Australian plea for 'ugly' women

The mayor of a remote Australian mining town has come under fire after saying that female "ugly ducklings" might benefit from its shortage of women.

John Molony told a newspaper last week that "with five blokes to every girl, may I suggest that beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa".

The council has since been swamped with complaints from both men and women.

But Mr Molony has refused to apologise for the remarks, saying he was "telling it like it is" in the Queensland town. <!-- E SF -->

Located 1,829km (1,136 miles) from Brisbane, Mount Isa is home to one of the world's biggest underground mines.

In 2006, there were just 819 women aged 20-24 living there out of a total population of 21,421, according to the most recent census.

'Lonely women'

In an interview with the Townsville Bulletin last week, Mr Molony proposed a novel solution to Mount Isa's shortage of eligible women.

"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness," he said.

"Some, in other places in Australia, need to proceed to Mount Isa where happiness awaits. Really, beauty is only skin deep. Isn't there a fairy tale about an ugly duckling that evolves into a beautiful swan," he added.

A fellow councillor, Jean Ferris, said the invitation to "beauty-disadvantaged women" had caused consternation among both sexes.

"It's an absolute disgrace," she told the Courier Mail. "It's not council's view and it's not mine. It's hard when you've got to defend something someone else has said. We're definitely appalled."

Mr Molony has since refused to retract his remarks and insisted he is "a bloke who respects women".

"I believe we should look after women," he said. "I'm told men outnumber women here by five to one. If that's the case, then perhaps it's an opportunity for some lonely women."

Gas pump malfunction sells premium for 38 cents

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Gas prices have been falling - but not that much. A problem with a pump cost a San Antonio convenience store when premium gasoline accidentally sold for 38 cents a gallon. Manager Jim Duke at a Dill Food Market says that grade of gas was supposed to be selling for $3.89 a gallon.

Duke says the "pump malfunction" involving a misplaced decimal point was fixed by Wednesday afternoon.

Nobody reported the mistake, which WOAI-AM reported apparently started Tuesday afternoon.

Duke said he noticed a lot of vehicles were being filled with premium and people were paying at the pump. He went out to check Wednesday and noticed the price error.

Duke said the independent gas station lost a lot of money. Just how much is still being tallied.

This one is actually written by a Lawyer right down the street from me:

Batman Ties Up Traffic In Fathers' Rights Protest

Speaking of bats (like I was Thursday), another one showed up today, this one on a highway sign over the M25 motorway in England, near Heathrow.  Dressed as Batman, 48-year-old Geoffrey Hibbert said he was roosting on the sign as part of a protest seeking more rights for fathers in family-law cases.  "I'm doing this for my daughter," Hibbert told the BBC on his Batphone.  "I'll do my protest all day."  Though he was not actually blocking the roadway, traffic was reportedly backed up for miles as drivers gawked at a rare appearance of the Dark Knight in broad daylight.

Hibbert is part of the group "Fathers 4 Justice," which since 2002 has been protesting what its members see as unfair treatment of fathers in family-law courts.  It's debatable, I suppose, whether or not the group's publicity-seeking stunts, which generally involve someone in costume climbing something, are the best way to gain public support for the cause, but they are attention-getters, and comical ones.

Batman has appeared before in support of the group, such as when he perched on a ledge at Buckingham Palace, asking to see the Queen.  He also once spent three days on the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice (Robin was with him that time).  "Spiderman scales a crane at Tower Bridge . . . . Activist monks climb the roof of St. Paul's . . . . 200 Father Christmases storm the lobby of the Lord Chancellor's department.  The list of extraordinary protests is endless," notes the Fathers 4 Justice website.  They do conduct more ordinary protests on occasion.

At last report, the Batman on the M25 had either quietly vanished into the night, or been arrested by police (probably the latter), after tying up traffic for about seven hours.

A correction to yesterday's Bat-post: a source who has been involved in bat-related-premises-liability litigation (a different case) has told me that it is at least possible to get rabies just from handling a bat, since the disease can be transmitted through saliva, and bats apparently clean themselves like cats do.  He said that expert bat-eradicators he contacted described this as "sticky bat" syndrome (although I was unable to confirm that as an official term).  Obviously that adds to the strength of the Utah plaintiff's case.  In any event, please be aware that bat-handling should be avoided if at all possible, unless (or maybe especially) if the bat involved is somebody's dad in a costume.

Thanks to Kyle, who has introduced me to the lowering the bar blog.  It will probably get me fired one of these days when I roll around laughing my ass off instead of doing research (so far I've been able to prevent this...but for how long?).  Seriously though, its a great site.  Anyway, this one literally did force me to go into a coughing fit to cover up the fact that I couldn't stop laughing in the middle of the office:

Arguments Commence in New Zealand Spear-Assault Trial

Was that the Gnome from the commericals!?

....schussing down snowy slopes.....wow, say that three times real fast!

If he was paid to do that, isn't it just straight-up prostitution?

Roberta1Wheeler says ...

Cop: Sex With Hooker Wasn't Fun, It Was Work

Friday, August 22, 2008

A suspended Texas police officer testified Thursday that he was forced to have sex with two prostitutes during an undercover sting operation, saying he was "paid to do it."

Officer Keith Breiner testified in Beaumont, Texas, during a hearing to be reinstated after he was suspended along with another officer after it came to light that the men engaged in sex acts with prostitutes while on the job, the Beaumont Enterprise reports.

"If you are asking if I had an orgasm, yes. It was a job, sir," Breiner reportedly said during testimony. "I didn't have pleasure doing this. I was paid to do it."

Breiner admitted to being manually stimulated as well as engaging in oral and vaginal sex with two women at two spas during an undercover sting operation, the Enterprise said.

Police Chief Frank Coffin contends that Breiner and fellow officer Lt. David Kiker were suspended indefinitely after the sex acts came to light, the paper said. Breiner is trying to stop Beaumont from suspending him, saying that he was asked to have sex as part of the job.

 

~~~Does anyone else believe this guy?~~

~~I am so in the wrong line of work!!!!~~

Immigration Agency Announces End of Innovative Self-Deportation Program

Sources reported today (August 22) that the federal government would be ending Operation "Scheduled Departure," an innovative pilot program under which illegal immigrants would have up to 90 days to leave the country on their own initiative.  Under the program, offered by the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, illegal immigrants who turned themselves in would be deported.  By contrast, those who did not turn themselves in would be deported, if the government could find them.

While this might seem like a no-brainer, at least for those eager to be deported, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on August 14 that the program was off to something of a slow start after its first week.  Estimated number of illegal immigrants eligible to take advantage of the program: 457,000.  Number who had taken advantage of it: six.

The six included a Mexican in San Diego, a Salvadoran in Charlotte, two Indians and a Guatemalan in Chicago, and in Phoenix, one Estonian.  This was an overall response rate of just .0013 percent, although Arizona is probably hailing the end of its Estonian-immigrant problem.

As of August 14, ICE was not yet ready to give up.  "We are getting a significant amount of calls and inquiries on our Web site," said a spokesperson, who did not define "significant."  But her optimism turned out to be well-founded -- by the program's last day, the total had risen to eight.

Despite these encouraging signs, the director of ICE's detention and removal operations said the agency would end the program.  "The bottom line is," he said, "it is not effective."  He said the government had spent $41,000 to advertise it, but insisted the country had saved money because the cost of detaining those people (had they been otherwise found) would have been $37,000.  Critics charged that the agency actually had done little to provide real incentives for immigrants to come forward, so that it could point to the program's failure as a justification for more enforcement raids, which are more fun.

But there might be another explanation for the low number of respondents.  According to the ICE Fact Sheet on Scheduled Departure, the program was available to "fugitive aliens" with no criminal history.  I noticed that the Fact Sheet includes answers to such frequently asked questions as, "How do I know if I am a fugitive?"  Maybe we just need to educate the public a little more so that we can reach the silent majority of people who don't know they're hiding from something.

Florida Churchgoer Allegedly Pulls Knife on Congregation for Refusing to Give Him Butter

OCALA, Fla. —  A Florida man pulled a knife on members of a church congregation who would not give him butter from their morning buffet, according to authorities.

When 48-year-old Frankie Lewis couldn't get any butter on Sunday from the buffet line, police say he took out a knife and threatened to slice parishioners.

Lewis eventually went to put the knife away, but that's when a church member hit him with a wooden board, according to authorities.

Lewis then rode away on a bicycle, but police quickly caught him.

He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was being held on $2,000 bail.

unless you are weilding a knife at local parishoners 'cuz you aint got yo butta' 

Maybe he was just trying to butter someone up!

Museum defies pope over crucified frog

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian museum Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition.

The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 meter 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Called "Zuerst die Fuesse," (Feet First), it wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

Kippenberger's works have been shown at the Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London and at the Venice Biennale, and retrospectives are planned in Los Angeles and New York.

Museum officials in the northern bi-lingual Alto Adige region near the Austrian border said the artist, who died in 1997, considered it a self-portrait illustrating human angst.

Pope Benedict, who is German himself and was recently on holiday not far from Bolzano, obviously did not agree.

The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. Pahl released parts of the letter, which said the work "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love."

Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.

"Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone.

"This decision to keep the statue there is is totally unacceptable. It is a grave offence to our Catholic population," he said.

Art experts defended the work.

"Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression," Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome's state museums, told an Italian newspaper Thursday.

So what, no more frog jokes!?

Dude, you're forgetting I knew Kermit when he was just a tadpole!