News of the Weird, April 21, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M315 (News of the Weird, April 21, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd       

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* To counter the now-well-publicized culture of rapes in India, three
engineers in Chennai said in March that they are about to send to
the market women's anti-rape lingerie, which will provide both a
stun-gun-sized blast of electricity against an aggressor and a
messaging system sending GPS location to family members and the
police about an attack in progress.  After the wearer engages a
switch, anyone touching the fitted garment will, said one developer,
get "the shock of his life" (even though the garment's skin side
would be insulated).   The only marketing holdup, according to a
March report in The Indian Express, is finding a washable fabric.
[The Indian Express (New Delhi), 3-31-2013; Daily Beast, 4-10-
2013] 

Compelling Explanations

* In March, Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, apparently upset that
bicyclists use the state's roads without paying the state gasoline tax
for highway maintenance, proposed a 5 percent tax on bicycles that
cost more than $500, pointing out that  bicyclists impose
environmental costs, as well.  Since carbon dioxide is  a major
greenhouse gas, he wrote one constituent that (reported in the
Huffington Post in March) bike riders' "increased heart rate and
respiration" over car drivers creates additional pollution.  (Days
later, he apologized for the suggestion that bicyclists actually were
worse for the environment than cars.)  [Huffington Post, 3-4-2013]

Ironies

* So, For a While There, It Actually Worked:  The maker of the
"all-natural herbal extract" Super Power (which promises "powerful
erections") issued a voluntary recall in January after "independent"
lab tests revealed that the supplement mistakenly contained a small
amount of Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra.  Such
unregulated dietary supplements cannot legally contain drugs
without Food and Drug Administration approval.  (Also, in March,
the Federal Trade Commission ordered three retailers, including
Neiman Marcus, to re-label some fake-fur garments because they,
mistakenly or intentionally, contained real fur.)  [DailyFinance.com,
1-29-2013] [CNN, 3-20-2013]

* A Boston Herald reporter said in March that he had been kicked
out of a State Ethics Commission training session (which might not
be unreasonable, as the meeting was for Massachusetts House
members only).  However, at least two people in attendance refused
to give their real names to the reporter as they left.  Rep. Tim
Toomey insisted he was not a member (though he is) but was "just
passing through," and Commission chairman Charles Swartwood III
(a former federal judge magistrate) refused to give his name at all,
telling the reporter, "I'm not saying because that's a private matter."
[Boston Herald, 3-21-2103]

The Litigious Society

* Aspiring rap music bigshot Bernard Bey, 32, filed a $200,000
lawsuit in February in New York City against his parents, alleging
that they owe him because they have been unloving and
"indifferent" to his homelessness and refuse even to take him back
in to get a shower.  Bey, who raps as "Brooklyn Streets," said
everything would be forgiven if they would just buy him two
Domino's pizza franchises so that he could earn enough eventually
to become "a force to be reckoned with in the hip hop industry."
(His mother's solution, to a New York Daily News reporter:  "[G]o
get a job.  He's never had a day job in his life.")  [New York Daily
News, 2-21-2013]

Latest Human Rights

* Police in Knoxville, Tenn., confiscated five venomous snakes
during a February traffic stop, and Pastor Jamie Coots of the Full
Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name (of Middlesboro, Ky.) is
demanding them back.  Coots said he possesses them openly during
his services in Kentucky, but Knoxville police said they are illegal
to own in Tennessee.  Said Coots, "If I don't have them, then I'm not
obeying the word of God."  [WKYT-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 2-12-
2013]

* In Bristol, England, Anthony Gerrard, 59, had been arrested for
possessing child pornography, but after an inventory, police found
only 11 images of his massive 890GB porn stash were of children
(which Gerrard said he unknowingly downloaded in his quest for
legal, adult pornography), and he went to court in January to
demand his collection back (minus the child porn).  So far, police
have said that it is "impractical" to cull the child porn images.
[Bristol Post, 1-29-2013]

Fine Points of the Law

* U.S. companies large and small legally deduct the expenses of doing
business from their gross profits before paying income tax, but purveyors
of marijuana (in states where possession is legal and where prescription
marijuana is dispensed) cannot deduct those expenses and thus wind up
paying a much higher federal income tax than other businesses.  As NPR
reported in April, "Section 280E" of the tax code (enacted in 1982 to trap
illegal drug traffickers into tax violations) has not been changed to reflect
state legalizations.  The effect, experts told NPR, is that legal dispensaries
in essence wind up paying tax on their gross receipts while all other legal
businesses are taxed only on their net receipts.  (The federal government,
of course, continues to regard marijuana as illegal.)  [NPR, 4-2-2013]

Life Imitates Art

* Ferris Bueller caused lots of mischief on his cinematic "Day Off"
in the 1986 movie starring Matthew Broderick, but he never
mooned a wedding party from an adjacent hotel window by pressing
his nude buttocks, and then his genitals, against the glass in full
view of  astonished guests.  In March, though, a young Matthew
Broderick-lookalike (http://huff.to/14XQEJ6), Samuel Dengel, 20,
was arrested in Charleston, S.C., and charged with the crime.
(Another Bueller-like touch was Dengel's tattoo reading, in Latin,
"By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the
Universe.")  [Philadelphia Daily News, 3-14-2013; Huffington Post,
3-19-2013]

Perspective

* Transportation Security Administration rules protect passengers
against previously-employed terrorist strategies, such as shoe
bombs, but as Congressional testimony has noted over the past
several years, the perimeter security at airports is shockingly weak.
"For all the money and attention that in-airport screening gets,"
wrote Slate.com in February, "the back doors to airports are,
comparatively, wide open--and people go through them all the
time."  Perimeter breaches in recent years astonished officials at
major airports in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta, and New
York City (mentioned in News of the Weird last year, recounting
how a dripping-wet jet-skiier who broke down next to JFK airport
climbed the perimeter fence and made his way past its brand-new
"detection" system, and was inside the Delta terminal before he was
finally noticed).  [Slate.com, 2-20-2013]

Most Gullible Pervert

* In March, Stephen Thresh, 47, voluntarily handed in his computer
at a police station and confessed to possessing hundreds of (illegal)
images of women having sex with animals, including a snake, a
tiger, and an elephant.  Thresh said he had earlier downloaded a
message of unknown origin notifying him that "law enforcement
authorities have been informed," and he thought it would go easier
on him if he turned himself in.  (Police denied knowledge of the
message.)  Thresh insisted that possessing such images was a not
problem that needed addressing.  [Daily Mirror (London), 3-11-
2013]

Update

* The Associated Press reported in March that a Philippines man
was crucified for the 27th time during the annual Good Friday
festivities in San Pedro Cutud.  Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 52, once
again endured several minutes pierced by the sterilized, six-inch
nails driven into his palms and feet to atone for yet another year's
passing in which he had so seriously sinned.  Enaje was joined by
several other sufferers (as News of the Weird mentioned, by as
many as 16 one year and in 2005, by wayward police officers from a
local force who used the crucifixion as proof that they could be
safely reinstated).  The country's Catholic Bishops Conference, of
course, said the crucifixions are "not the desire of Jesus Christ."
[Associated Press via Las Vegas Sun, 3-29-2013]

Readers' Choice

* In March, the makers of Lulelemon black Luon yoga pants issued
a recall, expressing concern that they had been made with an
unacceptable level of sheerness.  However, a company official
initially told customers that "the only way you can actually test" for
the too-sheer pants would be for a customer to bend over before a
store associate. (The company changed the policy a few days later,
and the product manager resigned.) [Reuters via Chicago Tribune,
4-4-2013]

     Thanks This Week to Laura Billington, Steven Bird, John
McGaw, and Sandy Pearlman, and to the News of the Weird Board
of Editorial Advisors.
              
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WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(almost daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.