News of the Weird, May 13, 2012

[Chuck Shepherd]

NOTE TO READERS: I will be away on May 13th, and
I haven't figured out instructions for advance-loading.
Hence, here this is, two days early. Cheers!

WEIRDNUZ.M266 (News of the Weird, May 13, 2012)
by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

* Sophisticated automobile technology makes high performance
engines purr in relative silence, but automakers fear that their most
demanding drivers are emotionally attached to engines' roar.
Consequently, as Car and Driver reported in April, the 2012 BMW
M5, with 560 horsepower tempered with sound deadeners, has
installed pre-recorded engine noise, channeled into the car's cabin
via the stereo system. A computer program matches the amplitude
of the engine's growl to the driver's accelerator-revving. (In other
automobile tech news, Peugeot technicians announced in March that
they were preparing "mood paint" for the body of the company's
iconic RCZ model. The paint's molecular structure would be
alterable by heat sensors in the steering wheel and elsewhere that
measure a driver's stress levels. A calm driver might see his car
turn green, for instance--but watch out for road-rage red!). [Car and
Driver, April 2012 (not online)] [DieselCarOnline (Leamington
Spa, England), 3-31-2012]

The Continuing Crisis

* With only 30,000 hotel rooms in Rio de Janeiro, and 50,000
visitors expected for the June United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development, officials persuaded owners of many of
the city's short-time "love hotels" (typically, renting for four hours at
a time) to change business plans for a few days to accommodate the
delegates. A BBC News stringer reported that the hotels will
remove some special fixtures and furniture, such as "erotic chairs"
and velvet wall coverings, but that the large, round beds would stay.
Fortunately, the conference does not begin until June 13th. The
night of June 12th ("Lovers Day") is a big income-producer for
short-stay hotels. [BBC News, 4-11-2012]

* The Marine Wounded Warriors Battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C.,
generally enjoys excellent support from the community, but in an
April report of the Government Accountability Office, Marines
complained of a "petting zoo" environment in which civilian
charities and advertisers use the Battalion to seek out "poster" faces
and bodies that "looked the part" of wounded veterans, such as
those severely burned or missing limbs. Warriors who suffer
post-traumatic stress or brain injuries often appear outwardly
"normal" and are likely to be ignored by the support organizations,
thus setting a "bad tone" among the wounded. [Washington Post,
4-5-2012]

* Not Your Classic Perps: (1) In October, Dr. Kimberly Lindsey,
44, a deputy director of the Center for Disease Control's Laboratory
Science, Policy, and Practice Program Office, was charged with two
counts of child molestation and bestiality involving a six-year-old
boy. (2) In April, Yaron Segal, 30, a post-doctoral researcher at a
physics lab at MIT, was arrested upon arriving in Grand Junction,
Colo., after arranging with a woman online to have sex with the
woman's underage daughter (an adventure that was the product of a
law enforcement sting). (Two weeks later, Segal was found dead in
his jail cell of an apparent suicide.) [WSB-TV (Atlanta), 10-11-
2011] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 4-17-2012]

* Oh, Dear! (1) At a March Chicago Symphony Orchestra
performance, the music continued uninterrupted as two patrons
engaged in a fist fight over box seating. (Conductor Riccardo Muti
"never stopped conducting," said a patron. "He very gracefully,
without missing a beat--literally--he brought [the second movement]
to a very quiet and subdued close . . ..") (2) It costs $8,500 (plus
$3,000 annual dues) to join the ultra-prestigious New York Athletic
Club, which counts Olympic champions among its upper-crust
members. However, an April "brawl" in a back room, said to have
begun over a woman, saw (according to witnesses) fighting "wolf
packs" in a "lion's pit" that resulted in several bloody injuries, with
two people sent to the hospital and three arrested. [Chicago
Sun-Times, 3-10-2012] [New York Times, 4-24-2012]

Names in the News

* (1) Arrested for felony battery in Bloomington, Ind., in April: Ms.
Fellony Silas, 30. (2) Announced as eligible for parole in June by
the Kansas Prison Review Board: Mr. Wilford Molester Galloway.
(3) Arrested for hit-and-run in April in Roseville, Calif.: Mr.
Obiwan Kenobi, 37. (4) Arrested on drug and weapons charges in
Clarkstown, N.Y., in April, Mr. Genghis Khan. (5) Among the silly
town names uncovered in an April report on SmarterTravel.com:
Why, Ariz., Whynot, Miss., Hell, Mich., Pig, Ky., Elephant Butte,
N.Mex., Monkeys Eyebrow, Ky., and Embarrass, Minn. The report
also found towns in Wales and New Zealand that are 58 and 57
letters long, respectively. [The Smoking Gun, 4-16-2012]
[Lawrence Journal World, 4-9-2012] [KXTV (Sacramento,
4-26-2012] [The Smoking Gun, 5-1-2012] [SmarterTravel.com,
4-5-2012]


Bright Ideas

* Following her recent holiday in the United States, in which she
passed through Boring, Ore. (pop. 12,000), Scotswoman Elizabeth
Leighton returned home to suggest that officials in her hometown of
Dull, Scotland, arrange for the two towns to become "sister cities"
(even though they did not qualify under normal protocols because of
Boring's larger size.) (The Oregon town was named for a Civil War
soldier, William H. Boring.) [BBC News, 4-24-2012]

* Some villagers in China's Shandong Province who are too poor or
isolated to hook up to home heating-fuel service have an alternative,
according to a March report by China News Center. They take
giant, heavy-duty balloons that resemble 15-foot-long condoms, and
every four or five days, they walk to filling stations to inflate them
with natural gas. The danger of explosion is high, but the balloons
remain many villagers' best option. [China News Center
(ChinaMedia.com), 3-1-2012]

* A Better Reason to De-Fund Planned Parenthood: The
organization has survived a controversial de-funding campaign over
its limited abortion program, but its Washington state chapter,
Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, began a quixotic safe-
sex campaign in February in which thousands of condoms were
distributed with scannable barcodes. The plan was that users would
automatically register information about their locations during sex,
and, if the users chose, other information about the particular sexual
experience they just had. Among the choices: "Ah-maz-ing,"
"Rainbows exploded and mountains trembled," "Things can only
improve from here." [New York Daily News, 2-29-2012]

Oops!

* At the 10th Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait in March, as
medals were presented and winners' national anthems were played,
officials were apparently ill-prepared for medalist Maria Dmitrienko
of Kazakhstan. Consequently, her "national anthem" was,
inadvertently, the humorous ditty from the movie "Borat." (Instead
of such lyrics as "sky of golden sun" and "legend of courage," the
audience heard "Greatest country in the world / All other countries
are run by little girls" and "Filtration system a marvel to behold / It
removes 80 percent of human solid waste.") Dmitrienko reportedly
kept a mostly-straight face throughout, although Kazakhstan later
demanded, and received, an official apology. [Daily Mail (London),
3-23-2012]

* Clumsy: (1) In March, Germany's celebrity rabbit--the genetically
"earless" bunny Tiny Til--was accidentally crushed to death in a zoo
in Limbach-Oberfrohna when a cameraman accidentally stepped on
it while setting up for a news conference. (2) In 2011, a
photographer snapping pictures for an art magazine moved a 2,630-
year-old sculpture to get a better shot--and accidentally smashed it
("to smithereens," according to the artist, Corice Aman, who filed a
$300,000 lawsuit in April 2012 against the photographer and his
magazine). [Spiegel Online via New York Daily News, 3-16-2012]
[New York Post, 4-26-2012]

People Different From Us

* Lawrence Cobbold, 38, has a house in Plympton, England, but has
to make living arrangements at his parents' home or elsewhere
because his place is totally taken over by his 21,000-item collection
of bird ornaments and doodads. Before heading off to sleep
elsewhere, he spends an average of four hours a day tidying up the
collection. His dad (who described his other son as "completely
normal") said, "I just hope I die before [Lawrence]. I don't want to
[have to] clear all this out." [Plymouth Herald, 4-5-2012]

Least Competent Criminals

* Questionable Strategy: Robert Strank, 39, was arrested in
Beavercreek, Ohio, in April and charged with trying to rob the
Huntington Bank. According to police, he had approached the
bank's counter but become ill and asked a teller to call 911 to
summon medics. There were conflicting news reports about when
medics arrived to treat Strank, but there was agreement that Strank
recovered and subsequently presented the same teller his pre-written
holdup note demanding cash. He was arrested in short order.
[WDTN-TV (Dayton), 4-20-2012; WHIO-TV (Dayton), 4-23-2012]

Thanks This Week to Douglas Wilson, Reta Burnett, and
Gerald Sacks, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.

* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.