city to enforce Prop. H's ban on the manufacture or sale of rifles and shotguns, saying the city must first rewrite the ordinance to narrow its scope.

[Geoblaze]

Completed
ID is above
Title: Canadians are the new blacks OR Southern racists adopt "Canadian" as a euphemism for "black"
The Canadian National Post looks on with mild horror as American linguists report on the growing trend in the American south to use "Canadian" as a masking euphemism for black people, so that white racists can say socially inappropriate things without tipping listeners off about the cancer in their souls.

source: http://www.nationalpost.com/most_pop...html?id=261254